Tracking
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Social Darwinism Resurrected for the New Gilded Age
The fittest will survive and perhaps have a chance at that ever-shrinking middle class. The rest will flounder, but we have the "ethos of the meritocracy" to rescue us from any pangs of moral conscience.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
Exit Exams Boost the School to Prison Pipeline
A new study sheds startling light on a strong connection between high school exit exams and rates of incarceration.
Teaching
Opinion
Michelle Newsum: Tracking Our Way to Wider Achievement Gaps
Under the fear created by NCLB/RTTT, large scale ability group tracking has made its way back into schools. Because tracking is commonly considered odious, and the research does not support it, no one calls it that. It is now given cuter or more palatable names like 'Walk to Read' or 'Intervention Time' even 'Flexible Grouping.' (Although some schools have flexible grouping and intervention time that takes place in classrooms and is quite lovely.)
Teaching
Opinion
What Do You Think Of Using Ability Groups & "Tracking"?
This week's "question of the week" is:
"What does research say about use of ability groups/tracking, and how have you seen it used or misused? What are workable alternatives?"
"What does research say about use of ability groups/tracking, and how have you seen it used or misused? What are workable alternatives?"
Teaching
Opinion
Could This Be Everything You Wanted to Know About Tracking But Were Afraid to Ask?
Should we be tracking (ability grouping) students? This posts provides research to help you decided.
Education
Opinion
New Research on Tracking and Value-Added
My fellow Ed Week blogger Stephen Sawchuck highlights some interesting new research suggesting that student tracking in middle and high schools may create biases in value-added measures that make them weaker predictors teacher effectiveness in high school than in the elementary grades. I highlighted Kirabo Jackson, who conducted one of the studies, here last year.
Classroom Technology
Opinion
Grouping, Tracking, & Personalizing
An international educator told me his school community was discussing the "ethics and educational validity of streaming -- deliberately dividing students up into class/work groups based on ability, i.e., a strong and weak group." He asked for my thoughts.
Education
Opinion
Abandoning Age-Tracking
Tamara Fisher explores multi-age readiness-grouping, an alternative educational strategy to the age-tracking commonly used in most American schools.
Education
Opinion
Beyond Tracking: Multiple Pathways
Education reformers sometimes take on stances that carry good ideas to absurd lengths. One of those that has concerned me recently is the idea that the only acceptable outcome for a K-12 student is completion of a four-year college degree. This is what the jobs of the future will demand, we are told. But when I look at the shambles our economy is in, I begin to wonder who is better off, a college graduate with a degree in English and $50,000 worth of debt, or someone who has managed to get a strong set of skills as a carpenter, an electrician, or any number of technical positions that require training but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree.
Student Achievement
Study Offers Ways to Better European Education
School systems that track students into certain classes and academic programs based on ability end up worsening disparities between high and low performers, according to a far-ranging report that offers recommendations for improving education across Europe.
Education
Report Roundup
Academic Tracking
An international study suggests that rigid tracking of students into different classes by their academic ability provides little or no payoff for improving a nation’s overall academic achievement.
Education
Letter to the Editor
High Schools’ Redesign: More Tests and Tracking?
Beware of politicians promoting more testing and tracking of students.
Student Achievement
Explainer
Tracking
Tracking is a commonly used term for ability grouping, the practice of lumping children together according to their talents in classrooms.
Student Achievement
Opinion
When Excellence And Equity Thrive
To close the achievement gap, writes Carol Corbett Burris, schools should stop dividing students into separate curriculum tracks.