"On Point" Discussion of De-Tracking pros and cons.

marting

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marting
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Sep 18, 2003
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Carried on NPR. Fascinating and nuanced discussion of the elimination of class tracking where students are grouped into advanced and regular tracks in 8th/9th grade algebra and science.

www.wbur.org

The push to eliminate honors programs in schools

In an effort to reduce inequality in education outcomes, some school districts are removing honors classes or other programs for high achievers. Some students, parents and teachers say the push to "de-track" or "de-level" classrooms is limiting learning for everyone.
www.wbur.org www.wbur.org

Results are mixed with strong supporters and detractors.
 
"In an effort to reduce inequality in education outcomes . . ."

Should be focus be on equalizing outcomes or providing the best education for each student tailored to that student's needs and aptitudes?

If student A has already mastered Algebra and Trigonometry and wants to learn Calculus next, while student B is mystified by these subjects and also disinterested, should these students be in the same Math class?

I can understand removing the stigma by not explicitly saying that one class is for the smart kids (the "honors" class) and the other one is for the dummies, but they really shouldn't be in the same class.
 
There seems to be some denial of what's going on:

CHAKRABARTI: Carol, how did you accomplish this? Because it seems that there's actually a bit of a conflict in here, and help me resolve it, that the core curriculum was the honors level curriculum, but you still differentiated instruction within classes.

Like how do those two things work together?
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So rather than have separate classes to group kids, the teacher differentiates them and instructs them individually. It's a really big hurdle. I can't imagine how one even assigns grades in such a heterogeneous class.

Apparently there are now huge differences in skill/interest level to somehow contend with:

Peters:
The typical classroom nationwide has roughly five grade levels of proficiency within it. So if you think of a middle school classroom, sixth grade classroom, you have students in it that are already algebra proficient. You also have students that are probably not quite proficient, according to third or fourth grade standards.
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It's probably a lot worse these days. Access to high quality material is now easy and free. For those kids interested in math (or anything else) the sky's the limit.
 
There are two ways to equalize outcomes: raise the lowest scores or lower the highest scores. Guess which is easier?
 
marting said:
There seems to be some denial of what's going on:


So rather than have separate classes to group kids, the teacher differentiates them and instructs them individually. It's a really big hurdle. I can't imagine how one even assigns grades in such a heterogeneous class.

Apparently there are now huge differences in skill/interest level to somehow contend with:


It's probably a lot worse these days. Access to high quality material is now easy and free. For those kids interested in math (or anything else) the sky's the limit.
Click to expand...

Not if you're punishing them at school, for getting ahead of the class.

When classes got too slow, I would read ahead, do all the problems at the back of the chapter, or, if all else failed, read a book.

All of these things resulted in detention.

(At the same time as the school was trying to take the credit for my advanced vocabulary, reading material, math skills etc.)

I hated school so much.
 
novaphile said:
Not if you're punishing them at school, for getting ahead of the class.

When classes got too slow, I would read ahead, do all the problems at the back of the chapter, or, if all else failed, read a book.

All of these things resulted in detention.

(At the same time as the school was trying to take the credit for my advanced vocabulary, reading material, math skills etc.)

I hated school so much.
Click to expand...
I can relate. But I didn't hate school. I just found it uninteresting and I learned virtually nothing in my 7-12th grade science/math classes. Around the end of 6th grad I got interested in math and science. I would drill down on something in math. Check out interesting stuff from the library. Get tired of it, then would find something in chem. or physics that caught my interest. Bounce around, rinse and repeat. None of this had anything to do with what was being taught in middle/high school. But it was trivial to ace the tests. Mostly slept through science and math classes or would do english/history homework. Subjects I had zero interest in so paid some attention in those classes.

This did not serve me well. I had truly awful, approaching non-existent study habits. This caught up with me the end of my sophomore year when I ran across stuff I'd never seen before. Flunked out and had to repeat the term the next year.

This was in the 1960's. I think these days kids like me would be in hog heaven in this instant resource availability age.
 
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