I think tracking is a very negative aspect of education and should be removed. Like our readings were saying, it is a way to re-segregate our schools. Often there is an over-representation of students from minorities, the lower class, and or males. It is ridiculous to tell a student this is all you can do, you'll never be able to do any better, and there's no way you could get into college. Every student has large amounts of potential. How can you accurately measure potential? It's impossible. If students have enough motivation and support that can achieve most things they strive for. It is not our right to take this opportunity away from them. Most of the proponents of tracking are parents with academically gifted students who believe their students are being held back be students who aren't. This has proven to be false. Heterogeneous settings have been shown to have no negative effect on these students and homogeneous ones have been shown to help only the very top 3%. They seem to forget that we have to worry about the other 93% too. Why should we do something that helps such a minuscule percentage of students, but harms a large percentage? Research has proven time and time again that students put on the low tracks are detrimentally harmed in their self-esteem and their educations. Large-scale tracking is by far no the answer to our educational problems.

I agree with you that tracking is terrible.If you track students, they know who is on the college track and who's on the lower-level track, and that causes a self-fulling prophecy where if the students think they aren't smart, they will try to prove you right. That's not what we want. We want to educate students and get them to try their hardest, not give up because they think they're incapable based on their tracking level.

I guess I have never really thought of tracking as a bad thing. In high school it wasn't really made known what pathway we were on. If we were going to go to college then we said we were but no one really cared about the other persons pathway. I guess I can see how it is a negative thing though. It can segregate the schools but when I look back at my high school I see that it was segregated anyway. There were cliches everywhere and majority of the time these cliches all had the same plans after high school. I don't think this had anything to do with their pathways. I do think that tracking can be restrictive however. If a student chooses to follow a pathway that leads straight into the work force but then decides that they want to go to college they have to change their pathway to fit the standards. If everyone was just required to do the same things then this would not be a problem. Everyone would be held to equal expectations.

I myself hae never really seen tracking as a negative thing until now. I myself was always on the college track and never really thought about any other track or if there were any more. I can now see how this would affect people on the opposite end. I believe this could be negative because expecially in high school students are very competitive toward one another and with you "label" students they get mixed emotions on how they portray the strudents that you are labeling and also how the teachers view those students. I'm sure that some students would think that teachers favor the college track students. I do think in a way that it is good for teachers to set their sights up to help students achieve what they student can achieve at whatever level they are at but I do not think that teachers should label students anymore because I can see how it would be a negative impact more so than a positive one.

I also view tracking as negative. I believe that each individual student should have equal opportunities and the best teachers possible, no matter what the class. My older brother was always in honors and AP classes throughout school. I was asked to be in these classes as well during middle and high school. Luckily my Mom asked me what I thought about taking these honors and AP classes and I refused. I really did not have to think about it, I knew I did not want to leave my friends to take different classes or have extra homework come in the way of other activities. At the time I was not thinking ahead to college, but even now looking back on it I would not have changed anything. Now I am just as far along or further in school than anyone that took honors and AP classes at my school. Though I made this choice on my own, most students don't have this opportunity. All students should be looked at as equal and not one smarter than the other. Tracking will force lower level students to lose confidence and stop trying. In all reality these lower level students just need to be pushed and encouraged and they can turn out just as successful as anyone on the college track.

I have never given tracking much thought until our discussion in class. Perhaps because I was always in University Prep and never thought to want to go higher because there was no higher track. But I suppose it is pretty awful if you're stuck in a track that preps you to ONLY graduate and come junior year you decide you wish to go to college and at this point it's too late because you can't get out of where you're at. It also seems like tracking is a caste system of sorts that you can't go up or down, ever. It really is telling kids (subliminally) just what type of person they'll be all their lives: wonderful and successful or "lazy" and "no-good." No wonder the kids in the lower tracks have no urge to do anything--they're told they couldn't achieve it if they tried! Pitiful!

I think tracking is unnecessary. I went to a middle school where everyone was considered an honors student. Everyone took the same level of classes so it took the pressure off of the students thinking they were in a higher or lower level class. I think it made me strive to be a better student and work harder because all of my friends were doing it too. When I entered high school, I took AP and honors classes and I feel like it was basically more work. I don't think it was any harder or more advanced. I just had to do more projects and homework while the kids in regular classes had less work. I think tracking can lower a student's confidence and is not necessarily a good thing. There are going to be students on different levels, but as a teacher you have to be able to teach to each student's ability.

