Call it Grade Conflation. Spurred by reform proposals around the nation, educators are discarding traditional age groupings. Instead, they are once again turning to multiage classrooms. Kentucky has mandated that every school in the state offer multiage classes for kids from 5 to 9. In Cincinnati, officials are aiming to have all classes be multiage from kindergarten through 10th grade by 2001. These aren’t the one-room schoolhouses of frontier lore; they more closely resemble the popular but flawed open-classroom experiments of the late 1960s. But this time around, says Lilian Katz, an education professor at the University of Illinois, multiage classrooms try to offer more than good intentions. Children move from easier to more difficult material at their own pace, without having to wait until they’re promoted.
It’s too early to document academic gains, but researchers have already seen the social benefits. Eileen Pollack sends her 6-year-old son, Noah, an only child, to Ann Arbor’s multiage program. It’s intellectually exciting, she says, and it gives him older “siblings.” Quick at arithmetic, Noah works with older kids on math, but for writing, he sits with others his own age.
Many teachers and parents adamantly oppose these programs. Renee Kelley, a parent and former teacher in Bardstown, Ky., sums up the idea as “kids everywhere running around.” But others are not deterred. “We are building this from the ground up,” says Linda Edin, a teacher at Lansdowne Elementary School in Lexington, Ky. That can be a long climb.
