Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education Seattle Public Schools to end "tracking"

I guess given this trend at pretty much all schools have folks had luck working with the schools to create differentiated environment for their DD/DS? If so how?

Please note the trend is just not in public schools. I have seen highly rated private school shy away from differentiation in the guise of "applying too much pressure", "Test teaching" etc. Part of this trend is getting rid of APs in private high schools.

Thank you, Bostonian, for posting this excerpt. It piqued my curiosity to consider that the influence of a teacher in NY has determined policy and practice on the opposite coast... a national influence. Being the author of several books extends her reach. I did a web search on Carol Burris. She has written two books sharing her viewpoint against grouping students by ability:
1) Detracking for Excellence and Equity (2008)
2) On the Same Track (2015)

To her credit, she currently does NOT support Common Core. Two thoughts on this:
1) Ironically, before flip-flopping her viewpoint, she made money by publishing a book on how to implement core (2012).
2) Some of us were aware of the development of these tests from early on, and the roles which they would play, even as common core "standards" were being crafted to usher these tests and data collection methods in: What other views does she hold? Many people oppose common core, including some who once supported it. Many people also oppose excessive standardized testing, and data collection. Often these viewpoints are found to be philosophically consistent with respecting each student as an individual with unique talents, challenges, and learning needs... therefore not philosophically compatible with promoting a one-size-fits-all classroom.

Who is Diane Ravitch, author of the articles on Carol Burris & Common Core, quoted earlier in this post? How might she feel if "the wonderful public school in Brooklyn" which two of her grandsons attend were to announce discontinuation of any selection criteria and advanced academics? Yet these may be the ideas foisted on other families, partly by influence of Network for Public Education (NPE), of which Diane Ravitch is president and to which she recently appointed Carol Burris as executive director of the NPE fund.

Here I see two ladies "playing" with education policy, as long as it affects someone else's kids.

What about NPE? According to statements on its webste, it was co-founded in 2013 by Diane Ravitch and Anthony Cody.

Here's the list of ideas which NPE supports. I do not see a statement against grouping students by ability.

The NPE website states that (emphasis added)

In supporting Carol Burris' anti-tracking message (and furthering a policy and practice of teaching students in classrooms which encompass all ability levels) possibly Diane Ravitch, was unaware of, overlooked, or discounted this important data and research, which indicates that students learn more when grouped with others of similar ability:
1) http://www.casenex.com/casenet/pages/virtualLibrary/gridlock/groupmyths.html
2) http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rbdm9204/rbdm9204.pdf

KJP and puffin,

I believe the research shows that kids learn better when grouped by ability -
1) http://www.casenex.com/casenet/pages/virtualLibrary/gridlock/groupmyths.html
2) http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rbdm9204/rbdm9204.pdf

Addressing a different aspect of this discussion thread: Because the OP's article mentions "tracking", this may be a good time to re-iterate some definitions:

Tracking. A rather permanent group consisting of age-peers moving together through the grade levels. Pupils are generally advanced in all subjects. Commonly receiving curriculum instruction one grade level ahead of gen-ed age-peers. For many HG+ pupils, this is not enough curriculum advancement for them to learn something new each day, remain challenged, and engaged/achieving. When kids get on the "track" they typically do not leave; Similarly, new kids may have a difficult time getting on the track, as a "track" is generally considered closed. A magnet-school-within-a-school may be a form of tracking: a student is either in it, or not.

Cluster grouping. Originally called flexible cluster grouping to distinguish it from tracking. May include pupils from different grade-levels. Pupils may be advanced in one or more subjects. Students may have single-subject acceleration (SSA) of one or more years. The ideal may be flexible cluster grouping by readiness and ability, regardless of age or grade level, therefore combining children of various ages, classrooms, and grade levels.
These links provide more information on flexible cluster grouping by readiness and ability:
http://www.casenex.com/casenet/pages/virtualLibrary/gridlock/groupmyths.html,
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rbdm9204/rbdm9204.pdf
Unfortunately, the buzzword "cluster grouping" may be used (mis-used) to mean one or more gifted kids within a particular classroom, not necessarily being taught at a higher level but rather being treated as somewhat auto-didactic (often due to schools buying into the myth that because they are gifted, they will be fine on their own).

Thanks for those definitions, Indigo.

My son's former middle school is moving away from tracking to supposed in-class differentiation. This school has top math scores in our state-- but they're falling victim to the common core notion that "deep" will satisfy advanced students.

I feel really strongly-- based on my own kids' deep frustration with being unable to advanced at a reasonable pace-- that this single track is the wrong approach and puts the best math students at a disadvantage they might not be able to overcome.

Last March, the Atlantic magazine had a really good article about the problem. Some excerpts:

' “If you wait until high school to attempt to produce accelerated math learners...the latecomers will find themselves missing too much foundational thinking and will struggle, with only four short years before college, to catch up,' [according to Po-Shen Loh, the head of the US math team]. These days, it is a rare student who can move from being “good at math” in a regular public high school to finding a place in the advanced-math community."

"The cumulative effect of these actions, [not addressing advanced math needs in public school] perversely, has been to push accelerated learning outside public schools—to privatize it, focusing it even more tightly on children whose parents have the money and wherewithal to take advantage. In no subject is that clearer today than in math. "

"The ratio of rich math whizzes to poor ones is 3 to 1 in South Korea and 3.7 to 1 in Canada... In the U.S., it is 8 to 1. And while the proportion of American students scoring at advanced levels in math is rising, those gains are almost entirely limited to the children of the highly educated, and largely exclude the children of the poor. By the end of high school, the percentage of low-income advanced-math learners rounds to zero."

