The damaging effects of tracking on student potential in Texas public schools.

Karen SalernoFall 2007

Educ 737, Dr. Elizabeth MimmsUniversity of Michigan, School of Education

So…why am I here?

Define tracking and explain its problems and damaging effects on student success

Present data from Texas to illustrate the challenges

Begin constructing a framework for shifting ideals about how students learn

Provide resources for untracking your school

Part of the equation.

Educational inequities manifest themselves in a myriad of multi-faceted and complex schooling practices, decisions, and outcomes.

One means for beginning to assess and respond to inequities between student populations is to explore student access to rigorous curriculum.

A case study of Advanced Placement participation in Texas Public Schools serves to demonstrate the magnitude of inequity.

Policies and procedures for revising school practices to accommodate, challenge, and empower all students to make challenging educational choices freely have increased student participation in rigorous courses and had powerful impacts on student achievement.

What is Tracking?

“School tracking” describes the process of separating students into leveled course selections according to academic ability, typically demonstrated by standardized test scores.

In high schools, students get into tracks that either lead or do not lead to their participation in and completion of AP courses.

Tracking as troublesome.

The matching of students to different tracks carried with it racial, ethnic, and social-class overtones from the very beginning. Early on in the century, low-level academics and vocational training were thought to be more appropriate for immigrant, low-income, and minority youth, whereas rigorous academic preparation was seen as better meeting the needs of more affluent whites.” -Jeannie Oakes

“Tracking does not result in the equal and equitable distribution of effective schooling among all students. Instead, on the one hand, it allocates the most valuable school experiences…to students who already have the greatest academic, economic, and social advantages.” –Harriet and Romo

Tracking practices across schools result in entire schools being dominated by a remedial curriculum. In schools with large African-American and Latino enrollments,

“advanced “classes make up only 12 percent of math and science offerings.

In schools with an enrollment of 50 percent or more white students, “advanced” classes make up 34 percent of math and science course offerings.

Lowered expectations.

"Schools that establish high expectations for all students--and provide the support necessary to achieve these expectations--have high rates of academic success (Brook et al., 1989; Edmonds, 1986; Howard, 1990; Levin, 1988; Rutter et al., 1979; Slavin et al., 1989).

High expectations were measured by: an emphasis on academics clear expectations concerning regulations high levels of opportunity for student participation student access to alternative resources

When schools were rated as those with “high expectations,” schools saw improvements in the: rates of delinquency, behavioral disturbances, attendance, and academic attainment (even after controlling for family 'risk' factors).

The converse is true too.

Tracking: outdated.

By the end of the 20th century, our economy and the jobs available in it have changed so that earning a middle-class income requires much higher reading, writing, and mathematics skills than before. It simply does not make sense for our schools to track students into unchallenging coursework that prepares them for jobs that pay at or near minimum wage.

Jeannie Oakes of the University of California-Los Angeles concluded that "the tracking system is more a product of inertia in a school system than of the abilities of students" in the schools she studied

Impact.

"High school placements made in the eighth grade have profound occupational and educational outcomes." -Sanford Dornbusch, School of Education,

Stanford University

Latino students and tracking.

As highlighted previously, tracking more adversely affects minority students than their white peers.

Latino students and tracking continued…

The American Association of University Women’s report, Si, Se Puede! Yes We Can: Latinas in School, found that 70 percent of Latino high school students are enrolled in classes that will not prepare them for college. While students are being left behind in college preparatory courses, two deleterious effects arise. First, students are not being adequately prepared to

undertake college level coursework.

Second, their transcript is being constructed in a manner that will limit their competitiveness in the college admissions process. A rigorous course-load, while weighted different in different admissions committees, is a highly regarded factor on a student’s application and student participation or non-participation in AP courses weigh heavily on determining eligibility for college admission.

The courts noticed too.

The inequities inherent in this system have not gone unnoticed. In fact, in the case Castaneda et al v. University of California Regents that plaintiffs stated “…we argue that as colleges and universities develop admissions programs in a post Grutter and Gratz legal environment, they must take into consideration the lack of AP and other educational opportunities that exist in high schools.

Tracking in Texas

In Texas, tracking begins in kindergarten with the identification of “Gifted and Talented” because they scored high on standardized ability tests…Students are traced into coursework in secondary schools based on their norm-references test scores, or NRTs.

Federal laws, most notably Chapter I-a federal program aimed at improving the educational outcomes of children from disadvantaged backgrounds-require that all schools receiving this type of federal assistance use NRTs.

