It's important to note what is meant by "tracking." At some point in the past (before I was working in education), tracking meant that students were placed in a class at an early age based on their perceived ability and were stuck in that "track" for the rest of their school careers. This kind of tracking could have negative effects because it did not account for students who became better students or more interested in school later in their youth, may be biased by teacher perceptions of students and/or against students who test poorly and emphasized a stagnant theory of intelligence. Even worse, some schools didn't track by subject but by all classes, so a student who was good in math but bad in other subjects would be forced to take all low-level classes in order to conform to a school day schedule rather than his or her needs. Lastly, tracking often led to unbalanced racial and socioeconomic classrooms, which in turn created certain expectations for who "should" be in one kind of track or another, creating a self-fulfilling cycle. This is the kind of tracking that more modern educators have fought against.

The "good" kind of tracking is the kind that allows for differentiated instruction for all students, high level and low level and emphasizes a more fluid system for students to move "up" or "down" based on their educational needs. Students are also able to be in appropriately-leveled classes in each individual subject. Currently, Baltimore City is making steps to insure that 8th grade math students of all learning levels are receiving the instruction they need by creating Algebra 1/HSA curriculum materials and PD opportunities for 8th grade teachers who have students ready for that level as well as providing them with the opportunity to take the HSA as 8th graders and eventually start high school in a more advanced class than Algebra/Data Analysis HSA.

It should come as no surprise that the schools with the most tracks are the ones with the most success. First and foremost, it means they are providing differentiated instruction for their students while hopefully avoiding the pitfalls of negative tracking mentioned above. Second, it means the school has enough students who are ready for advanced classes to create an entire class for them rather than three of four kids who need back-of-the-room extra work to do while the teacher splits time in one class among all learning levels. Third, it means that the school has enough resources to hire a staff to teach these extra classes. I don't think the solution is necessarily create tracks in all our schools; instead, we should focus on providing excellent differentiated learning opportunities and increasing the quantity and quality of human resources in our schools.

Simon, I understand what you are referring to with the difference between "good" and "bad" tracking. However, City Schools has taken it too far away from tracking at all. Guidance counselors at middle schools "track" 8th grade students when they tell them (and this I have heard) that "if you can't get into a city-wide school, you might as well drop out." Heard it with my own ears and almost died. Remember when Dr. Amprey came around and said that every graduate should have a course in calculus??? And then the great idea of no completion certificates for anyone but MOIL students? That, of course, means that all special education students must pass HSA's or projects in order to graduate. For some of them, that means 6-7 projects per subject. Why not have a two-track diploma system? What would that hurt? Other states have had this system for years and it works. That way students who have passed all of their tests can move on and take classes to prepare them for college and those who don't can take classes as college prep or not. Oh, wait a minute, I forgot--all of this thinking requires common sense and money.

I understand all the concerns about tracking. Everyone talks about differentiated instruction to help "all" students. Let's be clear about this. I have students in 1 math class who range from 1st grade to 11th grade skill levels. Even in the most perfect of worlds, differentiating forthat range is tough. Now it's Baltimore City, so throw in the attitudes, lackof effort and parent support and it's a recipe for disaster. We are so afraid to "track" students that we miss the boat. Eastern tech was just named a Blue Rbbon school, don't they track their kids to even be able to get into that school? Poly, City, Western-the top schools hav entrance criteria so in effect they are being tracked. I taught some brilliant students at " neighborhood high schools" but they never got what they really needed in allthere classes. "cooperative learning" is one of the ways to help lower-ability students. Now guess who was doing all the work in those "mixed-ability groups"?we do our students a disservice by tying to for e them to work with students on vastly different levels just to avoid a "label." but I guess when they get frustrated, drop out, etc, that's ok because that is the expectaion. I think it would be better to label them a slow- learner that a felon. Just my opinion.

I think it's about time we retire the phrase differentiated instruction. Tracking is another expert's word that is meant to conceal, as veteran teacher suggests, the common sense and money needed for things to change. Simon seems to believe that the range of ability in these classrooms is somehow unrelated to the range of behavior. You can't differentiate instruction in a classroom where some people can't read and some are ready for The Great Gatsby. You can only separate them or perish in the fire of political correctness.

a teacher...First of all, coincidentally I just finished The Great Gatsby this week and I'm SURE I didn't fully understand and appreciate it. Good thing I'm not being tracked into a low level English class and out of a high level math class!

