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Research Question:
Research Question:
What are the advantages and disadvantages to modern-day academic tracking or ability grouping in U.S. public schools?
Motivation and Importance:
Motivation and Importance:
- I was inserted into the accelerated track of my public school system in Gwinnett County, GA during first grade at around the age of 5 or 6. I can recall the test that placed me in the accelerated track as being a very silly exam that tried to figure out the creativity or unique thought of a very young student based on a multiple-choice test. This does not feel like the best method to find "smarter" students and I have always been interested in how lucky I got to be placed on the accelerated track this early and the effect that it has on students.
- Is it morally correct to separate students that are faster learners or more creative thinkers into other somewhat more prestigious courses? Is there even an adequate method to divide students into "accelerated" and non?
- This question is of extreme importance due to the effects that accelerated programs in public schools have on receiving acceptance into top universities and in correlation attaining higher earning jobs in the future.
- This research will hopefully be geared to U.S. public school policy makers in the Department of Edu. or at a more local level in distinct public school districts on accelerated tracking and promotion of students into those programs.
Resources:
Resources:
- Teaching Tolerance put out a YouTube video in 2010, which explores the history, practice, perils and alternatives to grouping students for classroom instruction according to their perceived abilities.
- This research article in the Harvard Educational Review from 1996 covers the topic of detracking in a four case study on tracking in public schools and how litigation and continued research can help change the policy of accelerated tracking in schools.
- Kevin Welner and Jeannie Oakes (1996) (Li)Ability Grouping: The New Susceptibility of School Tracking Systems to Legal Challenges. Harvard Educational Review: September 1996, Vol. 66, No. 3, pp. 451-471.
- This research article in the 1998 Fordham report gives context and history to U.S. public schools' usage of tracking and ability grouping, while also giving new research and data to come up with policy proposals.
- Loveless, T., & Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. (1998). The tracking and ability grouping debate (Fordham report ; v.2, no.8). Washington, D.C.: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.
- This website page on the National Association of Secondary School Principles explains the idea of tracking and the current stance on it amongst principles with recommendations.
- This is a much more modern-day page on the pros and cons of tracking written by the public school review in 2018.
- This is an article written in the Huffington Post in 2017 that displays someone's personal experience with tracking and encompasses some more research on the topic of tracking in public schools.
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