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Yeah, tracking would actually make teaching easier because teachers could specialize in the particular tracks. Trying to teach a class with a wide variety of learning styles and aptitudes is more difficult and professionally frustrating.
However, in the U.S. this has resulted in creating de facto "black" and "white" tracks (or sometimes intentional) and that's a problem.
In France they have tracking and officially don't track racial statistics because constitutionally they are all French. However the outcomes are very racialized and native born white French do a lot better than immigrant and non-white French kids. Occasionally this is criticized.
Last edited by redguard57; 09-18-2022 at 11:41 AM..
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,726 posts, read 58,079,686 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RamenAddict
I think there are also different types of tracking. Some systems do it on a per class basis, so you are with the same group of kids throughout the day even in higher grades. Others may just have a few levels. ...
Getting kids all in one class in the high school level is really problematic. The level differences are just too big.
Multi grades and skill levels being taught together worked quite well in country schools of yesteryear (in USA), and still some rural ranch / island schools and international schools today.
We often use upper level or advanced students to mentor the younger or special needs students.
Not your average 'jam packed' / 'herd-the-sheep' public school. But... there are effective ways to do it. (Of course the professional administrators here, would never consider it. "BTDT, it won't work, blah, blah, blah".
Ironically... it DOES work in some situations. Great for the needy students + the high achievers and especially great for the instructors. Some HS students will excel elsewhere (Skills, academics, music, invention, business...), and should not be required to attend school.
I'd love an educator to provide a fact base, non emotion based, explanation of why a system such as tracking that provides an ability based educational outcome, is harmful, yet holding the A's to the same level as the D's isn't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
I know MANY educators who favor tracking. Stop making assumptions and lumping all educators together.
Where in the question is any assumption about what educators, as individuals favor?
I know MANY educators who favor tracking. Stop making assumptions and lumping all educators together.
I thought later about this post, and I want to take it a step further. I think most public school teachers would prefer some degree of tracking...until, of course, they get the low class.
Multi grades and skill levels being taught together worked quite well in country schools of yesteryear (in USA), and still some rural ranch / island schools and international schools today.
We often use upper level or advanced students to mentor the younger or special needs students.
Not your average 'jam packed' / 'herd-the-sheep' public school. But... there are effective ways to do it. (Of course the professional administrators here, would never consider it. "BTDT, it won't work, blah, blah, blah".
Ironically... it DOES work in some situations. Great for the needy students + the high achievers and especially great for the instructors. Some HS students will excel elsewhere (Skills, academics, music, invention, business...), and should not be required to attend school.
How do you know, "Multi grades and skill levels being taught together worked quite well in country schools of yesteryear?" Were you in one of these schools or do you have research to back up that statement?
Where have you heard of, "upper level or advanced students to mentor the younger or special needs students?" There may be rare cases where this is done, but it is not the norm.
What is, "your average 'jam packed' / 'herd-the-sheep' public school?" I sub at one district where they have classes that have as many as 30 students in a classroom. In other districts, I rarely see more than 24. Classroom sizes vary around the country and from district to district. In many districts, it is a simple matter to fund a few more teachers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer
Yeah, a C average student isn't getting into AP classes anytime soon.
I've seen C average students in AP classes. They are taking the class, but have no interest in taking the AP exam.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
I thought later about this post, and I want to take it a step further. I think most public school teachers would prefer some degree of tracking...until, of course, they get the low class.
But with the low class, you typically are co-teaching with a learning support teacher and have 1-2 aides to assist. With tracking it would be easier to make these classes smaller than other classes.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Quote:
Originally Posted by villageidiot1
How do you know, "Multi grades and skill levels being taught together worked quite well in country schools of yesteryear?" Were you in one of these schools or do you have research to back up that statement?
Where have you heard of, "upper level or advanced students to mentor the younger or special needs students?" There may be rare cases where this is done, but it is not the norm.
....
I'm a 4th generation teacher.
I attended a country school (Mixed age and skill)
As a family we volunteered in a country school that did just that... (upper grades mentored younger / needy)
I still volunteer in that school, they still do the mentoring thing. It's very successful. Some mixed aged classes are over 30 students, in some areas they are over 50 students.
My adult kids still mentor and tutor needy students.
International teachers we host do similar, and often follow their students by teaching the different grade levels for 6+ yrs (in mixed age / skill level classrooms).
Just because it may not be done in YOUR district / region / country... does not mean it's not done, or it WON'T work.
