Should tracking be abolished in MCPS? Gabe Morden-Snipper says YES

Ability-based academic grouping, sometimes known as tracking, is designed to suit each child's individual development needs. However, this practice has come under fire in recent years due to allegations that it perpetuates academic inequity through racist misidentification.

Dividing elementary school students into academic ability groups that they will likely follow for the duration of their schooling broadens the growing national academic achievement gap between whites and minorities. The grouping system is too rigid to allow students to develop at their own rates, is racially unrepresentative and perpetuates a self-fulfilling prophecy of academic inadequacy.

MCPS students are tested for their "gifted-and-talented" ability as early as kindergarten and are subsequently grouped with other students with whom they will likely spend the remainder of their academic careers. However, because academic development varies from child to child, a student who does not test well at age five may shine at age 15. Grouping systems deny late-blooming scholars the tools needed to achieve a better education. Students who develop after the die is cast are locked into a mindset of academic inferiority.

The gifted-and-talented groups consist of a disproportionate number of white and Asian students. Because students are often designated as "gifted" based on race and their parents' economic standing, grouping denies disadvantaged students a rigorous education. Moreover, segregated classrooms foster segregated social groups and ignorance. Abolishing grouping would work to make classrooms more representative of society. "The world we live in is diverse, so our education should be diverse," said senior Ben Woo, a member of the Montgomery County Educational Forum (MCEF), an organization founded to fight tracking.

Separating classes into different ability groups can have a detrimental psychological effect on students. To tell a student through his or her whole scholastic career that he or she is academically inferior is crippling. Teachers in lower-level courses expect less of their students, who respond accordingly. A self-fulfilling prophecy of low performance causes potentially bright students to pass while doing minimal work. "You can't learn if you think you're stupid," said Evie Frankl, a founding member of MCEF.

Proponents of ability-based grouping argue that the system allows students to develop at their own pace. Researcher Jeannie Oakes argues, however, that the benefits of the system come from an enriched curriculum, not the homogeneity of a group.

Without grouping, remedial and regular students receive the impetus they need to develop as quickly as their "gifted" peers. At a middle school in Queens, New York, abolishing grouping proved highly effective in allowing regular students to excel. Faculty member Fran Curcio said in an interview with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, "They're developing the same kinds of critical thinking skills, in part through collaboration with kids who are perhaps a bit further along."

Montgomery County should begin "detracking" immediately. Abolishing ability-based grouping would be a step toward closing the achievement gap and providing a rich education for everyone.