Warped Soul of an Old Machine: The Technology of Tracking

 

Tracking is a technology. You can't plug it in, but--like 3-ring binders, twelve grade levels, and the agrarian calendar--tracking is an educational technology. A device dreamed up for the purpose of making schooling more "efficient."  A tool.

And just as a man with a hammer sees every problem as a nail, school technologies are often considered the "obvious" solution to every dilemma we face in schools. Many of these durable cogs in the vast education machine date back to the era when poor immigrants were flooding city schools at the same time the industrial age promoted a technical approach to everyday tasks. Everything from traffic management to measuring the intelligence of army recruits could be done better through science--and many of these efficiencies were translated into educational practice as the system expanded.

We seem to have a national compulsion to sort, identify, select, test, standardize, compare and compete in our schools. Intellectual growth, unfortunately, does not automatically thrive via classification or homogeny. Human learning is neither predictable nor controllable, and doesn't happen at a consistent rate. Students respond in different ways to varying content, disciplines and instructional models--not to mention different teachers and emotional states.  Lots of bad education policy has been created by people who assume that uniformity is a great virtue. And even more bad policy has been instituted by folks who believe that the way they learn best is the way all people learn, or should learn.

And so it is with tracking, the technological solution to the non-problem of having a roomful of learners who don't know precisely the same things.

Here's my worst experience with tracking, from the early 80s, when I was teaching one section of 7th grade math. The 7th graders were divided, using reliable assessment data from 6th grade state tests, into five tracks: Honors (which was Pre-Algebra), Advanced, High/Low Basic, and Special Education. I taught Low Basic. Every 10 weeks, we gave a common assessment (from the math text) and moved kids from track to track, based on their scores-- in theory, a system that would allow us to continuously fine-tune our stratified instruction, and use the "motivation" of quarterly opportunities to move up to higher tracks. Even though students were not studying the same topics at exactly the same time, the assumption was that since we were all following a sequenced curriculum, but differentiating the pace and amount of practice, kids who mastered something in September (or 6th grade) would still know it in January. That turned out to be not true.

After the first 10 weeks, 16 of my 30 students qualified to move up--two went all the way up to Honors--and I got 16 new kids who'd struck out in the higher tracks. With every 10-week shuffle, I got dispirited kids whose math egos had taken a beating, and had to convince them that they could indeed re-master ratios, probability, negative integers or whatever had stopped them in their tracks. Approximately a third of the kids got moved around every quarter. By the final quarter, I had only 6 of my original kids (one of whom confessed that he deliberately blew his quarterly move-up tests so he could stay with me).

It was hard on my Basic kids, who felt that they'd been written off, early in the game. But it was hardest on the kids who started out in Honors, then drifted downward all year, ending up in Basic. Tracking did much more than impact egos and the social system--it made a muddle of instruction. My Basic kids were constantly saying "I already learned this"--even when their tests indicated that they were clueless. In each of the four quarters, my group--scientifically selected for uniformity-- had superstars and laggards. And students continued to need different ways of learning critical content and skills.

There are a number of education critics who believe that differentiating learning in mixed-ability groups is not truly workable. I know that it is, because I've done it, for decades. You start building equity by demanding excellence from everyone, rather than trying to figure out who might not be "capable" of excellence, or how to stretch achievement data over a curve rather than pushing everyone as far and fast as possible. Everyone should get the good stuff--the most rigorous content, their teachers' confidence that high levels of learning are within reach for all. There are more insidious beliefs hidden by the practice of tracking. But let's not go there--because that would be giving the creaky obsolete technology of tracking more power and attention than it deserves.

Comments

[mratzel]

Right on Nancy!!! My experience with tracking matches with yours. Struggling students have to have hope that they can learn and improve or it's all over for them. There's nothing you can to do to motivate them.

For me, as a teacher of math and science, differentiating learning is hard. But it's not impossible. Clearly math is much easier than science...kids come to me with lots of experience about the topic but varying abilities. Science...not so much. They are much more homogeneous.

