Opinion

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Jun Harrigan

Leveling in Columbia High School

Leveling is the practice performed by a school where students are put in classes of different rigour and difficulty. The classes are leveled in Columbia High School as, (going from easiest to hardest) college prep, honors, advanced honors and advanced proficiency, better known as A.P. Students used to be assigned what level class they took based off of their performance in previous classes but now because of a recent lawsuit that accused the practice of leveling lead to segregation between white and black students that is no longer the case. There is now something at Columbia called “access in equity,” which means that any student can sign up for a class no matter how difficult it may be without any prerequisites. It’s a lazy solution to a real problem. Access in equity sounds great but a lot of students of color don’t take the initiative to go and take the class, and I don’t blame them at all. When asked if he feels he’s had the same academic opport unity as is white peers, Gabe St. Pierre, 19’ said, “No not at all, I don’t think so, they get a lot of tutoring and support from their parents and I don’t feel that I have access to that same help.”

To me, leveling would be a fine practice if everyone was on an even playing field, but Maplewood and South Orange are both racially and economically diverse towns. Both Maplewood and South Orange share borders with a predominantly white, wealthy town and a predominantly black, poorer town. Money is opportunity, many white kids can afford to get one on one tutoring, to get all the books that need, and all the resources they need such as computers and other school supplies. It’s a sad reality that many, if not most of the students of color come from poorer communities with families that do not have those type of resources. Because of the lack of resources it is inherent that these kids do not perform as well their wealthy white peers. Add teachers, guidance counselors, and school administrators that are discriminatory towards blacks to the equation, it is almost like leveling leads to in school segregation.

Well, it is and many people see that. Over the past decade the Maplewood South Orange school district has been hit with several lawsuits because the leveling implemented in the school district has lead to the segregation of students, giving the white wealthier kids all the opportunity, and limiting the black kids. When asked if he saw segregation in the classrooms, Nigel Garcia, 21’ said, “Absolutely, every class I have, are all CP (college prep) and those classes are all black people, there’s like one white person in one of my CP classes though, and I’m in one honors class which is math cause I’m like that in math, (good at math) and I’m one of five black people in that class and there are like 30 people in there.” Take a walk through the halls, take a peak in a classroom, and you can easily make an educated guess on what level the class is just by the racial demographic.

Leveling can be a way for gifted students to take challenging class, but as it has been used in Columbia High School, it just leads to racial segregation.

Via Wikipedia