The Leveling Down: When Optics Replace Outcomes

This post is a follow-up to The Acceleration Gap: 276 to 26, which documented the 10:1 disparity between seventh-grade and first-grade math accelerations in Oak Park District 97. This post explains how that gap was created.

In The Acceleration Gap, I showed that Oak Park District 97 approved 276 seventh graders for math acceleration in 2025, but only 26 first graders—a 10-to-1 ratio despite similar cohort sizes.

I asked: What’s happening in seventh grade that makes acceleration suddenly viable for 276 students? What barriers exist in first grade that make it nearly impossible?

I’ve found the answer. And it’s not what I expected.

The gap wasn’t an accident. It was designed.

The Change

In 2017, Superintendent Carol Kelley eliminated Oak Park District 97’s elementary math acceleration pathway.

Before 2017, the district operated a Gifted, Talented, and Differentiation (GTD) program that included math “step-up” starting in third grade. Identified students could receive math instruction one grade level above their peers. About 20% of students received pull-out GTD instruction.

In 2017, Kelley dismantled this. Instead of step-up acceleration, the district implemented “enrichment for all”—providing the same grade-level content to everyone, with differentiation happening inside regular classrooms rather than through separate advanced instruction.

The stated rationale: the demographics of the GTD program should match the demographics of the district.

The question is: Did it work?

The Measured Outcomes

Two years later, the E3 Group—a local education advocacy organization—analyzed the district’s own data presented at the October 2019 Board meeting.

The district uses MAP Growth testing from NWEA, which produces “RIT scores” (Rasch UnIT)—a standardized measure of academic achievement. Unlike grade-based assessments, RIT scores track a student’s actual knowledge level on a continuous scale from kindergarten through high school. A student’s RIT score should increase each year if they’re learning and growing. If it goes down, something is wrong.

The E3 Group’s findings:

“Third and fourth grade math GTD students saw clear declines in RIT math scores when switched to the enrichment for all program.”

“Those not in GTD math produced RIT scores similar to performance in previous years.”

Let me translate that:

• Students previously in accelerated math: Their scores went down.
• Students not in accelerated math: Their scores stayed the same.
• Net improvement for anyone: Zero.

This is the definition of “leveling down”—reducing outcomes for high achievers without improving outcomes for anyone else.

What “Leveling Down” Actually Means

The phrase comes from education policy debates, but it has a specific meaning: when you close an achievement gap not by raising the bottom but by lowering the top.

If you have two groups—one scoring at the 90th percentile and one at the 50th percentile—you can close the gap two ways:

1. Raise the bottom: Invest in instruction, intervention, and support to bring the 50th percentile group up toward the 90th.

2. Lower the top: Eliminate the programs that helped the 90th percentile group achieve, so they fall toward the middle.

Option 2 closes the gap. But nobody is better off. And the students who needed challenge are now worse off.

That’s what happened in Oak Park.

The Pipeline Effect

The 2017 changes didn’t just affect students that year. They broke the pipeline from elementary school to middle school acceleration.

The 276-to-26 gap I documented is a direct consequence:

That’s a 10-to-1 ratio. Seventh graders are ten times more likely to be accelerated than first graders, despite similar cohort sizes (~500 students per grade).

Why? Because the elementary pathway was dismantled. There’s no step-up program feeding students into middle school acceleration. Students who would have been identified and served starting in 3rd grade now have to wait until 7th grade to access the algebra pathway.

The gap isn’t random. It’s a direct consequence of the 2017 decision.

The Same Approach, Rejected Elsewhere

Superintendent Kelley left Oak Park in 2021 for Princeton Public Schools in New Jersey. She brought the same approach.

In Princeton, she hired a math consultant known for advocating “detracking”—eliminating accelerated course options so all students take the same classes. The proposal would have:

• Eliminated Algebra I for 7th and 8th graders (everyone takes it in 9th grade)
• Detracked math through 10th grade
• Eliminated calculus courses entirely

Princeton parents revolted. Over 2,230 people signed a petition citing “lack of transparency, accountability and respect.”

