Talking Point 6

Tracking: Why Schools Need to Take another Route by Jeannie Oakes
Premise:
· Parents
· Teachers
· Students
· Schools
· Tracking
· Positives and negatives
· Day-to-day learning
· Caring
· Unfairness
· Consequences
· Uneven opportunities
· Typical classroom
· Inequality
· High- ability and low ability
Argument:
Oakes argues that tracking yes has positive sides, but overall can really damage a students learning. She also argues that many educators and policymakers are looking for alternative strategies to help schools reach their goal of providing high-quality, relevant education for all students. Along with these two arguments, I feel that there are two more that are required to be mentioned and are the most important arguments too. Oakes argues that many educators and parents assert that when schools group by ability, teachers are better able to target individual needs and students will learn more. However, she argues that growing numbers of school professionals and parents oppose tracking because they believe it locks most students into classes where they are stereotyped as “less able,” and where they have fewer opportunities to learn.
Evidence:
1. On page 178 under Tracking’s Consequences, John Goodland’s national study of schools, reported in the book A Place Called School, students in high-ability English classes were more likely to be taught classic and modern literature, while those of lower-ability do not receive the same learning strategies.
2. Through tracking students in lower-ability classrooms learn basic reading skills through workbooks, kits, and easy-to-read books. While students in a higher-ability class were personally taught by their teacher. This shows the difference based on “ability” and how this approach is discriminative.
3. With the separation, higher-level students are required to have more homework every night than a student in a lower-level. This is unfair to the higher student. Along with this the higher-level students’ teachers seem to be more enthusiastic about teaching, introduce lessons clearly, use strong criticism or ridicule more frequently, there are better organizational skills, and students are given more of a variety of things to do. Leading to students who need more time to learn appear to get less; those who have the most difficulty learning seem to have fewer of the best teachers. Creating an unfair aspect in the school.

Points to Share/Comments:
This article I found interesting, but at the same time I really struggled finding the real argument making it difficult to completely comprehend the materials and have a clear understanding. Personally, I feel that tracking in schools is not needed; it can damage a smart student, who because of the division, now is not given the same awareness as a student in the higher-ability course. There are pros and cons to this, but I am still confused on if it is a good thing or not. Mainly I believe it depends on the school environment, meaning public or private. Overall, I understood this reading a little but I still think I need to reread some parts of the article a few times to really let it sink in.