Newton Public Schools staff sign petition to roll back multi-level classes; claim there is no evidence that outcomes have improved

UPDATE: On December 2, 2024, a mathematics and physics teacher at Newton South High School who serves as chair of the school’s Faculty Council had an article published in the Boston Globe detailing the issues with multi-level classes. This teacher states: “Students — at all levels of performance, but especially our students who need the most support and for whom this model was intended to help most — aren’t having their needs met.” This teacher then explains:

Our surveys of the staff showed that 61 percent of the 31 respondents in STEM classes believed that multilevel classes were “not at all beneficial” for students (the lowest rating) and only one respondent answered on the “beneficial” end of the rating scale. Teachers ranked multilevel classes as an urgent problem to be solved. They cited these classes as a major source of stress and low morale among educators while providing no clear benefits to students.

The teacher further explains: “The concept of anti-racism often cited by administration officials should not involve blindly insisting that these classes are working simply because they make administrators feel good.”

ORIGINAL: Teachers at Newton Public Schools have signed a petition to roll back policies that “implemented multi-level classes at Newton South with no metric for success and no collection of data.” The petition states that “no evidence has been presented that the implementation of multi-level classes at Newton South has improved outcomes for any students.” Teachers view this as “an urgent problem to be solved.”

The petition then states that the district needs to “roll back multi-level classes in, at least, the Science, Mathematics, and World Languages departments beginning with the 2025-26 school year” and to “form a joint committee consisting of educators, district leaders, students, and families to identify which problems multi-level classes were intended to solve, identify possible solutions, then formulate opt-in pilot programs to be deployed during the 2025-26 school year.”

On November 4, 2024, the petition was mentioned at a Newton School Committee meeting. [Time Stamp: 6:20] Staff discussed why the petition was important at this meeting.

Multi-level classes are also known as “heterogeneous grouping.”