I think that like most things, tracking isn't essentially good or bad. It's how people carry it out and deal with it that makes it so. If you use tracking as a way to make students feel bad because they aren't on a certain track, then yes, it's negative. If you let the students in a less favored track feel less important and if you expect less of them by giving them poorer teachers and pieces of cake lessons, then yes, tracking is negative. However, if you find a way to reform the whole idea of tracking, then I think that it can be a very good thing. Students need different things and different ways of learning and working that is good for them. If you put every student on the same footing teacher wise, but still separate students into different blocks or tracks, and you find a way to do so without making any track seem less important, then by all means, do that. I don't think it's fair to completely disregard and bring an idea down when you don't know how effective it can be in a different setting.

I agree with everyone about tracking being negative. I feel like tracking discourages students and there is no motivation. If you are put in the dropping out group or not going to college group then you are not going to be motivated to do well or even try. I believe that when students are given a little attention and you show them that you truly care about them and their future that they will achieve and accomplish in so many areas. Like someone said in class I don't believe that AP/honor classes are a lot different from regular classes with the material that is taught, unfortunately the difference between these classes are the teacher's attitudes and therefore the students attitudes are different. I think if we encourage students and show them that we believe in them that they will succeed. Tracking is the furthest away from encouraging.

Tracking in and of itself is not the evil everybody makes it out to be. If used properly any tool can be effective. The problem is in its use. Tracking is used as a way to separate students into groups based on what they feel and what the "councilor" feels is their direction in life at a point in time when there are so many options opening to the student there is no way they can know what they really want to do. If students in high school were given opportunities to check out different fields while in high school in the first couple of years this might help open them up to even more ideas but at the same time only make the tracking even more difficult. Many college students go through a couple years of college and still do not know what they want to do. Tracking is a good thing for the students who know already what they want though. Maybe a better implementation is the option of optional tracking. Things were suggested and there were sets for those who planned on enter the work force out of high school and paths for those wanting to continue on with school but they were not set so different that you could not still change your mind and be able to make it in either option. Just a few of my random thoughts.

I do not think that tracking is necessarily a bad thing; however, I do not COMPLETELY agree with it either. Tracking gives students something to work towards. From my experience in school, teachers who taught AP/Honors classes also taught the lowest classes. Students were not treated differently due to what track they were on. When I was in high school I did not actually think that I would go to college. However, all of my friends were on the college-bound track and so I did the same. This track gave me motivation to learn and do better. I have never personally experienced teachers who treat students differently due to their track. My cousin was not on the college-bound track and we have the same math teacher. I have him for AP Calculus and she had him for Algebra part 1A. We both agreed that he was one of the best teachers we've ever had. I believe this shows that he did not treat his students unfairly or unequally. My opinion of tracking may be different if I had experienced teachers who treated students differently due to their track.

I think that both carry a strong connotation for everybody. For some reason I do not like ability grouping, but I like tracking. I think that tracking in high school is beneficial. If you can properly track a child then you can actually send them on their way to a successful job. We are biased because we are all on the college prep track, well we were in high school. We need to sit and think about how the people who did not want to go to college felt. If a student can go ahead and learn a trade before out of school and become what he wants to be, then why do people look with empathy over them. School after school is not for everyone. I am going to teach students who are career prep. I will be preparing them for a job after high school. Because they can be tracked correctly, people end up making twice as much as they would have if them did not know a certain trade.

Before talking about it in class, I honestly never thought about tracking. I knew what "pathway" I was following because I knew that I was going to college but I honestly never thought about the other pathways. For most of the time, I could never tell who was on which pathway. I just thought that any student (regardless of what level class they were in) could be on the college path. I have mixed feelings about tracking. I understand why the school might require tracking in the sense that colleges do have requirements for accepting students into their college. However, why can't all students be held to the same expectations and follow the same path? I understand that college is not for everyone, and that not everyone will be going to college, but if student A is held to the same expectation as student B then students would not know the difference. In my high school four math classes were required to graduate if you were on the college "path" and students go to choose their math classes. However, most Juniors took pre-cal which I thought was kind of ridiculous. They pretty much required pre-cal for Juniors because the other math courses that were "easier", more interesting, or had better teachers were only offered to Seniors. Therefore I feel like with more class options available to all students then I believe that all students could follow the same "path" so that every student is expected to complete the same requirements.

