Most members of the Oak Park and River Forest community believe all young people deserve and can be successful in high school courses that challenge them. But by the late 2010s, OPRF High School identified that Black and Latinx students were disproportionately represented in the lower-level College Prep track even though they and other students in the lower track were capable of Honors-level work with the necessary support.
In fall 2022, OPRF implemented a restructured curriculum for freshman core courses to provide an Honors-level experience to the vast majority of freshman students rather than separating them into tracks. The freshman program excludes math curriculum and about 100 students in freshman remedial Transitions courses. OPRF’s Advanced Placement curriculum remains in place and continues to grow.
In the last two years, because most OPRF freshmen have experienced this Honors curriculum, greater numbers of students are enrolling in Honors courses as sophomores. Students’ performance has remained largely steady during the transition to the new curriculum.
No initiative achieves its optimal state after two years, and of course there is room for improvement. Failure rates crept up last year for Black and Latinx freshmen and we have yet to see increases in standardized test scores after implementation of the new curriculum.
These data demonstrate that OPRF needs to increase and strengthen support for struggling students. As anticipated, student and parent feedback, collected as part of the comprehensive evaluations of the curriculum’s first and second years, indicate the need for more academic support, which D200 has yet to sufficiently implement. The need for continuous improvement does not signal the need to move away from a rigorous curriculum that benefits a greater number of students.
Unfortunately, some in our community are calling on our high school to ditch this reform as opposed to staying the course with improvements and additional supports.
As we have learned over and over again, there are no quick fixes to entrenched issues. Ten years ago, community groups such as APPLE (African American Parents for Purposeful Leadership in Education) and the Committee for Equity and Excellence in Education (CEEE) pushed the school board and administration to explore how to educate all of our students at a high level.
Based on OPRF’s data as well as national and international research, ability tracking emerged as a key impediment to many students’ performance. The research shows that tracking has minimal positive results and actually is detrimental to students placed in the lower tracks.
In 2018, OPRF faculty, after a review of freshman courses and testimony from student focus groups, began planning for the restructured curriculum. They implemented pilot units and adjusted the program before the board approved full implementation for the 2022-23 school year. Ending the effort now, just as it gets underway, is a disservice to the expanded student population the Honors curriculum is now reaching.
We will not meaningfully improve our schools for all students with a swinging-pendulum approach. Let’s stay the course on the restructured freshman curriculum and give our educator and students’ efforts a chance to flourish by providing the proper supports to everyone.
Our community should elect candidates to the District 200 school board who champion a rigorous, fully supported curriculum for all students.
Sources:
Information on student grades:
*OPRF Fall 2023 Freshman Year One Evaluation https://go.boarddocs.com/il/oprfhs/Board.nsf/files/CV9LN95722F6/$file/Freshman%20Year%20One%20Evaluation%20%20(2).pdf
Restructured Freshmen Curriculum Analysis Report, 9/24 https://go.boarddocs.com/il/oprfhs/Board.nsf/files/D9AHED481D90/$file/Restructured%20Freshmen%20Curriculum%20Analysis%20Report%209_24%20Final.pdf
*Increases in sophomore honors enrollment: Fall 2023 evaluation
*Student & parent feedback: Isobar report, Oak Park/River Forest High School Restructured Freshmen Curriculum Analysis, Sept. 2024
*Tracking research: Steenbergen-Hu et al research paper, “What One Hundred Years of Research Says About the Effects of Ability Grouping and Acceleration on K–12 Students’ Academic Achievement,” 2016, http://www.k12accountability.org/resources/Gifted-Education/GT_Review_of_Ed_Research_Meta_Analysis.pdf
CEEE is a multi-racial group of Oak Park and River Forest residents advocating for racial equity at OPRF High School.