It's why School Without Walls is a hot franchise.

True, PP, but since it is good for strong students, their parents find ways to make sure they are either around other strong students by moving schools or moving geographically. P

Tracking is good for strong students, not so much for everyone else.

The solution is to do it very intensively at the lower grades so that all the inequities (background, SES, learning differences, etc) are little to no factor by high school. Without the tracking/ ability grouping you simply have the entire system teaching to the middle. The less attention you give to the lower end of the bell curve the lower that middle sags as the grades progress.

^^^
So how do you eliminate the move-or-attend-private model of tracking?

Physically force focused high-achieving kids to attend class with unmotivated low-achieving kids?

Seems to me the problem is finding a way to create high-achieving and motivated students in groups that have traditionally underperformed.

IMO, trying to catch up at 9th grade is infinitely harder (and rarely successful) than doing it at ages 2-5. More focus should be placed on getting kids ready to succeed when they are 4.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've learned that one's pro/anti tracking position is directly related to one's child position in said tracking. Now what?

Let's be clear; go into any highschool in MD or VA and you will see a racialized tracking system with brown and black kids in remedial classes and Whites and Asians in the top tracks. For those located in the lower tracks you have the least qualified teachers, a scripted curriculum, low expectations and more seat work. The message, you are not worthy. Some children are being tracked to become CEOs others are being tracked to jail. This is not an exaggeration. Read the research...Jeannie Oakes.

You don't need to go to VA, you can go to most states and see this. But is it the fault of tracking? Having worked in and having had a child in a school that was all minority I saw a lot of other issues that affected how well these kids learned including language ,yes even the American born parents could not speak the English you need for a job. Parental involvement, not talking here about running the PTA, but the type that will take their kid to the library and ask teacher what his happening with my kid, why are you not pushing him more. Finally a lot of stress, emotional and financial. These kids often face difficult situations that do interfere with learning. Personal control, not sure why but the poorer the kids the more likely they are to not have good personal self control, or maybe they have fewer parents that medicate them, don't know but it is there. I used to think teachers were being lazy when they said that poor kids just had so many more issues, but wow do they. Tracking may magnify the problem, but the school system essential become forms of tracking because middle class parents pull their kids out of these schools so the whole school becomes tracked as problem

Bingo-I think you nailed it here.We are so uncomfortable here in DC with tracking because the "model" of tracking has been to either move to better schools outside of the district (that track as well), move to private school (that start from a higher median of achievement), have a couple of schools in upper NW (plus Banneker and a few other islands of achievement) that have high achieving middle class white and black kids, and then the REST of the city for 60+ years is working on catching kids up since the middle class is already outta there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've learned that one's pro/anti tracking position is directly related to one's child position in said tracking. Now what?

Let's be clear; go into any highschool in MD or VA and you will see a racialized tracking system with brown and black kids in remedial classes and Whites and Asians in the top tracks. For those located in the lower tracks you have the least qualified teachers, a scripted curriculum, low expectations and more seat work. The message, you are not worthy. Some children are being tracked to become CEOs others are being tracked to jail. This is not an exaggeration. Read the research...Jeannie Oakes.

You don't need to go to VA, you can go to most states and see this. But is it the fault of tracking? Having worked in and having had a child in a school that was all minority I saw a lot of other issues that affected how well these kids learned including language ,yes even the American born parents could not speak the English you need for a job. Parental involvement, not talking here about running the PTA, but the type that will take their kid to the library and ask teacher what his happening with my kid, why are you not pushing him more. Finally a lot of stress, emotional and financial. These kids often face difficult situations that do interfere with learning. Personal control, not sure why but the poorer the kids the more likely they are to not have good personal self control, or maybe they have fewer parents that medicate them, don't know but it is there. I used to think teachers were being lazy when they said that poor kids just had so many more issues, but wow do they. Tracking may magnify the problem, but the school system essential become forms of tracking because middle class parents pull their kids out of these schools so the whole school becomes tracked as problem

Anonymous wrote:We've learned that one's pro/anti tracking position is directly related to one's child position in said tracking. Now what?

Let's be clear; go into any highschool in MD or VA and you will see a racialized tracking system with brown and black kids in remedial classes and Whites and Asians in the top tracks. For those located in the lower tracks you have the least qualified teachers, a scripted curriculum, low expectations and more seat work. The message, you are not worthy. Some children are being tracked to become CEOs others are being tracked to jail. This is not an exaggeration. Read the research...Jeannie Oakes.

Anonymous wrote: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.

In 9th grade????

Anonymous wrote:Is it fair for the parents of bright children to sequester their child's talent for[s] private[/s] PERSONAL gain? Is it fair to ask for magnet schools?

absolutely it's fair...it's an appropriate education, not just a bare-bones...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

Please. So your solution if to put my child reading at grade 6 level in a class with an English class with a child who can barely read for the public good? Then the world will end up with 2 low-performing children instead of one.

This world needs scientists and engineers to solve its many problems. Abusing smart children by boring them to tears in school instead of nurturing their talents is a loss for society as a whole.

This actually happens far less often that people think. Yes there are incredibly smart kids but by definition they represent about 5% of all kids and maybe we do have to figure something different out, but it is only 5% of all kids. My bigger issue with these kids is they also need the social skills, so yes maybe they should have to help the struggling kid a bit so they don't get massively inflated egos. Had one of these at our last school yes he was smart. Could read Michener and other advanced books in 5th grade, but he was insufferable and rude to everyone around him. Course home training was an issue also.

Anonymous wrote: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?

Please. So your solution if to put my child reading at grade 6 level in a class with an English class with a child who can barely read for the public good? Then the world will end up with 2 low-performing children instead of one.

This world needs scientists and engineers to solve its many problems. Abusing smart children by boring them to tears in school instead of nurturing their talents is a loss for society as a whole.

Here is the problem as I see it. Tracking is often a result of parental ambitions and or knowledge rather than the true skill set of the kids. So poorer kids who with some extra enrichment would really shine rarely get the chance and middle and upper class duds often are pushed in by an insistent parent and struggle sullen on at the bottom of the class. Montgomery county especially struggles with this problem. The kids in the middle often are the ones that are shafted because not much effort is made in that area.

Having grown up in a poor SES area with tracking it made a huge difference for me, but I knew a lot of smart kids without the push from home that got a crappy education. What I saw lacking in my youth were proactive teachers that pushed kids who were on the margin to extend themselves to get to a more rigorous program. However, by high school if you don't have the motivation you should not be able to torpedo kids who will work harder opportunities. Maybe I would even say that should be the case by 7th grade. The real question in my mind is how kids get started in education. Currently in DC if you are poor with a few exceptions you will be stuck at the bottom tracking or differentiation. You just start out too far behind. Nothing about our current curriculum or teaching can really pull these kids forward. Few exceptions seem to be Kipp and maybe a couple other charters. All the rest of the schools are changing because they are getting middle class kids in, not pulling kids up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

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?

I'm not PP, but I would say that they're our best source of... human capital. It should be in everyone's best interest to help them develop their potentials.

If you have a heart attack, the person who is going to crack your chest open is not the same kid that is struggling to read in the 3rd grade.

Talented children are treated as less than an afterthought in DCPS, but they are there and they aren't all in Ward 3.