Anonymous wrote:Ok, so we have the one enlightened school and district in the nation that does not believe in tracking because of how ineffective it is. Too bad DCPS including Wilson does such a bad job anyway of educating our kids. Also, good idea maybe to have smaller classes in 9th but that just means huge AP classes. You think it will work well when kids who are already struggling get one year of a modicum of extra help and encouragement and then get shoved into crazy huge classes. Count me in the skeptics group.

Actually the movement to stop with tracking is a huge nationwide movement that’s been going since the 70s.

Ok, so we have the one enlightened school and district in the nation that does not believe in tracking because of how ineffective it is. Too bad DCPS including Wilson does such a bad job anyway of educating our kids. Also, good idea maybe to have smaller classes in 9th but that just means huge AP classes. You think it will work well when kids who are already struggling get one year of a modicum of extra help and encouragement and then get shoved into crazy huge classes. Count me in the skeptics group.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like an excellent model and a common sense, simple and effective approach to the a racial inequity that should not exist in the first place. I hope they continue it.

So all common sense about creating tiered classes and really pushing the highest achievers doesn’t matter as long as each class is diverse. I’m genuinely curious about parents who putt diversity over all other academic pursuits for their kids.

The main issues with tiered classes is that pretty much every time they have been studied, it's been clearly shown that students aren't actually assigned to tiers based on ability, so the entire basis for this model is completely flawed from the start:

"The Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) was a comprehensive survey of mathematics taught and learned around the world... For the SIMS study, 8th graders in all four tracks completed a pretest of pre-algebra arithmetic skills at the beginning of the year. Researchers examined the distribution of scores on the test by student and by math track. Although it was expected that class-type performance would be different, Kifer and colleagues' (1993) analysis of student and classroom performance found considerable score overlap among tracks.

Only half of the students who achieved the top 10 scores on the pretest and one-third of the students in the top 25 had actually been placed in the algebra-level classes. Inequities existed on the other end of the proficiency spectrum as well: Nearly 50 percent of the students assigned to remedial classes had scores that were better than 25 percent of the students in general math. In addition, Kifer and colleagues found that 5 of the 23 remedial classes had higher mean scores than 75 percent of the students in general math, 50 percent of the students in pre-algebra, and 25 percent of the students in algebra."

https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html

These results have been replicated repeatedly -- over and over and over in school district after school district.

Some other issues:
1. The research shows that tiered classes are largely ineffective and increasing student learning.

2. The quality of teaching is lower in lower-track classes. Less experienced teachers tend to teach them, fewer resources are devoted to them and teachers are less engaged.

Here's an abstract of one of the first articles to systematically make these points: https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html.

Basically. like a lot of "common sense", tiered classrooms totally fail to stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

You know this crowd doesn't like looking at what the research says - they base everything on their own personal experiences with a dash of fear thrown in.

The truth is at Wilson you had students who were in the lower-tier classes that should not have been there in the first place. The true inequity that exists is that by the time you get to junior year if you haven't taken AP classes your GPA will not benefit from the additional weighting of AP classes. Anyone who has gone through the college process knows that grades are everything. If "Honors For All" opens things up for students that should be in those higher-level classes, I'm all for it. And I wish people would stop trafficking in the social narrative that kids of color/low SES will drag the classes down - it actually reinforces racism and discrimination.

From what I understand, there was some positive movement on the disparity in GPAs. The principal posts this data on the website I believe.

Signed Wilson parent.

Amen! I grew up in a school with a large number of ELL students and never felt they dragged us down at all. Intelligence doesn’t solely belong to white rich kids.

Who has argued that? (Answer: no one.)

People have questioned whether struggling or unmotivated students bring down high-achieving students. You are the first posters to attach a racial correlation to the discussion.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It sounds like an excellent model and a common sense, simple and effective approach to the a racial inequity that should not exist in the first place. I hope they continue it.[/quote]

So all common sense about creating tiered classes and really pushing the highest achievers doesn’t matter as long as each class is diverse. I’m genuinely curious about parents who putt diversity over all other academic pursuits for their kids.[/quote]

The main issues with tiered classes is that pretty much every time they have been studied, it's been clearly shown that students aren't actually assigned to tiers based on ability, so the entire basis for this model is completely flawed from the start:

"The Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) was a comprehensive survey of mathematics taught and learned around the world... For the SIMS study, 8th graders in all four tracks completed a pretest of pre-algebra arithmetic skills at the beginning of the year. Researchers examined the distribution of scores on the test by student and by math track. Although it was expected that class-type performance would be different, Kifer and colleagues' (1993) analysis of student and classroom performance found considerable score overlap among tracks.

