I’m not a math educator so my response to the controversy over “standard and honors” versus “first- and second-class” math tracks will have to be personal.

In the New Jersey school district in which I attended grades K-12, we had an accelerated, experimental math program (from Columbia Teachers College) starting in sixth grade. Participation was determined by achieving a high score on a standardized test. I was in the program from seventh to ninth grade; it became clear by the end of ninth grade that I was losing ground, behind in my math skills and not a good candidate for the grades 10-12 portion of the program.

I took remedial algebra the summer between ninth and 10th grades as we had never been formally taught algebra (apparently some people grasp it without explicit instruction!) I stayed in the program (in which I never did well) because losing my peer group was a huge source of anxiety.

I did not want to become a standard or second-class student; our homerooms were tracked by whether or not one was in this program and I didn’t want to give up my peer group! You can call it whatever you want — we knew what it was according to our middle school ideas of things. Either you were one of the “really smart ones” or you weren’t. By high school this had become more nuanced and all I wanted was to understand what I was learning and get a B instead of Cs and Ds.

I did fine in standard college track math (geometry, algebra 2 and pre-calculus). I was able to overcome my shaming sense of being a math moron and I stopped caring about the peer group thing.

Meanwhile, a boy I grew up with who was not in the accelerated program went on to receive a PhD in virology from MIT and is at the forefront of HIV/AIDS research with his own lab at a top medical school in New York City. He didn’t do well on the verbal portions of the screening test.

And finally, I question the appropriateness of peer “tutoring.” I was constantly recruited to help other students with reading and writing skills throughout my years in elementary, middle and high school. Just because those were my strengths doesn’t mean I was a good, or even a very nice, helper. Decades later, I became licensed in special education and worked in that field for a few years. Trust me, I didn’t know what I was doing as a kid. So I don’t approve of peer tutoring unless there is training, and I don’t mean an hour. If a kid needs help there should be adult instructional aides to work with them.

Julie Zuckman

Florence