Debate Over Ability Grouping Gains High Profile

The debate over ability grouping in public schools appears to be escalating, and supporters of the practice are increasingly being placed on the defensive, experts on both sides of the issue agree.

"Something happened to make this build as an issue, starting in a real big way in about 1990,'' said Robert E. Slavin, a principal research scientist at the Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students at Johns Hopkins University. "Whenever anybody holds a meeting on this topic, it is packed to the rafters.''

According to Peter D. Rosenstein, the executive director of the National Association for Gifted Children and a defender of grouping students by ability, it has become "politically correct to deny that there are...

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