Tracking in DCPS

[Anonymous]

DCPS needs tracking to adequately serve all students. What say you?

[Anonymous]

What does tracking mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS needs tracking to adequately serve all students. What say you?

I agree. But my child is awesome in some subjects and struggles in others. So the tracking should be flexible for each subject. And of course as a student performs higher, he can get into the higher level classes and as he performs lower he can be dropped into the lower class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does tracking mean?

It has positive connotations: differentiate between abilities, including Gifted and Talented. But it also has negative connotations: a mother of my child's classmate once complained about her child being "tracked", whereby she referred to the teacher having taken a look at her child and decided s/he wasn't going to succeed and basically that's what happened. In then next classroom, where such (negative) tracking didn't take place, that same child did very well.

[Anonymous]

the new word for tracking is "differentiated instruction"...which does imply that the instruction can differentiate differently for different subjects. the "old" version of tracking is to put kids into different programs where they essentially get different curricula, so kids who are tracked into a "lower" track might actually never catch up.

[Anonymous]

Tracking and differentiated instruction are actually both in use as terms. Tracking still means what 11:09 describes above. There is very little movement in tracking. DI is far more flexible and students can move in different groups for different subjects as the curriculum and the students' needs allow.

[Anonymous]

Why would anyone prefer tracking over differentiated instruction?

[Anonymous]

I think those people who have truly gifted children would prefer tracking, as it would put all the gifted students together in one class.

Tracking is definitely easier for the teacher - if students in a classroom are all at the same level, one group lesson can be taught. A differentiated classroom is a mix level of ablilities that get grouped into their levels, and the teacher has to teach to each groups level. And as a pp said, these groups are different for each subject and they are flexible - students can move to a higher group if they are doing well.

[Anonymous]

I'm under the impression that tracking is when students are pulled out and separated by ability group. Differentiated instruction is when all students are in the same class at the same time and the teacher provides more challenging work to one group of students and extra remedial help to another group once the regular lesson is done. Is this accurate?

In practice, I've found at my DC's school, the teacher is so concerned about trying to pull up the low-achieving students, there isn't a whole lot of differentiated instruction for the smart, hard-working kids. I'm frustrated. I wish my DC was tracked and physically pulled out of the classroom allng with other high-achieving peers and offered richer lessons. Instead, DC brings in books to read from home after regular work is finished and gets through hundreds of pages a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish my DC was tracked and physically pulled out of the classroom allng with other high-achieving peers and offered richer lessons. Instead, DC brings in books to read from home after regular work is finished and gets through hundreds of pages a week.

What you describe is not an effective way to differentiate a classroom and NOT what I'm seeing at our very diverse public school. Indeed, what you describe is actually not differentiating at all. If this is indeed what you're seeing (not just getting the feeling you do), then I think you should seek a conversation with your school (principal, LSAT, PTA) to find ways to better equip the teachers and systems at your school to effectively differentiate, in-class as well as outside.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish my DC was tracked and physically pulled out of the classroom allng with other high-achieving peers and offered richer lessons. Instead, DC brings in books to read from home after regular work is finished and gets through hundreds of pages a week.

What you describe is not an effective way to differentiate a classroom and NOT what I'm seeing at our very diverse public school. Indeed, what you describe is actually not differentiating at all. If this is indeed what you're seeing (not just getting the feeling you do), then I think you should seek a conversation with your school (principal, LSAT, PTA) to find ways to better equip the teachers and systems at your school to effectively differentiate, in-class as well as outside.

I do need to have a conversation with the school. I'm planning to use conferences next week as a starting point.

[Anonymous]

^^ this is what happened at my DC's DCPS last year. Bunch of BS for the high-achieving students. Switched to BASIS (not trying to boost, just a fact) and DC is getting top grades and told me yesterday that it's weird but nice to not be reading books all day during classtime because the teachers are interesting and it's fun to learn new things.

Differentiated instruction (at least in some DCPS) is not buying the cow and getting the milk for free -- frees up teachers to focus on the lower achieving students and the higher achieving students keeps giving the high test scores.

[Anonymous]

I'm the pp with the child who reads books all day during school. I wasn't going to mention BASIS, but now that's its brought up our older DC goes there and I can't wait for DC #2 to get to 5th grade so she can attend as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm under the impression that tracking is when students are pulled out and separated by ability group. Differentiated instruction is when all students are in the same class at the same time and the teacher provides more challenging work to one group of students and extra remedial help to another group once the regular lesson is done. Is this accurate?

In practice, I've found at my DC's school, the teacher is so concerned about trying to pull up the low-achieving students, there isn't a whole lot of differentiated instruction for the smart, hard-working kids. I'm frustrated. I wish my DC was tracked and physically pulled out of the classroom allng with other high-achieving peers and offered richer lessons. Instead, DC brings in books to read from home after regular work is finished and gets through hundreds of pages a week.

Back in the day, (forever ago when I was in elementary school) that is exactly what was done with G & T students. From 2nd grade on, they pulled us out for specialized enrichment. At 4th grade, they sent us to G & T classrooms at a magnet school. I had to ride a bus to a school farther away from our house, but my younger sib got a car ride to the neighborhood school. I recall being jealous over the ride thing, but otherwise very happy in my G & T class. I never had to worry about bullies or kids who didn't care about learning. Forever after, (Jr. High and High school) I didn't like being in regular classrooms. The overall tone was so much lower than in the G & T/Honors/A. P. classes. When you're a shy, smart kid, the higher-level instruction of an elevated classroom is a whole new world - and that's not even counting the social security of being surrounded by a group of high-achieving peers instead of the typical classroom with at least a couple of hooligans and class clowns.

I hate the demise of specialized G & T education; it's exactly what a lot of high-performers need, but apparently it's now politically correct to sacrifice such students for the benefit of the masses.

[Anonymous]

OP here,

I just feel that tracking would make the task of teaching much easier for the teacher and it would be great for the students because they would be getting exactly what they need. Not saying that the tracks are rigid and fixed, but used as needed. It is true what the previous person said about it being politically correct to sacrifice high-performing students for the benefit of the masses and it is truly sad.