Challenges in Texas

Latino students are disproportionately underrepresented in AP enrollment district-wide; schools that serve urban, low-income Latina/o and African American communities have low student enrollment in AP courses; and even when Latina/o and African American students attend high schools with high numbers of students enrolled in AP courses, they are not equally represented in AP enrollment.

Students in a low ability academic track are less likely to participate in the AP Program because they do not have the preparation necessary to perform college level work while in high school.

Although the participation rates for Hispanics and African Americans in Texas public schools have been climbing steadily over the past five years, only 9.6% of Hispanics and 5.5% of African Americans took an AP examination in 2000. By comparison, 14.9 % of Whites and nearly one-third (31.3%) of Asian Americans took an AP examination that year.

Student Participation in AP Courses http://www.tea.state.tx.us/research/

pdfs/ap-ib_2005-06.pdf

Student Success on College Admissions Assessments http://www.tea.state.tx.us/research/

pdfs/sat-act_2005.pdf

Secondary School Completion and Drop Out

Rates http://www.tea.state.tx.us/research/pdfs/dropcomp_2005-06.pdf

How the data informs us…

The underrepresentation of minority students in advanced placement courses indicates that schools need to assess their policies and procedures in order to identify catalysts for change.

Although a causal relationship has not been identified between the tracking of schools and decreased student achievement, research has served to prove the success of rigorous curriculum for achieving increased academic outcomes.

Student participation in advanced placement courses will increase student competitiveness in the college admissions process.

What Schools Can Do to Increase Student Participation One of most effective means: Cohort Groups Richard Scott, East High School, Madison,

Wisconsin said that one of the biggest barriers to minority student participation in AP is their fear of being alone. Student say, “I don’t want to be the only black student in there.”

Students meet in groups to learn about AP courses and counselors suggest that the small cohort of students register for a class together.

Looking at Schools Differently Fundamentally, when schools begin to un-track,

they conceptualize the act of schooling with an entirely different agenda. Schools begin to encounter challenging questions… What is our mission? What do we want all our students to know when they

leave our school? How are our grouping practices compatible with our

mission and goals? What are the values that will guide us in developing

alternatives? What kinds of curriculum and instruction can enhance new grouping practices?

How will we assess student progress? How can we introduce change without sacrificing our

best practices? How will we explain our changes to all the constituencies who have a stake in our school?”

Paradigm Shifts

Releasing intelligence rather than quantifying it Nurturing effort rather than defining ability Building strengths rather than sorting according

to weakness Developing dispositions and skills necessary for

lifelong learning across all areas of knowledge rather than imparting particular information in a given subject area

Balancing concepts with meaningful content Building on students’ aspirations rather than

circumscribing their dreams Recognizing students as members of a learning

community rather than as products of an assembly line

What about Math?

Successful heterogeneous grouping I math requires new approaches to curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Case Study

Math activities for a heterogeneous math classroom Students take on assignments of polling their

classmates on TV-watching habits and graphing their findings

Students work together to apply what they have learned about fractions to the drawing of a blueprint of their own school building to scale

Mixed-ability groups study charts and tables related to the environment, crime, and economic issues that appear in the daily newspaper and consider the questions, “What do these tables tell us?” and “What else could they mean?”

Groups come up with their own imaginary tables of equivalents and present symbolic illustrations of these tables on large poster paper for explanation to the whole class.

Complete untracking cannot happen overnight… Even if schools make the decision to

keep differentiated classes, however, they can still create positive learning conditions that offer their students excellent teaching, guided by high expectations.

Schools can work together to set goals for eventual untracking.

Example Goals from Frick Junior High School Oakland, CA Maximize the number of students taking algebra by

ninth grade Minimze the number of students leaving Frick’s

ninth grade and enrolling in general or remedial math in tenth grade

Have students realize that the pursuit of mathematical understanding is a cooperative enterprise

Introduce all students to the wide range of concepts and ideas that fall under the umbrella of mathematics

Instill in students the willingness to try something when they come to a problem that might not be familiar (and to give them the skills to approach these problems)

Have students enjoy mathematics

Tracking as a public policy issue

As a country we need to realize the long-term results of tracking. Then we must commit ourselves to educate all students. Only a change in philosophy of education-away from the factory model-can bring about needed results. Our country will not survive in its present form with anything less. Launa Ellsion, Clara Barton Open School,

Minneapolis

Questions?