Untracking

• For many years, educators and researchers have challenged the use of
between-class ability groups at all levels

• The National Governors’ Association recommended moving away from

traditional ability grouping practices, and a number of guides to untracking
and examples of successful untracking have been published
• Untracking is a focus on having students in mixed-ability groups and
holding them to high standards but providing many ways for students to reach
those standards.
• Yet the road to untracking is far from easy, especially in middle schools and
high school
• Untracking requires changes in thinking about children’s potentials, not only
changes in school or classroom practices
Between-Class Ability Grouping
• This between-class ability grouping can take many forms

• For examples:
• In some high schools there might be college preparatory and general tracks
that divides students on the basis of measured ability

• In some junior high and middle schools, students are assigned to one class by
general ability, and they then stay with that class, moving from teacher to
teacher

• In others junior high and middle schools and high schools, students are
grouped separately by ability for each subject, so a student might be in a
high-performing math class and an average-performing science class
Research on Between-Class Ability Grouping

• Researchers have found that although ability grouping might have slight
benefits for students who are assigned to high-track classes, these benefits are
balanced by loses for students who are assigned to low-track classes.

• The primary purpose of ability grouping is to reduce the range of student

performance levels that teachers must deal with so that they adapt instruction
to the needs of a well-defined group.

• Furthermore, concentrating low-achieving students in low-track classes

seems to be harmful because it exposes them to too few positive role models
Research on Between-Class Ability Grouping

• Studies have found that teachers actually do not make many adaptations to
the needs of students in low-ability groups.

• Several studies have found that the quality of instruction is low-track classes
than in middle –or high-track classes

• For example,
• Teachers of low-track classes are less enthusiastic
• Are less organized
• Teach more facts
• Teach fewer concept
Research on Between-Class Ability Grouping

• Schafer and Olexa, interviewed one non-college –prep girl who said that she
carried her general-track books upside down to avoid being humiliated while
walking down the hall

• One student described in an interview how he felt when ho went to junior

high school and found out that he was in the basic track:

• Stating that it changed:

• Our ideas
• Our thinking
• The way we thought about each other
• And turned us to enemies toward each others,
• By Anne Wheelock
Research on Between-Class Ability Grouping

• A study by Yonezawa, Wells, and Serna (2002) found that even in high
schools in which students are theoretically given “free choice” of academic
levels, African American and Latino students disproportionately ended up in
low-levels classes

• The creation of grouping that are so often associated with social class and
race is impossible to justify in light of the lack of evidence that such
grouping are educationally necessary.

• Although individual teachers can rarely set policies on between-class

ability grouping , it is useful for all educators to know that research
does not support this practice at any grade level, and tracking should be
avoided whenever possible.
Research on Between-Class Ability Grouping

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OFSgVQjdN