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Tracking: Who Benefits?

Tracking: Who Benefits?. A Look at the Research Christina Gavin April 23, 2002 EDUC 640. The Extent of Tracking. Tracked classes – AP College-Prep Honors General/Remedial Based on Test Scores or Student choice In Middle Schools – 82% were using ability grouping

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Tracking: Who Benefits?

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  1. Tracking: Who Benefits? A Look at the Research Christina Gavin April 23, 2002 EDUC 640

  2. The Extent of Tracking • Tracked classes – • AP • College-Prep • Honors • General/Remedial • Based on • Test Scores or • Student choice • In Middle Schools – • 82% were using ability grouping • 36% of schools were considering eliminating tracking. • In 10th grade – about 90% were in ability groups

  3. The Students • Minority students are disproportionately in low track classes, often regardless of test scores. • Low tracks have • Less qualified and inexperienced teachers • Fewer resources • Lower expectations • More traditional teaching

  4. The achievement gap between low- and high-track students is greater than the gap between high schools dropouts and students who graduate.–Loveless, 1999

  5. The Teachers • It is more challenging to teach mixed-ability classes and requires more planning and creativity • Teachers get away with low expectations and standards for low track classes. • Teachers who want ability grouping are more subject centered; Teachers who want to eliminate tracking are student centered.

  6. “Tracking…encourages even well-meaning teachers and administrators to turn out generation after generation of self-fulfilling prophecies.” -Kean

  7. Administration • Eliminating tracking requires • Teacher training and support • Increases in budget concerns • A battle with parents

  8. The Parents • Affluent parents are the greatest supporters of tracking and the toughest opponents of detracking. • Parents have ended many reforms to eliminate tracking • Parents want their children to have the best education, without regard to other students. • Schools allow these parents to make the decisions for fear of “bright flight”.

  9. “When parents and educators go to great lengths to erect walls between the “gifted” and the ordinary, another generation is raised without a commitment to the values of community and the vicious circle closes in.” -Kohn

  10. “The saccharine myth that children are America’s most precious natural resource has in practice been falsified by our hostility to other people’s children and our unwillingness to support them.” - Kohn

  11. The Research for Tracking • Gifted students need opportunities for enrichment and are slowed down in heterogeneous classes. • Problems with detracking • Teaching to the middle • Lowers opportunities for bright minority students • Achievement gap is narrowed at the expense of the gifted students • “Bright Flight”

  12. The Research for Mixed-Ability Groups • Minority enrollment in college increases • Grades for low students increase as well as interest in school • Increases in the gifted and talented student population for white and minority students • Decreases in • Absenteeism • Failures • Discipline problems

  13. The Methods-Eliminating Tracking • Detracking demands • Change • Support from teachers and administration • An understanding of the research • Communicating the research with parents and standing behind your beliefs. • Cooperative Learning • Peer Instruction

  14. Journals and Projects • Teaching organizational skills • Team teaching • Portfolios • High expectations for all students • Instructional support classes for students with difficulties • A contracting system for gifted students • Allows for “Honors” notation and weighted GPA

  15. “Mixing will not be beneficial if teachers teach the same as they do for homogenous groups.” -Heath

  16. The Methods – Making Tracking Work • Hold high expectations for all classes • Give all students qualified and motivated teachers • Make low tracks more rigorous • “Schools-within-a-school”

  17. Who Benefits? • Parents of gifted students • Teachers who want an easier job • Administrators who do not want to deal with parents • The gifted students who make up a small percentage of the students in our schools.

  18. Conclusions • Only a small number of students benefit from tracking and research shows that the benefit is not a significant amount. • All students deserve an equal opportunity at education. • All students should be valued, not just the gifted ones.

  19. “We are not in the business of educating one group of students. As professionals we are responsible for educating everyone, and there are things that we must not do. That’s a moral and professional issue.” –A Maryland Educator

  20. Therefore… Tracking needs to be eliminated or greatly reformed. “You can maintain your tracking system, just put all students in the top track.” -Slavin

  21. Rockingham County • Middle School • Offer World Geography and Algebra I for High School credit. • Also offer French I or Spanish I for h.s. credit • All other classes are mixed-ability

  22. Rockingham County • High Schools • Tracked into general, honors, college-prep, and AP • Based on student choice, no grading criteria • Students who receive less than a C in the previous class, take two periods of reading or math, eliminating choices for electives.

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