I would ABSOLUTELY say that behavior is not a direct result of a range of ability. I think most teachers have seen students who have gotten passed along with good grades when they shouldn't have because of their good behavior as well as students who had whip smart brains that unfortunately were overshadowed by their whip smart mouths. Students act up precisely BECAUSE their academic needs aren't being met, either by classes moving too fast or too slow. Teachers shouldn't be waiting for good classroom management to provide excellent differentiated instruction; well-behaved students come about because each student's needs are being met.

a teacher, I understand your frustration, but I think I would phrase what you are saying differently. The dangers of tracking aren't violating political correctness. The dangers of tracking are in forcing students into pre-determined paths that may not be the best fit for their needs throughout their academic career. Students need the opportunity for moving into higher or lower "tracks" as needed. Students need to be shielded from the subjective perceptions and biases of teachers who MAY be UNKNOWINGLY inclined to think that troublemaking kids belong in the lower groups....or worse yet, that kids from a certain racial group belong in one track or another.

Maybe I should have been more specific in my original post, but one way (of many) this could ideally happen would be by having a large group of students being taught by multiple teachers and with each lesson, students are regrouped according to diagnostic assessments. That's where the excellent differentiated instruction comes in. In order to make this happen, we'd need to increase the quantity and quality of teachers. Tracking is one way of providing differentiated instruction, but we can't just set the wheels of tracking in motion and expect everything to come out right; we have to learn from the mistakes of how tracking used to be used (and there were many) and improve, now and in the future.

@ Simon

You certainly have an intricate view of what should be going on, and I'm fascinated by it. But the distinction I want to make is sociologically different from the one you made. Of course there are students who are smart and pass tests and disrespect the teacher. But the kind of disrespect I'm talking about makes disrespect sound like a euphemism: running laps around the classroom, crawling, fighting, eating, singing, etc. Those students are not passing tests. They often can't read at all, and their behavior is very likely a result of what W.E.B. DuBois calls the crabcage mentality. The illiterate students see literate students and want to bring them down, to keep them in the crabcage.

In general, your view is just too absolutist. You don't like the separations I want because you don't think they're the "best" idea, and then you go on to describe what sounded to me like some sort of afterlife. Let's bring this back to how you feel you don't fully understand The Great Gatsby. Nobody can fully understand anything, even its creator. How could one know when one fully understands something? I don't fully understand my own name. Great Gatsby scholars read and re-read it because they there is always more to learn about something that is beautifully complex, just as there is always something to do with a situation that is hideously complex. I think the best we can hope for in this life is approximate understanding, approximate solutions.

Simon--come back into the fold from the rarefied atmosphere of Central Office. Enough is enough.

I think there's a pretty simple way to tell the difference between "good" trackin and "bad" tracking. I'll oversimplify here, admittedly, but everything I've seen in city schools holds this to be true.

When schools track students out of concern for the low-skilled group, it works out. Low-skilled kids get the intervention they need, and others often get more appropriately challenging work. But when schools track students out of concern for the high-skilled group, it often neglects everyone else. Top kids do fine, and everyone else languishes. I think there are a lot of cases where schools say they're tracking for the benefit of all students and it's really just cover for a GATE-only mentality. Let me call it what it is: separating out students who aren't keeping up because you think they're a problem is nothing short of segregation.

Which brings me to the more troubling issue in this set of comments. We in city schools have got to stop blaming low achievement on things like laziness and bad behavior. It's tough to face, but the reasons why students aren't achieving are ultimately irrelevant. We're responsible for results. If they can't read, teach them how. If they're misbehaving, get a better management plan.

There are teachers who believe that they cannot control students' behavior, that extreme ability range is too much to handle. I ask those teachers: please, on behalf of our students, retire today. We need to fill your spot with someone who won't quit until the kids are improving.

I had a student in my first year in the classroom, teaching 7th grade. His name was Cory. He ran laps around the room; he had trouble reading. He had moved out of his addicted mother's home and was living alone in an abandoned apartment near the school. It would be convenient to accuse him of a "crabcage" mentality - an accusation I find morally offensive - but it would make no difference for anyone. He didn't run laps in my room as a calculated way to drag down more literate students. He has simply surviving.

The simple truth is I had no business teaching him by myself. No amount of excuses was going to help him or anyone else in his class, including the high-achieving kids.

I don't understand what you mean when you say "the only school system that doesn't track is Baltimore City." I'm not familiar with the term, but from the comments above it seems like tracking is sorting kids into lower level or higher level classes. I know that in every school that my children have attended that has more than one class per grade the children are differentiated by test scores or grades. As they have moved on to schools that have various teachers for different subjects they have been sorted into high or low or middle or whatever. These sortings might not be discussed with kids or parents too much, but everyone is smart enough to figure out the numbering or lettering used for classes. There are classes that "by invitation only", that you get invited to take in a specific subject (like an AP class) because you did well in that subject the previous year. There are highschools that have entrance requirements. This all sounds like tracking to me, so maybe Baltimore City does have tracks. Am I missing something?