[b]Only half of the students who achieved the top 10 scores on the pretest and one-third of the students in the top 25 had actually been placed in the algebra-level classes.[/b] Inequities existed on the other end of the proficiency spectrum as well: [b]Nearly 50 percent of the students assigned to remedial classes had scores that were better than 25 percent of the students in general math.[/b] In addition, Kifer and colleagues found that [b]5 of the 23 remedial classes had higher mean scores than 75 percent of the students in general math, 50 percent of the students in pre-algebra, and 25 percent of the students in algebra.[/b]"

https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html

These results have been replicated repeatedly -- over and over and over in school district after school district.

Some other issues:
1. The research shows that tiered classes are largely ineffective and increasing student learning.

2. The quality of teaching is lower in lower-track classes. Less experienced teachers tend to teach them, fewer resources are devoted to them and teachers are less engaged.

Here's an abstract of one of the first articles to systematically make these points: https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html.

Basically. like a lot of "common sense", tiered classrooms totally fail to stand up to rigorous scrutiny.



[/quote]

+1

Thank you, this is so helpful.[/quote]



Truly. This is such important information to have in this conversation. [/quote]


So why not just use a test to assign people to classes?

In my high school growing up, the smartest and most academic students were in the advanced classes; the struggling students were not. In between, among the generally bright students, there were surely some imperfect assignments, but overall it worked well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like an excellent model and a common sense, simple and effective approach to the a racial inequity that should not exist in the first place. I hope they continue it.

So all common sense about creating tiered classes and really pushing the highest achievers doesn’t matter as long as each class is diverse. I’m genuinely curious about parents who putt diversity over all other academic pursuits for their kids.

The main issues with tiered classes is that pretty much every time they have been studied, it's been clearly shown that students aren't actually assigned to tiers based on ability, so the entire basis for this model is completely flawed from the start:

"The Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) was a comprehensive survey of mathematics taught and learned around the world... For the SIMS study, 8th graders in all four tracks completed a pretest of pre-algebra arithmetic skills at the beginning of the year. Researchers examined the distribution of scores on the test by student and by math track. Although it was expected that class-type performance would be different, Kifer and colleagues' (1993) analysis of student and classroom performance found considerable score overlap among tracks.

Only half of the students who achieved the top 10 scores on the pretest and one-third of the students in the top 25 had actually been placed in the algebra-level classes. Inequities existed on the other end of the proficiency spectrum as well: Nearly 50 percent of the students assigned to remedial classes had scores that were better than 25 percent of the students in general math. In addition, Kifer and colleagues found that 5 of the 23 remedial classes had higher mean scores than 75 percent of the students in general math, 50 percent of the students in pre-algebra, and 25 percent of the students in algebra."

https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html

These results have been replicated repeatedly -- over and over and over in school district after school district.

Some other issues:
1. The research shows that tiered classes are largely ineffective and increasing student learning.

2. The quality of teaching is lower in lower-track classes. Less experienced teachers tend to teach them, fewer resources are devoted to them and teachers are less engaged.

Here's an abstract of one of the first articles to systematically make these points: https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html.

Basically. like a lot of "common sense", tiered classrooms totally fail to stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

You know this crowd doesn't like looking at what the research says - they base everything on their own personal experiences with a dash of fear thrown in.

The truth is at Wilson you had students who were in the lower-tier classes that should not have been there in the first place. The true inequity that exists is that by the time you get to junior year if you haven't taken AP classes your GPA will not benefit from the additional weighting of AP classes. Anyone who has gone through the college process knows that grades are everything. If "Honors For All" opens things up for students that should be in those higher-level classes, I'm all for it. And I wish people would stop trafficking in the social narrative that kids of color/low SES will drag the classes down - it actually reinforces racism and discrimination.

From what I understand, there was some positive movement on the disparity in GPAs. The principal posts this data on the website I believe.

Signed Wilson parent.

Amen! I grew up in a school with a large number of ELL students and never felt they dragged us down at all. Intelligence doesn’t solely belong to white rich kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like an excellent model and a common sense, simple and effective approach to the a racial inequity that should not exist in the first place. I hope they continue it.

So all common sense about creating tiered classes and really pushing the highest achievers doesn’t matter as long as each class is diverse. I’m genuinely curious about parents who putt diversity over all other academic pursuits for their kids.

