Ask an Expert: Judy Goddess
Using California School Law To Advocate For Your Kids

TRACKING

I don't believe in tracking, but my son's fifth-grade teacher does. What should I do?

You should organize a group of like-minded parents to challenge this practice. In the meantime, as long as your son is in a classroom where students are tracked into ability groups, I would try to get him into one of the top groups, though many teachers and some parents would not agree. Students who are perceived as successful — by their teachers, families, and peers, and by themselves — often have an easier time in school.

Although skill-level grouping is a common school practice, particularly in subjects where one segment builds on another (e.g., children need to know their letters before learning to read), decades of research have documented the damaging effects of tracking on both slow learners and quicker students. Because teachers anticipate that students in the lower tracks will have more problems learning, they often try to protect them by giving them a simplified, watered-down curriculum and limiting the time devoted to academic instruction. At the same time, the intensity of being expected always to excel places inordinate pressure on the top track. Students seem to learn best in mixed-level classes, where the faster students have an opportunity to share their knowledge and where the slower students are not humiliated for having problems in learning a particular subject.

The relationship between tracking and racism has figured in several recent lawsuits, including one by parents of Hispanic and other minority students in the San Jose Unified School District. The parents in that case argued that tracking was, in effect, resegregating the schools. The court agreed, and ordered the district to implement desegregated and mixed-ability classes in grades K–9, and to show progress toward desegregation in high school classes.

Tracking (or ability grouping) continues to be a controversial educational and legal issue. Currently the harm has been defined by courts primarily in terms of racial segregation. Intelligence and achievement tests, teacher recommendations, and other devices have been put to questionable use in segregating disproportionate numbers of African-American children into low-ability groups that offer little or no chance of advancement into mainstream classes. An ever-growing body of research on ability grouping demonstrates that tracking shows little or no significant increase in achievement for children at any intellectual level. At the same time, it indicates that considerable damage is done to the self-esteem and motivation of children placed in the lower tracks.

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