The Failure of U.S. Public Education alive and well!! (unfortunately)
How do you know, "Multi grades and skill levels being taught together worked quite well in country schools of yesteryear?" Were you in one of these schools or do you have research to back up that statement?
...
What is, "your average 'jam packed' / 'herd-the-sheep' public school?" I sub at one district where they have classes that have as many as 30 students in a classroom. In other districts, I rarely see more than 24. Classroom sizes vary around the country and from district to district. In many districts, it is a simple matter to fund a few more teachers.
...
But with the low class, you typically are co-teaching with a learning support teacher and have 1-2 aides to assist. With tracking it would be easier to make these classes smaller than other classes.
1. You make a good point re the first thing I bolded. In fact, several days ago in some thread -- maybe this one -- I asked the question about how do people know that education is so much worse now than in the past. Where's that data. I go back to the late 1960s when I was in high school in New York State, and the one measurement I was aware of was results in the state Regents exams. But that was only certain subjects. Other than that, before NCLB, do we have much data?
2. I haven't looked at any fresh data, so the data I'm talking about is back in the period of 2000-2008. But at principal meetings in Fairfax County Public Schools with central office administrators, the topic of class size often came up, even though our class sizes were, for the most part, pretty reasonable. But the central administration claimed -- and backed it up with studies -- that class size wasn't a factor until it approached 40. Which I always disagreed with -- having taught one year when I had 40 students in a class and 6 classes a day -- but had no data to back up my assertion.
3. In terms of the "low class", yes, today, if that includes mainstreamed students, there often is a support teacher in the class. I was, again, going way back to my teaching years, and in several schools where I taught there was typically 'low', 'average', and 'high' classes, with high being in the gifted range (sort of), and the special education kids not mainstreamed. But even in the period 2000-2008, I would have teachers in my school whose ego was wrapped around teaching gifted. Would you believe that we had one math teacher who was so powerful in the county that he threatened to get assistant superintendent fired if he was forced to teacher 'regular' kids (oh the horror!). I had another teacher, this time science, who told me she was the most qualified to teach only gifted classes. When I asked her what that qualification was, her response was, "I am the oldest teacher in the department"; which, frankly, may have disqualified her since several other teachers in the department had taken college coursework regarding gifted education. In my particular school it was a horrible ego trip on the part of many teachers.
Last edited by toobusytoday; 09-19-2022 at 10:45 AM..
Reason: Changed sped to special education
I know I shouldn't do this, but how is that segregation? Each kid has been in the same classes for the same number of years to that point. While we can argue around the separation between and A and a B; clearly the kid with the A has performed better than the kid with the C or D.
We award medals and millions of dollars to the fastest running, the best passer, etc in sports. Why in academics is performance suppressed and mediocrity rewarded.
I'd love an educator to provide a fact base, non emotion based, explanation of why a system such as tracking that provides an ability based educational outcome, is harmful, yet holding the A's to the same level as the D's isn't.
And, furthermore, as you have mentioned in the past, education is just about the only area where our society accepts and even rewards mediocrity. The City Data Work and Employment forum is full of posts by managers saying things like "average is over".
I was recently talking to one of my classmates from high school, and he admitted that back in 7th grade, he would intentionally answer questions wrongly on exams in order to get a B rather than an A so that the teacher and classmates would like him better! He also said that he regrets not having the courage to stand up for me when he saw teachers who were clearly mistreating me for no valid reason. I think it's ridiculous that somebody would feel pressure to answer questions wrongly to be better liked. I'm sure the posters in this forum will just argue that it meant that my classmate had good "soft skills" and that mine were bad, and I'm sure they'll argue that my classmate knew how to "read a room" and I didn't. But I think that's a ridiculous argument. Would you want a doctor who occasionally intentionally misdiagnoses patients?
Years ago, when my brother was in 4th grade, my mother ran into my brother's 4th grade teacher in the supermarket. And his teacher openly admitted to my mother that she does not care about my brother at all, because she only cares about the remedial students. My mother was, rightly so, annoyed, and said that for the taxes we are paying, we deserve teachers who care about all of their students. My father, not surprisingly, defended the teacher, saying that it's not her job to care about students, her job is to get paid, and that my brother has to learn that life isn't fair. Somehow, I don't think that anybody would defend a doctor who said he/she doesn't care about his/her cancer patients, and only cares about his/her heart disease patients. My brother, being a doormat, of course agreed with my father.
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