The tracking that I participated in, and yes... that was in the '70...
... allowed the gifted kids to go into greater depth and tackle more challenging problems. For example, our writing assignments were held to a different standard than the regular class. But we still had a year of Biology while the other kids were having a year of Biology. We were just getting college prep Biology, I guess. So we didn't really ever get ahead. We did take a year of calculus and a year of physics senior year that the average kids didn't take.
It was also allowed that a non-gifted kid could take up to two gifted classes per year if they were recommended by a teacher. So if you were advanced in math, but were not in the gifted tracking, you could still take the gifted math.
1) Maybe they started tracking at a later age, middle school, so that kids could switch in and out of classes each 60 minutes, and not stay with the same group of kids all day if necessary. In middle school, a kid also has a semester of American History or Algebra 1... so the content is self-contained, so to speak. You don't have to worry about another teacher picking up where the first teacher left off.
2) I believe that they allowed anyone to take the assessment test, which I think was the ACT, for entrance to the gifted program each fall, for as many times as they wanted to try. So it was not necessarily based on one test on one day.
Not too bad a system. It labeled the top 20 kids as gifted, but it did not distinguish between the other 100 kids or so as being average or below average. There was never a group of kids that were labeled as "dumb". I serious wished my son's school had tracking. It is like having a small gifted school imbedded in the public school system.
Good point, squirt, about teacher bonuses. Teachers didn't have to worry about that back in the good ole ancient days. Teachers were just paid for showing up and teaching.
Starting to ramble, so it must be time to shut off the computer for the night.
<zonk>
