Wellesley Public Schools is ending the fifth grade math placement test and instead will use the first term of sixth grade to determine if any students are ready to jump ahead to seventh grade math, according to a new policy presented to the School Committee during its March 12 meeting.
The new policy will still allow Wellesley Middle School students who already know sixth grade math to skip a full year of math in middle school. The difference is that students will be assessed using multiple measures in the first few months of middle school rather than on a single 90-minute test in fifth grade, WMS Principal Mark Ito and Math Department Head Elizabeth Gentes told the School Committee (see Wellesley Media video beginning at 1:05).
Sixth grade students who qualify will switch into seventh grade math class at the beginning of the second term, which begins in late October.
“There is an emphasis on meeting the needs of students in the grade level they are at. If we can give appropriate challenge to the students in their grade level, then we should be doing that,” Ito said. “We’re really talking about extenuating circumstances where a student is not getting that, so we have to accelerate that student.”
WMS will assess sixth graders’ math skills using their scores from the MCAS, MAP and IXL standardized math tests, teacher recommendations, and the school’s own placement test, Gentes said.
It wasn’t clear if all incoming sixth grade students would be offered the opportunity to take a placement test like the one offered to 5th grade students. Gentes referred to a placement assessment several times in presenting to the School Committee, and the WMS Math Acceleration one-pager also references a “Placement Assessment.” An email to WMS and Ito on Wednesday was not immediately returned.
Several School Committee members asked about how sixth grade students are acclimated into classes with older students. Ito said students who switch into seventh grade math will have the rest of their core classes with their homeroom cohort as much as possible. In addition, Gentes said sixth grade students who switch into seventh grade math classes usually have at least one other sixth grade student in the same class.
Why It Matters
Skipping a grade of math in middle school is extremely uncommon, however it allows those students to advance in the math curriculum faster. That means they could take calculus in 11th grade rather than 12th , opening up additional space in their schedule for other advanced classes.
Since each math class is a full school year, there doesn’t appear to be any other way for a student to take calculus in 11th grade except by skipping a year of math. (See WHS
pathways website)
Students who do not skip a grade of math are still able to take calculus in 12th grade so long as they take Honors Precalculus before (usually in 11th grade). That means students don’t have the be in honors math in eighth grade or during the first two years of high school–so long as they are recommended to take Honors Precalculus in 11th grade.
No More Fifth Grade Test
Previously, all fifth grade students were offered an optional math placement test in May. Students who scored 70 percent or above would have the option to skip sixth grade math and start seventh grade math when they begin middle school.
However, Gentes said there were multiple flaws with the fifth grade placement test, including that it was only one data point, not all students could take the test after school, and students were coming from different fifth grade math classrooms so teaching varied.
It also caused a lot of anxiety for students, she said, especially because it asked a lot of questions about sixth grade math that had never come up in their fifth grade classroom.
“Many students come into this unprepared for it, and they shouldn’t be prepared for it because they are still fifth graders. Which results in a lot of stress, a lot of feelings of failure when they face it,” Gentes said. “I’ve had a lot of kids very visibly upset taking this test and it is heartbreaking to see that. To see a student come in and feel that they are not prepared for something and that they are not good at math because of it.”
What’s Next
WMS plans to roll out the plan to elementary school principals and 5th grade math teachers next, followed by communication to 5th grade parents.
Several School Committee members asked that WMS disclose the range of scores needed on standardized tests to be considered for acceleration. While Gentes said WMS has not prepared that yet, “We will make that transparent.”
Our WPS School Committee claims this is an “operational” change, so there will be no vote by the committee on this major policy change. Many WPS community members have written to the School Committee urging them to challenge this policy change and questioning the research cited in support of it. It is clear the policy change is detrimental to students, so naturally the community is wondering who is protecting Wellesley students? Where are the checks and balances if our School Committee refuses to weigh in? No substantive responses have been received from the School Committee up to this point. This feels very similar to what happened during the rollout of Standards Based Grading at the High School. Our School Committee was nowhere to be found for almost 2 1/2 years when students needed them most. Meanwhile, next door in Weston Public Schools, there had also been an attempt to rollout SBG at the high school and within one month the Weston School Committee had taken a NO vote based on community feedback. Strange how things work in WPS.
We have both an elementary and middle schooler and were unaware of this change. I agree with the comments that WPS discourages students from performing beyond their peers.
Wellesley schools perform well, on average. At the upper ends of achievement though, we are falling short. Twice as many students are taking AP Calculus BC in Newton, Weston, and Needham districts as in Wellesley. This suggests either there systemic barriers to pursuing advanced courses in our schools or our children are somehow less intelligent than those in neighboring towns. It seems clear the latter can’t be true.
Parents with students in the high school have seen how access to AP classes is limited, both in the number of classes available and in the number of students who can get access to them. In this article we see a similar dynamic at play in the middle school. The new process proposed for identifying students for advanced math at WMS will be cumbersome and opaque. Importantly, it will punish students who are trying to jump ahead by forcing them to do so in the middle of the school year.
WPS does so much so well for students who struggle. It would be wonderful if they took the same supportive approach with students who excel. We currently have one of the highest proportion of students in private school of any district in the state. If the middle school and high school’s efforts to limit access to advanced courses continue, we will only see more families fleeing to private school.
“However, Gentes said there were multiple flaws with the fifth grade placement test, including that it was only one data point, not all students could take the test after school, and students were coming from different fifth grade math classrooms so teaching varied.”
Each flaw can be addressed:
1. only one data point (this is not a flaw, it is a measurement – fix the test and make it more comprehensive; they have complete control over this.)
2. not all students can take it after school (offer the test during school. This was always unfair and inequitable, especially for children with 2 working parents)
3. students were coming from different 5th grade math classrooms (all WPS 5th grade students should be following the same math curriculum in roughly the same timeframe. Make the curriculum consistent and the problem disappears)
It seems to me that rather than spend the effort needed to fix this, they have unilaterally decided to ditch it completely. This will surely lead to increased achievement gaps that are already a blot on our schools.
The goal of this proposal appears to be to eliminate math acceleration. Under this new proposal, if a 6th grade student is identified for math acceleration, it requires the student to be uprooted from their existing 6th grade math class after the school year has started (new teacher, new fellow students). How incredibly disruptive and unsettling. Why would WPS ever create a policy such as this? The community has been provided with no information on what the benchmarks will be for any of the new “measures” for identification. The community has pointed out that many of the “new” identification measures are available in 5th grade and could be just as easily applied to students in 5th rather than 6th grade. The apparently “too stressful” 5th grade math placement test will still be given, but now in 6th grade. How does this reduce stress? As part of its proposal, WMS administration has cited cherry picked research that claims ALL students are better off in mixed ability math classes, but turns out there is quite a bit of research that has found the opposite is true. WMS administration has also cited an 8-year longitudinal study of Wellesley High School data showing accelerating in math has no impact on college admissions. Parents have been asking for a copy of this “study” for over a month but it has not been made available. Why? Wellesley Public Schools should be supporting ALL students in reaching their math potential.This proposal is evidence they do not.