Our School System Is Making a Big Change in the Name of Equity. I Can’t Tell How Bad This Is Going to Be.

Care and Feeding July 22, 20261:00 PM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, Our kids are in 5th and 7th grade and are both B students. Neither needs extra academic support at this point, but neither is winning childhood Nobel prizes, either. Their school system currently has a tracked class design: kids in 6th grade and up can be in remedial classes, average classes, or advanced classes for core subjects. Next year, the school system is doing away with this in the name of equity, and also to reduce staffing. All classes will include all levels of students, and the teachers will teach all of them at once (with the exception that kids can contin