Nevertheless, I think you can differntiate for both kinds of students. For math, I see that flexible grouping is really the key...and I mean a system that is very fluid and dynamic so that you preserve their hope and belief that you will help them and they will move up. In science, I think differentiating for students is much more about products that content...you might be able to change the pacing a bit.

As I coach students through their math and science years, content has to match the head game of hope. Tracking destroys hope and pigeon holes students into slots from which they feel they can never escape. That is not teaching, in my book, that's giving on students.

[Melissa B.]

We had a bad experience with tracking and our youngest. Every spring, the elementary schools in our district give a statewide "GT" test to certain 6th-graders, to determine where the kids will be "tracked" in middle school. To make a long story very, very short, the principal at our elementary school was feuding with my husband, so she did not give our daughter the test. Our kiddo went into the classes with the lower-achieving kids. She spent the entire year trying to explain to her 7th-grade teachers why she was in a class with the "slow" kids. Needless to say, I'm a big proponent of "mixing it up" in classes. Why track the kids? That's not how the "real world" works!

[CTTeacher]

Your school's old tracking system sounds awful. I would not want to work in a school with 5 rigid divisions based on test scores. At the same time, is mixed-ability grouping always the best solution?

I work at a school where most core academic classes are offered as honors/AP or as college prep (CP). Students have a lot of flexibility in which classes they sign up for. Students who are motivated and feel they can handle a more challenging workload generally sign up for honors classes.

I think this system does a pretty good job of striking a balance between tracking and homogeneity. As a former gifted and talented student, I can testify that without some sort of "ability grouping" I would have lost much of my interest in and motivation for school and would have had much more difficulty making friendships.

Do you think there can be a happy medium?

[Nancy Flanagan]

No matter how carefully you try to adjust instruction by long-term grouping, growth and learning cannot be standardized. The story I mentioned was not about a "bad" tracking program--it was about a program where we were determined to use tracking to target instruction even more specifically than usual, a kind of super-tracking. And it still didn't work.

Yes, it's fine to offer different courses and have students select the course levels that interest and challenge them. But that's not tracking. All good teachers informally group kids for certain assignments, and tailor challenge levels to push some kids harder. That's not tracking, either. It's differentiating instruction.

Most people who insist that students have to be tracked say that it's easier on teachers-- or that very bright kids find school boring unless they're grouped with other bright kids. Hey, I'm smart. I got very high test scores. There was no such thing as "gifted education" in my school. Lots of my teachers offered extra things to read, advanced math problems, scholarships to Interlochen to nurture my musical talents--but there was never a program whisking me away from the other kids, nor did I feel justified in claiming that I would be "bored" if I didn't get recognition and special instruction. Truly gifted kids are seldom bored--their raging curiosity keeps their minds active.

[kimberlyjean]

Wonderful post! Tracking is something that, by far and large, is accepted in our schools and not questioned. Tracking can have exponentially worse effects on kids every year they are tracked (bright students believe they are entitled or "better" than the other kids, or more obviously, the slower students get farther off of the pace and self-esteem plummets through the floor.)

I mentioned your article along with my own thoughts on tracking on my site: organicedu.org.

[Barbara Toney]

What a terrible system!

What I felt was the biggest problem with our tracking system (A,B,C, Honors) was that all of the role models were pulled out of the B and C track classes. Kids were did their homework, behaved properly, liked to participate, etc. were all moved up into the higher track. The kids left all reinforced poor choices and lackluster motivation.

When we mainstreamed our special ed kids about 15 years ago I was concerned about how they would impact the rest of the class and whether they would be able to keep up. It worked out beautifully and has been beneficial for all students.

A thoughtful article. Thanks.

[renda extra]

Great post, i've already subscribed to your feed. thanks.

[Dinheiro]

Very cool blog and nice post, congratulations!