TRACKING OF STUDENTS IS AN UNWISE POLICY

TRACKING DISCRIMINATES BASED ON RACE AND LEADS TO RACIAL STEREOTYPING

Datnow, Amanda. Ph. D UCLA professor at Johns Hopkins. 1998 ``The Gendered Politics of Educational Change`` //ee2000 rls pg 28

Research has consistently shown that when schools track, students from different racial groups are not offered equal opportunities to learn (Oakes, 1985; Oakes, Gamoran and Page, 1992). AfricanAmerican and Latino students who are disproportionately placed in low track classes systematically receive fewer resources: teachers are less qualified, expectations are lower, the curriculum is watered down, and there are fewer classroom materials. White students who are disproportionately placed in the high track are advantaged by receiving more qualified teachers, greater classroom resources, and an enriched curriculum designed to prepare them to attend college (Oakes, Gamoran and Page, 1992). As a result, tracking leads to class- and race-linked differences in opportunities to learn and gaps in achievement between white students and their minority peers. Additionally, because tracking in racially mixed schools resegregates students, it constrains inter-group relations and perpetuates stereotypes related to race (Oakes and Wells, 1995).

RACE AND SOCIAL CLASS DETERMINE STUDENTS ``TRACK`

Datnow, Amanda. Ph. D UCLA professor at Johns Hopkins. 1998``The Gendered Politics of Educational Change`` //ee2000 rls pg 28

The most disturbing finding about -tracking is the strong correlation between race, social class, and track placement. Studies consistently find that low income and minority students are disproportionately placed in low track classes, and advantaged and white students are more often placed in the high track (Braddock and Dawkins, 1993; Oakes, 1985). In high schools, low income, African-American, and Latino students are underrepresented in college preparatory programs, and they are more frequently enrolled in vocational programs that train for low-paying, dead-end jobs (Oakes, 1987). At all levels, minority students lack representation in programs for gifted and talented students. However, despite extensive research suggesting that track placement is influenced by race and social class biases, proponents believe that tracking is meritocratic. Furthermore, many educators strongly believe that students learn better in groups with other students like themselves (Kulik and Kulik, 1982).

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TRACKING PRE-DETERMINES WHICH STUDENTS ARE IN ADVANCED PLACEMENT

Christine Baron, a high school English teacher in Orange County, June 1, 1998, Los Angeles Times; Part B; Page 2; HEADLINE: EDUCATION: SMART RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS AND PARENTS // acs-VT2000

To understand the effect rigid ``tracking`` has had on this situation, you have to talk to the students themselves. When I ask most of my honors students how they wound up in AP English, they will invariably respond, ``I`ve been in GATE gifted and talented classes since the fourth grade; I always sign up for the honors section.``

The tendency to stay in the honors track once you`re on it is a given, even with a less than stellar performance.

But when I ask a bright non-honors student why he or she isn`t in AP, the answer is, ``Oh, I was never `identified` as a gifted student in elementary school.`` Or, ``I didn`t do well in Honors English freshman year, so I`m out of the program now.``

STUDENTS REMAIN IN THEIR ``TRACKING GROUP`` THOROUGHOUT THEIR LIVES

Datnow, Amanda. Ph. D UCLA professor at Johns Hopkins. 1998 ``The Gendered Politics of Educational Change`` EE2000 rls pg 27-28

The Beyond Sorting and Stratification study grew out of an interest in discovering some of the ways in which racially-mixed schools were moving away from tracking. Tracking, almost universal in American schools for the past century, is the practice of sorting students into different programs of study based on their perceived academic ability. The term `tracking` is often used interchangeably with the terms `ability grouping`, `homogeneous grouping`, and `curriculum differentiation`. These terms all imply some means of grouping students for instruction by ability or achievement in order to create homogeneous instructional groups. Ability grouping at the elementary level usually leads to tracking at the secondary level. Secondary schools vary in the number, size, and composition of tracks; however, students are generally assigned to a track level -- basic, regular, college preparatory, or honors/ advanced placement - in which they remain for their high school career.

SORTING CHILDREN EXACERBATES INEQUALITY

Valerie Wheeler, English teacher at Casey Middle School in Boulder, Colorado, and a member of the National Coalition for Equality in Learning; Ward J. Ghory., Director of the Upper School at Buckingham, Browne and Nicols School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Evaluator for the National Coalition for Equality in Learning; and Robert L. Sinclair, Professor of Education at Texas A&M University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts, Director of the National Coalition for Equality in Learning, 1997. REACHING AND TEACHING ALL CHILDREN Grassroots efforts that work. ``Toward Equality Schools,``// GJL p. 91

In Equality Schools, children are not sorted into permanent groupings that suggest that some children are better than others. One stubborn obstacle to equality in school settings is the belief by many educators that students need to be sorted to be taught efficiently. Most evaluation systems used in schools reinforce this presumption by rewarding those at high levels of achievement with steady promotion to exclusive learning environments with increasingly more abundant resources to promote advanced learning. These high-status settings bring together top teachers, rigorous curriculum, and dynamic students in a potent mix. Outside these special places, however, learning often languishes among those who start to believe that they do not have all that it takes and that they cannot be all that they would like to be. Even farther out on the fringes are the dumping grounds, such as special education or alternative schools in some districts, where students who do not fit into the prevailing learning environment are consigned and accommodated without real prospects.