One parent letter captured the practical problem with leveling down:

“It is disadvantaged students who stand to lose the most from this ’leveling down’ approach; families of means can and will seek such instruction elsewhere if it is not provided by the public schools.”

Kelley resigned in October 2023 after less than 2.5 years—a “short and tumultuous tenure.”

The approach that shaped Oak Park’s current acceleration system was rejected when tried elsewhere.

The Rubric Problem

The current acceleration rubric—the one that denied my daughter with a 63% score—was created within this post-2017 system.

As I explained in The Feedback Loop, the fundamental problem isn’t that the rubric is too harsh or has arbitrary thresholds. The problem is that it measures the wrong thing entirely.

The rubric asks: “Does this student excel at first-grade math?”

• Report card grades (first-grade content mastery)
• AimsWeb scores (first-grade fluency screening)
• Percentile ranks on grade-level assessments

What it should ask: “Is this student ready for third-grade math?”

• Multiplication and division concepts
• Fractions on the number line
• Multi-step word problems
• Area and properties of operations

These are fundamentally different questions. A student can “Meet” first-grade expectations (because the content is too easy) while being completely ready for third grade. A student can “Excel” at first grade and still not be conceptually ready for third grade.

When I asked the district for the research supporting the rubric’s 80% threshold, Acting Superintendent Patrick Robinson replied:

“We do not have all of the detailed work readily available to provide.”

Illinois law requires acceleration practices to be “research-based.” The district admits it can’t provide the research.

The rubric isn’t validated. And as The Feedback Loop explains, raising bars on the wrong measures doesn’t fix the fundamental problem—it just blocks more students while still accelerating some who aren’t ready.

The Core Mission of Public Schools

Public schools exist for three fundamental purposes:

1. Foster student achievement across all ability levels
2. Prepare students for college and careers
3. Maintain global competitiveness

The 2017 changes may have aligned with certain policy initiatives on the surface. But measured against these core mandates, the approach failed completely:

• Student achievement: Advanced students’ scores declined, others stayed the same
• College preparation: Students lost years of mathematical development
• Global competitiveness: Fewer students on track for STEM pathways

This isn’t a values debate. It’s a question of whether the changes achieved their stated goals. The data says no.

Where This Leads: The College Math Crisis

What happens when K-12 systems prioritize optics over outcomes? The consequences show up at college doorsteps.

A November 2025 Atlantic article titled “A Recipe for Idiocracy” highlights a UC San Diego faculty report documenting the downstream effects:

• Five years ago: ~30 incoming freshmen arrived below high school math level
• Today: Over 900 students—a thirtyfold increase
• Of those 900+: Most don’t meet middle school math standards
• Common struggles: Fractions, simple algebra, basic word problems
• Course launched: UCSD now offers remedial math covering elementary and middle school concepts
• The telling detail: 60%+ of students in the previous remedial course couldn’t divide a fraction by two

This isn’t isolated. All UC campuses saw unprepared students double or triple. George Mason University revamped its remedial math program in 2023 after calculus students arrived unable to do algebra.

The report’s authors noted that students faced issues with “logical thinking”—not just math facts. They didn’t know how to begin solving word problems.

These are students who earned admission to selective universities. They had the transcripts. They had the grades. What they didn’t have was the math education that should have prepared them for college-level work.

The Pattern: Optics Over Outcomes

The approach that shaped Oak Park’s current system reflects a particular kind of thinking:

The logic: If demographic patterns in advanced programs don’t match overall enrollment, eliminate the programs.

The assumption: Removing advanced options addresses underlying disparities.

The reality: It addresses nothing. It just hides the problem by eliminating the measure.

This is lazy thinking. It prioritizes looking good over doing good. It substitutes surface-level compliance for the hard work of actually improving student outcomes.

