s/o Tracking
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Anonymous
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http://tcf.org/publications/pdfs/pb571/kahlenbergsoa6-15-06.pdf
THE CHALLENGES OF CONCENTRATED POVERTY NCLB sets out the lofty goal of making all public school children—poor and wealthy, black and white—“proficient” in reading and math by 2014. Given that in recent years, the average low-income twelfth-grade student has been reading at the same level as the average eighth-grade middle-class student,1 many teachers and administrators are at a loss as to how to reach the act’s laudable aim. How can the achievement gap be narrowed, much less eliminated? Bold action is required, action that is dramatically different from what we have been trying in education for many years. For forty years, researchers have found that schools with high concentrations of poverty present a very difficult environment for student learning. While a small portion of high-poverty schools that have charismatic principals and especially dedicated teachers have proven to be successful, the overwhelming majority of high-poverty schools struggle. According to a study conducted by Florida State University’s Douglas N. Harris, middle-class schools are twenty-two times more likely to be consistently high-performing than are high-poverty schools. Of course, high-poverty schools are less likely to perform well in part because individual low-income students are, on average, less likely to come from family environments that model and support strong academic achievement. But there is a separate problem that arises when low-income students are concentrated in schools separate from their middle-class peers. The highly regarded Coleman Report of the 1960s found that, after the influence of the family, the socioeconomic status of a school is the single most important determinant of a student’s academic success.2 The basic findings of the report—that all children do better in middle-class schools—have been affirmed again and again in the research literature.3 In 2005, for example, University of California professor Russell Rumberger and his colleague Gregory J. Palardy found that a school’s socioeconomic status had as much impact on the achievement growth of high school students as a student’s individual economic status. Throughout history and throughout time, low-income students typically have performed less well academically than middle-class children, but there is a striking exception: low-income students attending middle-class schools perform better, on average, than middle-class students in high-poverty schools. Scores from the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) among fourth-grade students in math indicate that low-income students in more affluent schools score eight points higher (more than half a grade level) than middle-class students in high-poverty schools. |
Anonymous
| LOL! So DC parents are doing the right thing by sending their kids OOB and charters and not their impoverished less than ideal in-boundary school. |
Anonymous
| One would have to be high not to admit that a narrower bell curve with high achieving students translates into a more rigorous and advanced program. |
Anonymous
The question is ,once a child is placed on one track can the child change tracks upon progression. |
Anonymous
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I was bummed to be put in the lower math track at my private HS but not bummed enough to take summer college courses, which is what it would have taken to get me up to the same track as the kids that were taking Calculus senior year in HS.
Sometimes jumping the track takes more effort than a student has energy or brainpower for. Wish I could remember what I was doing that was so important during my summers in high school. |
Anonymous
| The question is also a bit at what age and in what form to you "track" for a lack of a better word. Many countries have tracking systems, up to three different types of schools, at some point. They tend to do that not much before 7th grade or so. The problem with tracking into different schools (having been raised in a country that does that) is that students are assumed to be overall low or overall high performing. In such systems, there is no place for a student who is excellent in math/science but trails in humanities/reading. While I think that tracking is a fact of life at some point and not doing so would make us all worse off (the lack of vocationally trained workforce speaks to that), I think it's really important to keep the tracked students as close together as possible so they can cross over, whenever they're ready or in whatever area they're ready in. There should also be plenty of room where such tracking isn't done so someone doesn't get stuck and has opportunities to compare notes and, every so often, one or the other will take off, just a little later. |
Anonymous
But if I understand correctly, differentiation is not "ability" grouping, it's SKILL grouping. Of course parents are angry when their child's ability/potential is questioned. It's much less onerous to hear that your child's SKILLS are slightly behind someone else's. Many academic skills in the early years are more a matter of experience than native ability. For instance, a child who never cared for puzzles as a preschooler and kindergartner might well be behind in math SKILLS by first grade compared to a child who loved puzzles and mazes and spent lots of time doing them. But being behind in these skills does not necessarily mean that the less-interested child has less ability/potential than children in a higher group. In fact, a lower track with a steady forward trajectory might help him/her BUILD the skills to be able to move up. Tracking, on the other hand, brings up the specter of "once in the low group, always in the low group," because there seems to be no way to escape the track you're on. |
Anonymous
| Differentiation means that you use flexible groupings. Sometimes it could be a skill-based group or sometimes an interest-based group, etc. Skills are not broadly defined, however, as math, such that one is "stuck" in the low math group for a straight year. Skills are much more narrow than that. For example, during reading, one group could be searching for information on tigers predation, while another group could be searching for information on owl predation and yet another group could be meeting with the teacher to learn how to use the index in order to search for information. They will be taking notes in their teacher group on shark predation. Then, the groups can present to eachother all that they learned about predation. All of the students are on equal footing because all have important information to share with the group. On another day, students may be in different groupings reading their book club books, etc. |
Anonymous
Deal doesn't do this anymore, except for math. As far as I know, DCPS middle schools (and Washington Latin) only separate-class track for math these days. |
Anonymous
| The issue is charged because what has happened in the past is that kids who are in the lower tracks couldn't get off - tagged for life. On top of that are questions about the quality - is it equal to what advanced students get? I think not. But whatever, tracking is done anyway to some degree at all the schools. In the end I think it is good for parents to question it. |
Anonymous
Right, but how does this work into the upper grades when some kids are ready to read full length novels and others are struggling with Goodnight Moon ( not all that rare, sadly ) |
Anonymous
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Right, but how does this work into the upper grades when some kids are ready to read full length novels and others are struggling with Goodnight Moon ( not all that rare, sadly )
You have reading materials at all levels in order to optimally challenge all the learners. |
Anonymous
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I support tracking, just as I support special services for learning disabilities
all kids don't learn at the same pace, just as all kids have different athletic capacities |
Anonymous
| Is it fair for the parents of bright children to sequester their child's talent for private gain? Is it fair to ask for magnet schools? |
Anonymous
Are you saying talented children are some kind of public good? That they ought to be educated based on what's good for someone else? |