"When we look around the Baltimore area, it is interesting to note that the only school system that doesn't track is Baltimore City. And yes, it has fewer students in high-level classes, even in its citywide schools, than many suburban schools.

Hmmm. Is there a connection here?"

Liz Bowie, as an education writer, you should know enough about research done in this field that you can't take what was hopefully a very careful study by the Fordham Foundation and haphazardly attempt to apply the findings (which are most probably much more complex and specific than what you had space to summarize in this post) to Baltimore. It's irresponsible to suggest that we draw conclusions out of context. Baltimore City has fewer students in high level classes for a host of inter-related reasons, and tracking, which has been shown in most studies to harm lower-achieving students, is not a magic bullet.

@Campbell

Your view of this couldn't be more politic. You might as well say that terrorism is bad. Teachers, like students, unfortunately have to make choices, considering how big most classes are. I give most of my attention to the students who are ready to learn. The students I find unready to learn are students who are attempted to be taken out of the room for individual help by a special educator and who won't go with her. But they won't stop running laps either. Such children may or may not be able to learn, but they need to be socialized first. I have a hard time inferring that you've taught in a Title I school.

You find the crabcage theory "morally offensive" because it's an actual idea rather than some polite lie told by a snake oil salesman like Harry Wong.

@a teacher

I have so many problems with the things you are saying in your comments these days I don't even know where to begin. All I can muster right now is this question: for the students who aren't "ready to learn," do you inform their parents at the beginning of the year that you won't be giving your energy to their children or do you wait until the first report card comes out?

@ A Teacher:

If I can, I'd like to separate this one conversation into two: the conversational parlor-game stuff and the real issues of improving a classroom.

Fluff first. Harry Wong and writers like him aren't snake oil salesmen. They share effective ideas based on successful classrooms. Try them - they work. Even in secondary. Also, it caught my attention that you raised doubt about certain kids being able to learn. A lot of instruction research these days surveys teachers to ask if they believe all kids can succeed in the classroom. They ask because how a teacher answers that question predicts how well they're classroom does. If you personally think some kids won't learn, they won't. Forgive the assertion, but I think your mentality has to change or your kids will suffer.

Now for the real discussion. I know this is a blog-comments section, but maybe we can root out some real problem areas and not just talk about them. I'm sure it's obvious to you, but the situation with students not getting pull-out services from your room has to stop. The inclusion specialist doesn't have the the option to leave students behind, and may be falsely documenting their hours. Then again, maybe the kids have a good reason not to go with the specialist. What does your administration say about them not going? Or their parents? You have lots of leverage available to make the special ed system in your school do its job, which will make yours easier. I'd love to keep this conversation going - shedding light on this could improve it.

teacher from georgia. looking for proof to present to my principal that tracking is not for our school, especially for our 4rd grade level -elementary.
i have taught at both extremes, the gifted higher scorers, and the low group. this year i am teaching the low group because our principal want to track our students. the main problems i encounter are unmotivated students, students who do no homework, even 1 sheet, student who say nothing during class discussions, students sleeping at 8am, about half an hour after arriving at school. i have students who are tardy almost daily, plus special ed student who is attempting inclusion, plus 6 esol students, plus 4 students who have repeated a grade. students are tracked because they scored lower or just above the passing score. these are the type of students in a tracked classroom. the teacher is also expected to differentiate. with their varied degrees of learning issues. how is a teacher to give each student individual attention, when so many are needy academically and otherwise. pull outs are available some times. the only students who benefit are the gifted students, as there is not enough support for a classroom of struggling students.

@ Simon

No, I don't talk to the parents of students who are unready to learn because those parents are dead or in jail or at the very least not showing up parents' night and unavailable for a phone conversation. A child who is unready to learn may be lead-poisoned, abused at home, or indifferent.

Saying you have problems with what I say is not much of a rejoinder.

@ Campbell

Harry Wong is laughable. Not only is he devoid of any actual ideas, what he does write in his so-called books is simply culled from letters he has received from teachers who want their name in a so-called book.

Students not getting pull-out services bothers me less than that they are not getting social services. There are students who do get pulled from the classroom and refuse to get one-on-one attention for reading or math. Why? Not being ready to learn might have something to do with it. And needing counseling is another.

Both of you guys: go visit any non-charter Title I school in this city or watch season 4 of The Wire.

