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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I always thought tracking was a good thing. It’s what they had when I was in school. [/quote]

Yep.  And proof that SES is not the sole determinant for academic success that people on here like to claim it is. [/quote]

No one claims it's the sole determinant, just that when you look at the data overall it's an overwhelming predictive factor of academic success.  That's just the data.

Tracking might be good for some upper level kids.  The ones it was terrible for were those who were stuck in a permanent low track.  Once you're in it, you're learning at a slower pace and so moving up is really unlikely.  So a kid who was slow to learn to read, had bad handwriting, had an emotional upset or whatever during 2nd grade got stuck.  The data is clear on this--the damage from tracking for lower kids was far more than any benefit for the upper level kids.

The alternative that works the best is flexible, compartmentalized ability grouping.  So you get grouped by your current ability on a set of skills and receive instruction to suit that and then get pre-tested on the next set of skills to see what level you should be at for that.  Unfortunately we've never adequately provided teachers structures and supports that make this kind of differentiation realistically effective.  So teachers are told to "differentiate" but are given no reasonable way to do it. [/quote]

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