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/the-math-revolution/426855/

Whether you agree with them or not, both Diane Ravitch and Carol Burris have had long careers in education. Exactly what experience is required of a woman before she is taken seriously as an advocate versus 'two ladies "playing" with education policy,'. Is educator of the year or assistant Secretary of Education not enough?

Rather than concern myself solely with how highly credentialed these individuals are, in making the statement that "Here I see two ladies "playing" with education policy, as long as it affects someone else's kids.", I focused on the totality of the circumstances, as found on the internet:
- the apparent flip-flopping of viewpoints on educational trends/issues,
- their ability to ride the surf of any given educational trend in vogue over the years,
- willingness to experiment with its application on our children in public schools,
- market books about it,
- while their progeny were educated in PRIVATE schools, RELIGIOUS schools, and High-Performing Public schools,
- and credible research on cluster grouping appears to have been ignored:
1) http://www.casenex.com/casenet/pages/virtualLibrary/gridlock/groupmyths.html
2) http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/rbdm9204/rbdm9204.pdf

Please don't overlook or trivialize the information in my post (with carefully researched links to sources), and attempt to side-step the discussion into a supposed gender war.

Thanks for excerpts from the article in the Atlantic, syloblrig.

As for differentiation, too often children do not receive differentiated instruction, but differentiated task demands.

Agreed. There are multiple parts to this:
1) In a one-track approach, the best math students may not gain a year's worth of knowledge in a year of school. This may help close the achievement gap or excellence gap, which benefits teachers and schools which are rated on this basis.
2) These benefits to teachers/schools for closing the gap comes at a cost to these students (the former "best math students"): They may learn to underachieve, their brains may undergo changes, they may find it difficult to take on a challenge and begin learning again.

Agreed. And while your choice of words above was poor, I agree with your sentiments about Burris and Ravitch. BenjaminL, the problem, I think, isn't that people AREN'T taking Ravitch and Burris seriously so much as that they ARE.

I've done a lot of education grant review and have attended education conferences. I've met people who, when talking about good students, really believe that "they're already proficient!" and therefore don't need anything else.

My best guess is that these individuals have a well-founded concern about poor-performing students who are at great risk of failure, and really want to help them. From their perspective, someone who's already proficient doesn't need anything extra, especially because the needs of the other students seem to be more urgent in their eyes. The good students have so much. Why give them more? They seem to see the situation as either/or: either we help the poor performing students or we take away what little they have by letting them languish in demeaning tracked classes. They really believe this. They're also not seeing that top students can fail, too. They may not fail in the same way as the poor students, but failing is still failing.

These educators strike me as defining the task as imparting knowledge X in year Y. If a student has this knowledge by December, that's great. Full stop. There's no need to provide more knowledge, because the next chunk comes in year Z and it's not Y's job to impart Z's knowledge.

(TBH, I've always wondered if there's some begrudgery going on, too.)

Either way, I fail to see why teaching more to the poor performers is incompatible with teaching more to the best students.

I have read a couple of books from Diane Ravitch, including "The Death & Life of the Great American School System - how Testing and Choice are undermining Education". My conclusion is she is losing her marbles. She is against everything and for nothing - against NCLB(even though she helped create it), against Common Core, against Charters, against Vouchers, both for and against teachers' union, and her solution to all our education problem is...wait for it...fix poverty.

This current progressive trend of seeking equity over excellence is what's really killing our education system. People are born with different aptitude and drive. Closing the achievement gap just means holding down the ceiling while (failing to) raise the floor. My favorite books on education these days are:
1) The Feel Good Curriculum - the dumbing down of America's kids in the name of self-esteem by Maureen Stout
2) Bad Students Not Bad Schools by Robert Weissberg
3) Real Education: Four simple truths for bringing America's schools back to reality by Charles Murray

With respect to the effectiveness of in-class differentiation, from my son's experience, it is ineffective the way it is usually implemented. What usually ends up happening is the teacher gives the advance kid (after the parents asked for it) some advanced math worksheets to work on in class -- alone, with little to no help or checking from the teacher. Eventually the child loses interest and stops doing it and the teacher just tells the parents well your child isn't interested what can I do.

My son also experienced the pull out group in the lower grades. It was equally ineffective. They tried to group too many kids of varying abilities in one group, and worked on stuff that primarily aimed at the lowest level kid in the group. The worksheets are mostly again enrichment (more problem solving) rather than teaching new material. Plus it was only 2x/wk for 40 minutes each time. The rest of the time they remained bored to tears.

Our district's full time self-contained gifted program only goes from 3rd-5th grade. The math was supposed to be a 3rd/4th grade combination class, the top third of the class remained bored and unchallenged, while the bottom third struggled to catch up. Most of these classes are again all about enrichment (i.e. busywork) rather than acceleration.

I have heard from parents that the full time gifted class made no difference, that when their children got to HS, they are taking the same classes and getting the same grades as those who didn't get into the gifted class. In our district by middle school the self-contained gifted class goes away and all kids are allowed to self select into advanced math and science track, though they are limited to advancing only 1 grade level ahead in math and science. My one child who didn't get into the gifted program ends up taking the same advanced classes and grades as the kids who were in the gifted program. I think what this means is the gifted class was ineffective in advancing the gifted kids. Too much enrichment aka busywork not enough acceleration.

Most schools, like our district, just put in a half-hearted gifted program so they can check off a box. The kids who are outliers in the gifted continuum will remain bored and unchallenged. They are better off letting these kids skip grades as mine ended up doing. It's hard for the kids when they skip alone. But if there is a small group of kids who skip 1 or 2 grades together, it won't be so bad. They will have a peer group to socialize with.