And it has consequences:

• For advanced students: Lost opportunities, declining scores
• For struggling students: No improvement—same outcomes as before
• For families with resources: They find alternatives (tutoring, private options)
• For families without resources: Nowhere to go

When you eliminate public advanced options, the families who can afford alternatives find them. The families who can’t are stuck. The gap doesn’t close—it becomes invisible in the public system while widening in reality.

What This Means for My Daughter

My daughter applied for math acceleration in first grade. She scored in the 99th percentile on MAP Math. Three teachers confirmed she was working at 3rd grade level. She successfully completed advanced math sessions with older students.

The rubric scored her at 63%. She needed 80%.

As I documented in When Ready Isn’t Enough, she lost points because she got “Meets” instead of “Excels” on her first-grade report card—a report card that measures first-grade content mastery, not third-grade readiness. She lost points because she scored 92nd percentile instead of 93rd on AimsWeb, a screening tool designed to identify struggling students, not to predict acceleration success.

The rubric measured how well she performed at first-grade math. It didn’t measure whether she was ready for third-grade math. Those are different questions, and she had strong evidence for the question that actually matters.

She’s caught in a system that was redesigned to limit acceleration, using a rubric that measures the wrong things with a threshold that has no research basis.

The Questions

To Oak Park District 97:

1. The 2019 data showed GTD students’ scores declined while non-GTD students saw no improvement. Has the district evaluated whether these changes achieved their stated goals?

2. The 276-to-26 gap between 7th grade and 1st grade accelerations suggests the elementary pipeline is broken. Is this the intended outcome?

3. Illinois law requires “research-based” acceleration practices. Where is the research supporting the current rubric design and thresholds?

4. When the same approach was tried in Princeton, parents rejected it and the superintendent resigned. What makes the district confident this approach works here?

5. UC San Diego now sees 30x more students arriving below high school math level. All UC campuses report similar trends. Is the district tracking whether its graduates are college-ready?

The Bottom Line

Intentions don’t educate students. Outcomes do.

Public schools exist to foster student achievement, prepare students for college and careers, and maintain global competitiveness. The 2017 changes failed on all three counts:

• Student achievement: Advanced students’ scores declined, others stayed the same
• College preparation: Elementary pipeline broken, students losing years of development
• Global competitiveness: Fewer students on track for rigorous math pathways
• Research basis for current rubric: None provided
• Same approach in Princeton: Rejected by parents, superintendent resigned

Meanwhile, universities are launching remedial courses to teach college students how to divide fractions.

My daughter is caught in a system that was redesigned to limit acceleration, evaluated by a rubric that measures the wrong things, scored against thresholds with no research basis.

The approach may have looked good on paper. But it prioritized optics over outcomes, and students are paying the price.

That’s not education. That’s leveling down.

Related Posts:

• The Acceleration Gap: 276 to 26 - The district-wide data that started this investigation
• The Feedback Loop: How Bad Rubrics Create Their Own Crisis - Why measuring the wrong thing harder doesn’t help
• When Ready Isn’t Enough - How the rubric measures first-grade exceptionalism instead of third-grade readiness
• The Wrong Tool - Why AimsWeb doesn’t belong on acceleration rubrics
• The Authority Vacuum - How superintendent churn creates risk-averse culture

Sources:

• E3 Group: “Oak Park District 97 Math ‘Enrichment for All’ - Is it Working?” (October 2019)
• Wednesday Journal: “Young, gifted and mostly white” (June 2017)
• The Daily Princetonian: “Princeton schools superintendent resigns” (October 2023)
• The Atlantic: “‘A Recipe for Idiocracy’” (November 2025)
• UC San Diego SAWG Report on Admissions Review (2025)

This is part of an ongoing series documenting one family’s experience with gifted education acceleration in Oak Park Elementary School District 97. All facts are based on district data, news reports, and official communications.