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"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.
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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.
 
I have actually spoken in favor of detracking I do seem to find my ideas that I post are sometimes implemented but usually not in the way I envision them. About dettracking. I feel that if you take the more advanced student and put them with other more advanced students, the general population suffers a loss because the lower performing students do not get to see and talk to the person that excels and decided that that is where they want to go do. About how it worked in the real world. I have two kids. One is in honors and also gets tutored in math. She is going into eighth grade and is working on ratios with her tutor right now. In third grade she almost failed due to poor math performance. Now, she is even considering a degree in math. She dreams about being able to buy us a decent house to live in for our retirement. In her honors class she has low performing students and even students who get into fights in class regularly. My other child is an A student who is not in honors, but the math classes are fairly rigorous. When my honors student was behind in math what they did was bring the special ed tutors into the classroom and tutor her there. I believe she was still responsible for what was being lectured on as well. She is in a charter school though so they might have their own way of doing things.
 
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MinnesotaBrant said:
I have actually spoken in favor of detracking I do seem to find my ideas that I post are sometimes implemented but usually not in the way I envision them. About dettracking. I feel that if you take the more advanced student and put them with other more advanced students, the general population suffers a loss because the lower performing students do get to see and talk to the person that excels and decided that that is where they want to go do. About how it worked in the real world. I have two kids. One is in honors and also gets tutored in math. She is going into eighth grade and is working on ratios with her tutor right now. In third grade she almost failed due to poor math performance. Now, she is even considering a degree in math. She dreams about being able to buy us a decent house to live in for our retirement. In her honors class she has low performing students and even students who get into fights in class regularly. My other child is an A student who is not in honors, but the math classes are fairly rigorous. When my honors student was behind in math what they did was bring the special ed tutors into the classroom and tutor her there. I believe she was still responsible for what was being lectured on as well. She is in a charter school though so they might have their own way of doing things.
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One solution is to get rid of regular math and put everyone into honors classes and tutor them there. Also, if you think the teacher is going to get overwhelmed remember that the teacher doesn't have to do everything. Make the children do it themselves. If they do get overwhelmed bring in another teacher to assist. I didn't get that myself, that's pretty much how my daughter's honors class went last year.
 
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In what way is tracking not the same thing as affirmative action? Can someone be against affirmative action and for educational tracking?
 
If you read the article that was posted, you would see that the smart teachers are anti tracking, and the progressive ones are pro tracking. https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025/05/28/honors-programs-schools-delevel-detrack-education. The reasons for tracking are mostly political because parents want it. If you read my post, it sounds as conservative as hell. Let kids do it themselves... Robin Williams would be rolling in his grave, but that ◊◊◊◊ is too hard.

About affirmative action, I am mostly for it. The other side is trying to defund it. Both sides are not really doing things the way I want. I will say that politically I am from Minneapolis and would probably vote for anyone with an Arab sounding name.
 
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More fundamentally: why invest any additional resources into overachievers? They clearly don't need them.
Education should be focused on getting those having a hard time for various reasons the resources and teachers they need.

A society profits way more from a high common knowledge base than from a few extraordinary outliers and an under qualified general population.
 
Not really - the opposite, actually.

It is just plain wrong that a society educates for the benefit of those being educated - education happens so people can participate in the Job Market and the Democratic System.
If it's affirmative action, it's for the benefit of Companies and social security, not students.
This level of education is the Baseline, and if it requires extra effort, than that's what it takes - doesn't make it affirmative action.
 
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Education exists for the benefit of the markets. In our system the market benefits from, but doesn’t really support the system. Wish that would change
 
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