The main issues with tiered classes is that pretty much every time they have been studied, it's been clearly shown that students aren't actually assigned to tiers based on ability, so the entire basis for this model is completely flawed from the start:

"The Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) was a comprehensive survey of mathematics taught and learned around the world... For the SIMS study, 8th graders in all four tracks completed a pretest of pre-algebra arithmetic skills at the beginning of the year. Researchers examined the distribution of scores on the test by student and by math track. Although it was expected that class-type performance would be different, Kifer and colleagues' (1993) analysis of student and classroom performance found considerable score overlap among tracks.

Only half of the students who achieved the top 10 scores on the pretest and one-third of the students in the top 25 had actually been placed in the algebra-level classes. Inequities existed on the other end of the proficiency spectrum as well: Nearly 50 percent of the students assigned to remedial classes had scores that were better than 25 percent of the students in general math. In addition, Kifer and colleagues found that 5 of the 23 remedial classes had higher mean scores than 75 percent of the students in general math, 50 percent of the students in pre-algebra, and 25 percent of the students in algebra."

https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html

These results have been replicated repeatedly -- over and over and over in school district after school district.

Some other issues:
1. The research shows that tiered classes are largely ineffective and increasing student learning.

2. The quality of teaching is lower in lower-track classes. Less experienced teachers tend to teach them, fewer resources are devoted to them and teachers are less engaged.

Here's an abstract of one of the first articles to systematically make these points: https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html.

Basically. like a lot of "common sense", tiered classrooms totally fail to stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

You know this crowd doesn't like looking at what the research says - they base everything on their own personal experiences with a dash of fear thrown in.

The truth is at Wilson you had students who were in the lower-tier classes that should not have been there in the first place. The true inequity that exists is that by the time you get to junior year if you haven't taken AP classes your GPA will not benefit from the additional weighting of AP classes. Anyone who has gone through the college process knows that grades are everything. If "Honors For All" opens things up for students that should be in those higher-level classes, I'm all for it. And I wish people would stop trafficking in the social narrative that kids of color/low SES will drag the classes down - it actually reinforces racism and discrimination.

From what I understand, there was some positive movement on the disparity in GPAs. The principal posts this data on the website I believe.

Signed Wilson parent.

Thank you. I am the OP, this is really helpful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like an excellent model and a common sense, simple and effective approach to the a racial inequity that should not exist in the first place. I hope they continue it.

So all common sense about creating tiered classes and really pushing the highest achievers doesn’t matter as long as each class is diverse. I’m genuinely curious about parents who putt diversity over all other academic pursuits for their kids.

The main issues with tiered classes is that pretty much every time they have been studied, it's been clearly shown that students aren't actually assigned to tiers based on ability, so the entire basis for this model is completely flawed from the start:

"The Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) was a comprehensive survey of mathematics taught and learned around the world... For the SIMS study, 8th graders in all four tracks completed a pretest of pre-algebra arithmetic skills at the beginning of the year. Researchers examined the distribution of scores on the test by student and by math track. Although it was expected that class-type performance would be different, Kifer and colleagues' (1993) analysis of student and classroom performance found considerable score overlap among tracks.

Only half of the students who achieved the top 10 scores on the pretest and one-third of the students in the top 25 had actually been placed in the algebra-level classes. Inequities existed on the other end of the proficiency spectrum as well: Nearly 50 percent of the students assigned to remedial classes had scores that were better than 25 percent of the students in general math. In addition, Kifer and colleagues found that 5 of the 23 remedial classes had higher mean scores than 75 percent of the students in general math, 50 percent of the students in pre-algebra, and 25 percent of the students in algebra."

https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html

These results have been replicated repeatedly -- over and over and over in school district after school district.

Some other issues:
1. The research shows that tiered classes are largely ineffective and increasing student learning.

2. The quality of teaching is lower in lower-track classes. Less experienced teachers tend to teach them, fewer resources are devoted to them and teachers are less engaged.

Here's an abstract of one of the first articles to systematically make these points: https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html.

Basically. like a lot of "common sense", tiered classrooms totally fail to stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

+1

Thank you, this is so helpful.

Truly. This is such important information to have in this conversation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like an excellent model and a common sense, simple and effective approach to the a racial inequity that should not exist in the first place. I hope they continue it.

So all common sense about creating tiered classes and really pushing the highest achievers doesn’t matter as long as each class is diverse. I’m genuinely curious about parents who putt diversity over all other academic pursuits for their kids.

