http://news.yahoo.com/decade-criticism-student-grouping-rises-170948578--politics.htmlAfter decade of criticism, student grouping rises
By PHILIP ELLIOTT | Associated Press – Mon, Mar 18, 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) — Teachers say they are grouping students of similar abilities with each other inside classrooms and schools are clustering pupils with like interests together — a practice once frowned upon — according to a review of federal education surveys.
The Brookings Institution report released Monday shows a dramatic increase in both ability grouping and student tracking among fourth- and eighth-grade students. Those practices were once criticized as racist and faced strong opposition from groups as varied as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to the National Governors Association.
"Despite decades of vehement criticism and mountains of documents urging schools to abandon their use, tracking and ability grouping persist — and for the past decade or so, have thrived," said Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the centrist Brookings Institute's Brown Center on Education Policy, who wrote the report.
Ability grouping was common during the 1960s and '70s in elementary school and allowed educators to put their students already in the same classroom into smaller clusters based on their understanding of the lessons. For instance, students who already had mastered their basic multiplication tables could go ahead and start working on more advanced calculations.
Tracking is similar, but happens between academic years and divvies the high school students up into schedules based on their records. An example would be to send some sophomore students into honors courses while others remained in basic courses.
Both faced criticism because they exacerbated racial and socioeconomic differences.
"What happens is ability groupings create stigma and stigma is a bad thing," American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said in an interview. "The moment that you create a label that says 'this is a slow learner' or 'this is a fast learner,' that's a stigma you've created for a kid."
*********************************************
Comment on the last paragraph -- there *are* fast learners and slow learners.
