When Susan Hagness, whose daughter attends Hamilton Middle School, heard about the Madison school district’s new Personalized Pathways program, she became worried.
The idea behind the pathways model is to get students thinking about what they want to do after school, so that they will better understand why their classes are relevant and how to realize their dreams. However, it also evokes concerns over “tracking,” when students are sorted into groups according to their perceived abilities.
One parent sounded this alarm on TheGreen, a Regent neighborhood listserv, noting, “It seems to be pigeonholing students into one of a small number of vocationally inspired tracks.”
Madison school officials insist the plan isn’t tracking, but nevertheless, concerns remain.
Hagness was initially worried that her daughter’s education could simply become too narrowly focused. “My main concern is about pathway themes that are overly occupation-centric,” says Hagness. “I want my daughter’s high school experience to broaden her horizons, not narrow them down based on a choice she made at age 13.”
She wasn’t the only alarmed parent. More than 60 came to a Nov. 16 meeting at Hamilton Middle School, concerned and confused about the program.
Alex Fralin, chief of secondary schools, admitted to parents at the meeting that the district could have done a better job in informing them. But Fralin stressed that course standards and curriculum aren’t changing, and that the program is meant to allow students to have “more voice and choice” in their education.
The move to pathways began in 2013 when Jennifer Cheatham became superintendent of Madison schools. A comprehensive review of coursework and the high school experience in Madison found that inconsistency from middle school to high school has led to opportunity gaps.
This is particularly true depending on the middle school students attend. Teachers in the study were able to identify which feeder schools their students came from based on their success in high school.
The differences are alarming. The average GPA for eighth grade students in core subjects across MMSD is 2.84. Both Jefferson and Hamilton middle schools exceed the average, topping out at 3.17, whereas Wright Middle School dips to 2.27.
These GPAs follow students into high school. For ninth-graders from Wright, the average GPA in core subjects dropped to 1.83, with 79 percent of students receiving at least one D or F in their first year of high school. Ninth-graders from Hamilton perform much better, averaging a 3.25 GPA, with only 19 percent receiving a D or an F.
According to the study, many of the students falling through the cracks are students of color. Out of all Madison students to begin ninth grade in 2010, African American students were more than 30 percent less likely to graduate in four years than their white peers.
Cheatham argues that Personalized Pathways can help close this gap.
“Pathways is an equity strategy,” says Cheatham. “We’re obligated to ensure every child walks across that graduation stage with a postsecondary plan in hand. The pathways plan holds onto and honors the things that are working and strategically addresses the problems that are preventing too many of our students from graduating ready for college.”
The 2017-2018 optional pilot pathway, consistent across all Madison high schools, will focus on health careers. Under the program, students work with their families, teachers and community members to chart academic and career goals and explore interests.
For the first year of the pilot project, schools are hoping as many as 150 students participate.
Throughout high school, they will take the core classes of English, history and science, along with an additional semester-long health science occupations elective, with other students in the pathway. The other class periods will be filled with math, physical education and two electives.
The school works to connect students with professionals in careers they’re interested in. And the students are organized into “small learning communities.”
“Through smaller learning communities we can make sure that we know every child, and can intervene early if a child is struggling and that every child has a meaningful relationship with an adult,” Cheatham says.
In the 2018-19 school year, the district plans to add a second pathway at all the schools, although a theme hasn’t been decided — arts and STEM pathways are being considered. After the first two years, the school board will vote on whether to make the program mandatory for all students.
Parents at the Hamilton meeting were overwhelmingly skeptical of the program. They had a lengthy list of concerns, fearing there would be less course flexibility, fewer electives, that it would stress already exhausted educators, and that their kids would be guinea pigs in an educational experiment.
Parents at other schools have been more receptive, school officials claim. “The biggest theme that we’re picking up on is that parents are very curious,” says Sean Storch, principal at La Follette. “The big concern that we’ve heard from most parents is, ‘what if my kid can’t get in?’”
Storch believes Pathways will help ease the transition for kids from middle to high school.
“The most important thing that the pathway program does is that it shrinks the size of high school for our kids,” Storch says. “The pathway seeks to replicate some of those strengths of middle school in which kids are really tight with their teachers and each other.”
Administrators say students will still have access to electives. “That is a misconception that is out there,” says Cindy Green, director of curriculum and instruction. “Across all four years, children will still have the same opportunities; the pathway is not taking away opportunities for electives.”
Hagness had some, but not all, of her concerns alleviated at the Nov. 16 meeting at Hamilton.
“I think it’s premature to ask rising freshmen to choose one career-oriented or industry-sector pathway that will be the singular focus of experiential learning activities over the next four years,” Hagness says. “I was pleased to see that the first pathway offered at West — ‘health equity for social justice’ — has a broader societal perspective, and I hope that all of the subsequently introduced pathway themes will follow this model.”
Some parents are concerned by the attitude of other parents. Susanne Treiber, mom of a Hamilton seventh-grader, a sophomore at West, and a West graduate now in college, first heard about pathways through the neighborhood listserv.
“Someone posted an announcement — it was more of an alarmist approach — that said there is an upcoming meeting at West, and that they were taking away our electives to make way for this new program,” says Treiber.
She and her husband attended that meeting — before attending the meeting at Hamilton — and were surprised to hear people expressing negative perspectives, including some she found to be misinformed.
“We walked out before it ended due to a person who pretty much sabotaged the meeting and was extremely disrespectful,” Treiber says. “After the meeting there was continued dialogue via email, and I was just trying to take in information, as I wasn’t ready to make an opinion yet, but there was plenty of bias.”
Treiber urges parents to trust that the district has their kids’ best interests in mind with the program.
“Our teachers are so awesome,” says Treiber. “If the principal feels that the teachers are capable and that the teachers have volunteered to be part of this, then I think we should put our trust in them and let them do their job.”
