For the last few weeks, Newton’s plan for a new accelerated middle school math curriculum has faced criticism from a number of Bigelow Middle School parents. After only one rising eighth grade student at Bigelow passed a test to qualify for accelerated high school math—leading to the district’s decision to offer individualized instruction to this student—some parents began advocating for broadening the evaluation process to include other students who have shown advanced math skills throughout the school year.
As part of the district’s new Math Pathways program, students in the seventh grade were given a placement test in late April to determine whether they would take a standard or accelerated math class for the following year. Thirty-six students, or 4% of seventh graders, qualified for accelerated math across Newton’s four middle schools.
The Newton Beacon spoke to parents who said the district’s initial communication about Math Pathways led them to believe that the program would be offered at all four middle schools. In a March 10 informational meeting, parents were told the district would be rolling out a flexible accelerated math program that would provide all students with advanced math at different paces with support from math specialist staff.
Administrators at the meeting emphasized that the program’s full rollout will take a few years and that the upcoming school year is a transition period. In following years, sixth and seventh grade math will be compacted to make room for high school math offered at two different paces for all eighth graders. They added that NPS would offer as many accelerated classes as required to meet the needs of students, based on test scores. In cases where a student scored between 80-89% on the test, other test scores from the school year would be used to determine placement. The possibility of not offering the class if very few or no students qualified at one of the middle schools was not discussed.
In response to a parent discussion about Math Pathways on the Newton Community Facebook group in early June, Superintendent Anna Nolin reminded parents that the test covered concepts not yet taught to seventh graders, so only a few students were likely to qualify for accelerated high school math at the eighth grade level.
“This class is for children who could demonstrate mastery of all grade 8 standards and therefore skip that grade and take grade 9 material,” she wrote. “The new curriculum compaction begins next year. This was a transition opportunity for advanced learners.”
This information was shared at the March 10 meeting, although parents were not told that only a few students were expected to qualify for the accelerated class at each school.
At recent school committee meetings, a number of Bigelow parents expressed concern during public comment that only one student qualified at the school. Some told the Beacon that students are bored in NPS math classes and that many receive extra tutoring, such as at the Russian School of Mathematics, which advertises teaching students concepts ahead of public school curriculum.
Sara Karaivanova’s son was the only one at Bigelow to qualify for the accelerated class. She spoke at recent school committee meetings, asking for the district to consider opening up the class to other Bigelow students who have demonstrated advanced math skills throughout the year.
“It was specified [by NPS] that he would be enrolled in enhanced eighth grade math with some individualized instruction, including content from the accelerated course. Our ask, of course, is that [our son] receive the full accelerated course offering at his home school,” she said in an interview.
After weeks of back-and-forth discussion with the district, Karaivanova confirmed that she agreed for her son to receive solo instruction of the full accelerated course from a math specialist at Bigelow. She added that the goal of her family’s advocacy from the beginning was to create an in-person cohort of students who scored near the cut-off and had demonstrated readiness for advanced math in other ways.
In a statement to the Beacon, Nolin said the district never said they would not offer the class to the one eligible student, noting that a virtual course, extra enrichment tutoring and transferring to another middle school holding the in-person class were all offered as alternatives in order to honor the student’s need for further challenge.
“While this is NOT the way I would like to use our precious resources, the will of [the] community and committee was to offer these differentiated options,” she said of the agreement to offer full individualized instruction of the accelerated class. “There was a perception that there were many, many students ready to skip one grade or two of mathematics and the test showed that that was not true.”
Nolin noted that there are no other assessments that could have been used to determine placement for students because the April exam was the first time they were tested on eighth grade concepts they had not been taught in school before. She added that the other Bigelow students did not score anywhere close to the cut-off in order to succeed in an accelerated eighth grade course.
“This does not mean that the students don’t have some advanced math capacities, and they may have real passion for the subject,” she said in a statement. “The future of math placement will have a portfolio of assessments over a series of years that will allow us to place students differently.”
A Bigelow parent who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation against their child said that the district should use Star testing math scores and trimester grades to evaluate student readiness comprehensively instead.
“I think that many more kids are capable of taking a skip-level than or have been included because of the way the test was designed,” they said. “I truly believe that it was designed to exclude kids, not include them, so that there would be a very, very small number of kids that actually were placed into this program.”
The parent shared the concern that as a Title I school, Bigelow would be further disadvantaged by the decision not to offer an in-person accelerated eighth grade math class to multiple students. They added that Bigelow teachers will also lose out on the professional development experience of teaching the accelerated class.
Title I schools receive federal funding to support opportunities for children coming from low income families. Bigelow is the only middle school in Newton that falls under Title I.
The Newton Teachers Association (NTA) told the Beacon they have a number of concerns with how Math Pathways has been rolled out.
“Math pathways, and their intersection with the upcoming changes to the math curriculum, are poorly articulated and poorly understood, even by their proponents. The NTA remains concerned that there will be a host of unintended consequences from their implementation. The confusion at Bigelow is emblematic of the poor planning driving the initiative, and we worry that this is but the first of many messes to come,” the statement read.
Nolin said that any curriculum change is usually met with criticism that it is being done too quickly or in a disorganized fashion. She noted that Math Pathways has been in public discussion for the last year and that most of Newton’s peer districts already offer early high school math at the middle school level.
A number of parents at the March 10 meeting shared concerns about placement relying too much on a single test score, especially in cases where a student may not be feeling well and scores lower than expected. Administrators at the meeting noted that students who do not take accelerated math in middle school will still have access to “flexible on-ramps” to advanced high school math classes later on, instead of being locked into a “track” for the rest of their time at NPS.
Karaivanova added that she questions the reliability of the placement test itself, given that it was brand new. She urged the district to consider a more comprehensive evaluation process so that equal opportunities are provided for students at all four middle schools.
“Our thought is that there should be a recognition that the results were highly unusual,” she said. “Usually, the first time doing something new is a pilot year. … We would expect in a transition year that the administration would err on the side of the students, and not the test.”