I know I said in class that I thought it was ability-grouping because of the test that students at my school had to take to be in AP classes but after thinking it over I beg to differ.
I do not think that tracking as neither positive nor negative my take on the whole situation is a neutral-matter-of-fact way. I think it all depends on the student's attitude on whether or not tracking is negative. I think that tracking has to do with student's motivation more than ability. I went to a small high school where you knew everyone and had the same teachers for regular English and AP English. The students I talked to in the so called "lower track" were more lazy than anything else about school and knew that Honors and AP classes required more work. Maybe this is just my high school but everyone seemed relatively happy in the classes they were in. We did not have very many AP classes. Pretty much Calculus, Physics, and English was about it. If you were in the college prep you took those classes but that doesn't make the college prep students that much smarter than the other students. They just cared about grades and GPA a lot more. If you wanted to take Physics or Calculus it was AP no matter what there were no other substitutions. So naturally, many students steered away from those classes and stayed in the career prep. The students in career prep by default were not dumber, I feel like they were on the same intellectual level as we were. They just didn't want to have extra work piled on their already busy schedule.

I agree that most of the time tracking is a bad idea. But I think if it were done properly it could be very effective. If there is no tracking how can students that want to go to college feel confident that they will be prepared for college if they don't take the proper courses to prepare them....the College Prep track. On the other hand I do think that students should be allowed to move to diffferent tracks based on their ability and their future goals. If a student has never thought about college but decides they want to go now can make sure they are moved into the proper courses to prepare them for college by moving into the college prep track. I guess it would all be based on ability and desire. Ability and tracking overlap so much it's most of the time hard to tell them apart...and it all gets confusing. Basicly I think that the way tracking is done right now is wrong, but with some modifiactions and proper execution it coud be a positive expierence for the students.

Well I personally don't believe tracking has to be such a bad thing. I agree that it might not be done effectively right now, but I can see its benefits. For me I believe tracking first started with my parents. They told me from day one that I was going to college no matter what. When it comes to AP and honors classes I feel like they are intended to be ability groups in the fact that they are intended to challenge the students that would be bored in the regular classroom. I think AP and honors classes turn into tracking due to the teacher. Like Beth was saying where she took these classes and there was no difference, I feel like that is the teacher's fault. I think the teacher was under the impression that the students just need this class to look good for college, instead of looking at it as these students need this class to challenge themselves. Im personally glad I had someone to track me and put me in the classes that I needed to help me get into college. If I didn't have these people, I probably would have taken the lazy way out and not done it. As for the people that are on the lower track I feel like it can still be beneficial to them. They can still have high expectations held for them. If they decide they don't want to go to college then we can still help them be the best in whatever they want to be.

I actually didn't have tracking where I went to school. Well, there was only one track. The 4 year college track. We had honors and AP classes, but there weren't any kinds of tracking. Everyone was expected to go to a 4 year college, and almost everyone did. There weren't kids who just didn't want to go to college or told people they were going to go to a 2 year college. In the long run, I really think it helped out. Some of the "slackers" got into good colleges. I think that if you believe children can achieve high, then they will. If you give children options to fail and options to achieve low standards, then some will definitely choose that route because maybe no one has believed in them in the past. I don't believe that tracking is right. I think it just sets kids up to choose the wrong path.

I think that tracking is wrong as well. When I was in school I was normally placed with the higher level group in such classes as AP but I am not very good at math. I had to make a hard decision in high school to take a lower level math class that suited me better instead of staying with the "group." I hate that kids have to feel pressure to take classes outside of their normal groups. However, I do not feel that all students should necessarily be on a college track because college is not for everyone. Some people like 2 of my uncles are much more interested in working with their hands than reading books.

I think tracking is wrong like a lot of you. My school had tracking, and I know that some teachers would treat the students that were not in the AP classes really bad. I also had teachers that were really nice to students like me with disabilities because they knew how the other teachers would behave to us so they would try to make up for the other ones. I was on the community college track but still took some advanced classes. I struggled a lot with math and always was in the double blocked math classes but the teachers that taught those classes were really cool and didn't treat us like we were stupid. Other kids though that knew that you were in a special math class would always make comments and make us feel stupid. I didn't care that I was in a special math class as long as I passed and I graduated.