Just a few off the cuff comments...

The middle schooler who was not able to get into the class she wanted was left out due to a teacher not giving her a recommendation. Her grades were fine. This is not a product of tracking, more of a discrimination. Much like many of us have been on the receiving end of when we wanted our kids to get some accommodations. Perhaps there was a set number of kids per class and they had to draw the line somewhere. To assume it was racially motivated is a disservice.

Secondly, this: “But,” he writes, “schools serving more students of color are less likely to offer advanced courses and gifted and talented programs than schools serving mostly white populations, and students of color are less likely than their white peers to be enrolled in those courses and programs within schools that have those offerings.”

Well, of course! I live in a poor district and let me tell you money is the biggest factor on what can be offered. That and high stakes testing takes resources away from everyone because you have to have the good test scores or else. Poorer districts can be disproportionately minorities. Our school district looks to me (via eyeballing a classroom) to be about evenly split between whites and minorities. In my case, our district is extremely small and extremely poor. My state and locality aren't fond of funding appropriately (not the kids' fault).

Third, if the schools would let kids take the classes they may want instead of saying no, the kids would be forced to sink or swim. You never know until you try. Assuming a child is not up to the task is a disservice to all. Sometimes you have to work hard to pass a class. Sometimes you take a class and say, "hey, this isn't for me." You really don't get that option to drop a class until college level. They won't do this because (circling back to high stakes testing) having a risk of a higher failure rating is not good for being able to have good test scores overall for your school.

Finally (I realize this is so long!!!) if there were resources to truly and adequately address different learning styles/paces for each individual, this would be much less of a problem. My kids are math whizzes. That doesn't mean they should be frustratingly held back to stay with the herd. Conversely, a child who learns things more slowly and needs more repetition should be able to have that too.

I don't have a problem with ability grouping so long as a student or a parent can intervene to get put in a different track.

As an aside, my 8th grader told me before that her and her friends are so anxious about college because they were constantly told to think about careers, taking tests to determine abilities/interests, etc. My state requires this type of thing as part of the curriculum. While I agree that one should ponder the great what if -- what do I want to do with my life? -- one should not be 13 and freaking out that you don't know what you want to be. I told her not to stress -- a large number of college students change their major in the first year or two. Obviously they didn't know for sure what they wanted to do either!