I mentioned this article to our school principal. In light of budget cuts and increased class sizes, I asked if there was any movement to cluster or track kids in classrooms according to ability. He bristled at the mere mention of "tracking." He denied that there was any merit in such grouping except for gifted kids (we have a gt program at our school). He did not address how he meets the needs of gifted kids who are not in gt classrooms. At the same time, he said that they differentiate in the classrooms by doing small group clustering when appropriate for a specific skill. He proceeded to tell that his teachers did not find it difficult to differentiate. (Funny, that's not what I've heard . . .)
It seems like "tracking" is a taboo word but "clustering" is not. I just found it disappointing that he would not even discuss changing how they assign kids in the traditional classrooms. It seems like it would be easier for teachers if they only had to teach a span of 1-2 levels as opposed to 4-5.
