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Supporting excellence and equity for all Rockville Centre students

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It has come to our attention that a group of concerned parents are lobbying the Board of Education to reinstate a lower-track class, thus undoing the requirement for all students to take International Baccalaureate, or IB, English in grades 11 and 12, and IB History in 11th grade.

We appreciate the importance of responding to parents while finding solutions for individual students. But as three former educational leaders who deeply love the Rockville Centre community, we strongly believe that the dissolution of IB for all would be a serious mistake.

When former Assistant Superintendent Delia Garrity and former South Side High School Principal Robin Calitri came to Rockville Centre in 1986, the schools were deeply divided by class and race. IB and Advanced Placement classes were filled primarily with students from wealthy homes, while lower-track classes primarily had students of color and children of low-income families. Most special education students and English language learners were segregated in self-contained classes.

Discipline and behavior management issues in the lower-track classes took up much of the learning time. The achievement gaps among different groups of students were embarrassingly wide. About 85 percent of white and Asian students had earned a Regents diploma compared to 30 percent of black and Latino students. Roughly 90 percent of general education students received such a diploma compared to 25 percent of students with disabilities. Students in our Regents track suffered from low expectations, and bright and able students were denied access to the high-track classes.

As an administrative team, we asked, “What justification do we have for offering some of our students less of an education?” There is no justification for creating haves and have-nots.

In 1991, South Side High School experienced two weeks of racial incidents in the low-track classes. It became clear to both Calitri and Superintendent Dr. William Johnson that low-track classes were not only not serving students well, but they were also a source of student unrest.

This problem was not unique to the district. Every study of tracking shows that tracking inevitably results in stratification by race and class. Research also tells us that the students hurt the most are those in the low-track classes. They not only learn less than their peers in the high-track classes, but they learn less than they would in a program like South Side’s, where there are no tracks at all.

In a thoughtful and methodical way, Calitri and Johnson dismantled the system and instituted a two-tier system of choice at the high school. Inclusion of students with special needs ensured that “all means all.” This inclusive model followed the same one initiated by middle school principal Larry Vandewater and then-assistant principal Garrity, who eliminated all tracking and self-contained special education classes in the middle school and instituted a program in accelerated math. When the middle school replaced two levels with an “honors for all” program, more students passed academic courses each year, including passing the Algebra Regents in eighth grade. This is now a model for middle schools throughout the nation.

The high school learned that choice was not enough. The same patterns of stratification by race, social class and student behavior repeated in the two-tier system. Beginning in 2000, then-South Side High School Principal Carol Burris, Calitri’s successor, with the support of Dr. Johnson and Garrity, continued the work in a careful and methodical way.

Each time the lower track was eliminated, Regents scores went up and failure rates went down. South Side High School became more than an integrated building; it truly became an integrated learning environment. The gap in the earning of Regents diplomas closed. Dropout rates decreased. And the gradual movement to de-track was led by its teachers and administrators.

South Side became a national model of equity and excellence. As the reputation of Rockville Centre schools increased, so did property values. Parents have exhibited pride and faith in what their children and professionals have accomplished together.

The Board of Education must now decide if it rejects the common good, research findings, lessons of district history and the advice of its professional educators and instead reinstate a system that previously failed South Side’s disadvantaged and special-needs students.

Ask your school leaders to show you the long-term outcomes and demographics of classes in the era of tracking compared to what exists today. That past predicts future outcomes. If Rockville Centre starts to undo the vision that made the district great, the pressure to restore low-track classes will not end with one class. We hope the board continues to support excellence and equity.