The main issues with tiered classes is that pretty much every time they have been studied, it's been clearly shown that students aren't actually assigned to tiers based on ability, so the entire basis for this model is completely flawed from the start:

"The Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) was a comprehensive survey of mathematics taught and learned around the world... For the SIMS study, 8th graders in all four tracks completed a pretest of pre-algebra arithmetic skills at the beginning of the year. Researchers examined the distribution of scores on the test by student and by math track. Although it was expected that class-type performance would be different, Kifer and colleagues' (1993) analysis of student and classroom performance found considerable score overlap among tracks.

Only half of the students who achieved the top 10 scores on the pretest and one-third of the students in the top 25 had actually been placed in the algebra-level classes. Inequities existed on the other end of the proficiency spectrum as well: Nearly 50 percent of the students assigned to remedial classes had scores that were better than 25 percent of the students in general math. In addition, Kifer and colleagues found that 5 of the 23 remedial classes had higher mean scores than 75 percent of the students in general math, 50 percent of the students in pre-algebra, and 25 percent of the students in algebra."

https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html

These results have been replicated repeatedly -- over and over and over in school district after school district.

Some other issues:
1. The research shows that tiered classes are largely ineffective and increasing student learning.

2. The quality of teaching is lower in lower-track classes. Less experienced teachers tend to teach them, fewer resources are devoted to them and teachers are less engaged.

Here's an abstract of one of the first articles to systematically make these points: https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html.

Basically. like a lot of "common sense", tiered classrooms totally fail to stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

+1

Thank you, this is so helpful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like an excellent model and a common sense, simple and effective approach to the a racial inequity that should not exist in the first place. I hope they continue it.

So all common sense about creating tiered classes and really pushing the highest achievers doesn’t matter as long as each class is diverse. I’m genuinely curious about parents who putt diversity over all other academic pursuits for their kids.

The main issues with tiered classes is that pretty much every time they have been studied, it's been clearly shown that students aren't actually assigned to tiers based on ability, so the entire basis for this model is completely flawed from the start:

"The Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) was a comprehensive survey of mathematics taught and learned around the world... For the SIMS study, 8th graders in all four tracks completed a pretest of pre-algebra arithmetic skills at the beginning of the year. Researchers examined the distribution of scores on the test by student and by math track. Although it was expected that class-type performance would be different, Kifer and colleagues' (1993) analysis of student and classroom performance found considerable score overlap among tracks.

Only half of the students who achieved the top 10 scores on the pretest and one-third of the students in the top 25 had actually been placed in the algebra-level classes. Inequities existed on the other end of the proficiency spectrum as well: Nearly 50 percent of the students assigned to remedial classes had scores that were better than 25 percent of the students in general math. In addition, Kifer and colleagues found that 5 of the 23 remedial classes had higher mean scores than 75 percent of the students in general math, 50 percent of the students in pre-algebra, and 25 percent of the students in algebra."

https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html

These results have been replicated repeatedly -- over and over and over in school district after school district.

Some other issues:
1. The research shows that tiered classes are largely ineffective and increasing student learning.

2. The quality of teaching is lower in lower-track classes. Less experienced teachers tend to teach them, fewer resources are devoted to them and teachers are less engaged.

Here's an abstract of one of the first articles to systematically make these points: https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html.

Basically. like a lot of "common sense", tiered classrooms totally fail to stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

You know this crowd doesn't like looking at what the research says - they base everything on their own personal experiences with a dash of fear thrown in.

The truth is at Wilson you had students who were in the lower-tier classes that should not have been there in the first place. The true inequity that exists is that by the time you get to junior year if you haven't taken AP classes your GPA will not benefit from the additional weighting of AP classes. Anyone who has gone through the college process knows that grades are everything. If "Honors For All" opens things up for students that should be in those higher-level classes, I'm all for it. And I wish people would stop trafficking in the social narrative that kids of color/low SES will drag the classes down - it actually reinforces racism and discrimination.

From what I understand, there was some positive movement on the disparity in GPAs. The principal posts this data on the website I believe.

Signed Wilson parent.

This is PP. Sorry - first link should have been

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108013/chapters/What-Tracking-Is-and-How-to-Start-Dismantling-It.aspx

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like an excellent model and a common sense, simple and effective approach to the a racial inequity that should not exist in the first place. I hope they continue it.

So all common sense about creating tiered classes and really pushing the highest achievers doesn’t matter as long as each class is diverse. I’m genuinely curious about parents who putt diversity over all other academic pursuits for their kids.

The main issues with tiered classes is that pretty much every time they have been studied, it's been clearly shown that students aren't actually assigned to tiers based on ability, so the entire basis for this model is completely flawed from the start:

"The Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) was a comprehensive survey of mathematics taught and learned around the world... For the SIMS study, 8th graders in all four tracks completed a pretest of pre-algebra arithmetic skills at the beginning of the year. Researchers examined the distribution of scores on the test by student and by math track. Although it was expected that class-type performance would be different, Kifer and colleagues' (1993) analysis of student and classroom performance found considerable score overlap among tracks.

Only half of the students who achieved the top 10 scores on the pretest and one-third of the students in the top 25 had actually been placed in the algebra-level classes. Inequities existed on the other end of the proficiency spectrum as well: Nearly 50 percent of the students assigned to remedial classes had scores that were better than 25 percent of the students in general math. In addition, Kifer and colleagues found that 5 of the 23 remedial classes had higher mean scores than 75 percent of the students in general math, 50 percent of the students in pre-algebra, and 25 percent of the students in algebra."

https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html

These results have been replicated repeatedly -- over and over and over in school district after school district.

Some other issues:
1. The research shows that tiered classes are largely ineffective and increasing student learning.

2. The quality of teaching is lower in lower-track classes. Less experienced teachers tend to teach them, fewer resources are devoted to them and teachers are less engaged.

Here's an abstract of one of the first articles to systematically make these points: https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P7342.html.

Basically. like a lot of "common sense", tiered classrooms totally fail to stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does it mean to challenge high achievers? This is such a common thing that parents say, but then they also expect that their high achiever kids will get straight As. So is the request to challenge with course material that gets really smart kids Bs and Cs, and then grade on a curve?

I think that part of being challenged is not necessarily tackling the most complex material or racing through it as fast as possible, but learning in an environment where there are multiple perspectives and figuring out how to find a truth within it - I mean, that's what history and ELA is about. But it does require strong teaching to get there.

Parents here don't really care about anything beyond bragging rights.

I'd amend that to say 'many' or 'most' but agree that what DCUM parents seem to want for their students is: very high GPAs, high SAT/ACT scores, 5s on 6+ AP exams, graduate in the top 5-10% of their class, and admission to a top 30 college or university.

That’s BS. If that were true, people would be runnung from the top private schools rather than beating down their doors.

Anonymous wrote:What does it mean to challenge high achievers? This is such a common thing that parents say, but then they also expect that their high achiever kids will get straight As. So is the request to challenge with course material that gets really smart kids Bs and Cs, and then grade on a curve?

I think that part of being challenged is not necessarily tackling the most complex material or racing through it as fast as possible, but learning in an environment where there are multiple perspectives and figuring out how to find a truth within it - I mean, that's what history and ELA is about. But it does require strong teaching to get there.

This is well-stated. I was tracked in a gifted program growing up, and I have high-achieving kids at Deal; I will take the non-tracked, heterogeneous environment over my tracked experience every day of the week. I'm glad this is Wilson's approach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does it mean to challenge high achievers? This is such a common thing that parents say, but then they also expect that their high achiever kids will get straight As. So is the request to challenge with course material that gets really smart kids Bs and Cs, and then grade on a curve?

I think that part of being challenged is not necessarily tackling the most complex material or racing through it as fast as possible, but learning in an environment where there are multiple perspectives and figuring out how to find a truth within it - I mean, that's what history and ELA is about. But it does require strong teaching to get there.

Parents here don't really care about anything beyond bragging rights.

I'd amend that to say 'many' or 'most' but agree that what DCUM parents seem to want for their students is: very high GPAs, high SAT/ACT scores, 5s on 6+ AP exams, graduate in the top 5-10% of their class, and admission to a top 30 college or university.

Anonymous wrote:What does it mean to challenge high achievers? This is such a common thing that parents say, but then they also expect that their high achiever kids will get straight As. So is the request to challenge with course material that gets really smart kids Bs and Cs, and then grade on a curve?

I think that part of being challenged is not necessarily tackling the most complex material or racing through it as fast as possible, but learning in an environment where there are multiple perspectives and figuring out how to find a truth within it - I mean, that's what history and ELA is about. But it does require strong teaching to get there.

Parents here don't really care about anything beyond bragging rights.