@ a teacher

The way you are putting things, it seems like you are writing off students who have problems outside of the classroom. I don't understand how you (or any teachers) are uniquely qualified to classify students as unable to be helped by you and choose not to devote energy to them. I would argue that for every student, the right combination of strategies exists to help them. How can you say that a child is beyond the help of a teacher and that there is NOT A SINGLE strategy that YOU could find to help them? I say teachers, administrators, North Ave personnel, hall monitors and everyone else have a responsibility to try everything before writing students off like that. Or maybe I'm wrong and some students truly are beyond all possible help by all possible teachers and principals. If so, please enlighten all of the Baltimore Sun readers exactly how to identify these hopeless students. I especially hope you tell your principal which students you have given up on so he or she can transfer them out of your class.

Yes, students face terrible obstacles outside of school that affect their classroom performance. And of course, we all know that there are many more social services that could be better serving our students and their families. But just because a student has a parent in jail and another that works 3 jobs and doesn't have time to show up at parent teacher conferences doesn't mean that YOU don't have responsibility to find a way to engage them in your lessons, differentiate for their needs and interests and find a way to get them to sit in their seat. That's your JOB. If you don't like it, maybe YOU should transfer to a "non-Title 1 charter school."

And on that...first of all, you know nothing about me or Campbell so don't presume because you look foolish. I DID teach at a non-charter high school which would have been Title 1 if any high schools are. I currently work with and in many high schools in Baltimore City, most of them non-charter. Additionally, charter schools in Baltimore are taking basically the same kids with the same problems that every other school is taking. And don't start with "involved parents push their kids into charter schools so that makes them easier" nonsense. With high school and middle school choice in the city, everyone is going through the same process.

Lastly...saying "watch season 4 of the Wire" is kind of simplistic, don't you think? As great as the show is, David Simon and Ed Burns don't have all the answers (is that blasphemy to say in Baltimore?). I feel so silly doing this - arguing serious points using fictional characters - but since you opened the dorr...While we're at it, maybe YOU should watch season 5...Prez turned out to be a great teacher because he didn't give up on any of his students, went above and beyond and found strategies that worked, even against all odds. And Naimond, the student who seemed the worst at the beginning and had an absent-from-school, abusive mom and a dad in jail, ended up with the best outcome because Bunny started a special program, got involved in his life and found potential when no one else was looking. If we take anything from the Wire it's that you CAN'T and SHOULDN'T write kids off no matter what their background is and that the people with power HAVE to find ways to help students with any outside-the-box strategy that might work.

@ Simon

You writhe in contradiction against yourself. Let's start with your saying The Wire doesn't have all the answers. Fine--did I say it did? I think the show illuminates some of the problems I find central to the lives of people attending and working in schools. You go on to say that Season 5 answers the question, What is to be done with students who are wounded to the point of indifference towards school? The show indeed believably and movingly dramatizes the ways in which the teacher character improvises in his classroom, but just because he continues to work hard does not mean sheer teacher motivation is a cure.

As for your writing, it's a dead specimen. Given your beliefs, at what point wouldn't I be responsible for a child's education? I'm responsible for giving my students a good shot at learning how to learn. You're responsible, I suppose, for telling other people they're responsible.

Your use of capital letters is telling. Did you get your sense of rhetoric from reading ransom notes? I would've guessed you work "with" schools and not "in" them.

@ Simon

It has occurred to me that you were perhaps once like me and so many others: a teacher in one of these schools who got told again and again that every academic shortcoming of your students was your fault. Well, you were too hard on yourself, and now you're too hard on teachers.

You really think it's embarrassing to argue serious points using fictional characters? What else is the study of dramatic art? It's no accident that alphabetical letters can also be called characters. How can you on the one hand hold The Great Gatsby in high esteem and on the other demean literature so entirely?

@ a teacher:

I'm concerned about the situation in your classroom, and there are lots of rooms like in the city. For what it's worth, Title I schools are all I've taught in here and most of the schools where I've worked weren't charter - not that it really matters.

Your students' shortcomings aren't your fault, but they are your responsibility. You have to get students in their seats, you have to get them engaged, and you have to attain measurable results, because no one else will.

If others in your building aren't doing their part, report them. You owe it to your kids to get ineffective adults out of the building. And if you're only giving your energy to kids who are already doing ok, then you also need to be replaced.

The truth here is that it doesn't matter whether fault lies with parents or administrators or kids or anyone else. Every adult needs to feel personally responsible for kids' success. If you don't, kindly step aside.

@ Simon

The program Bunny started (in the fourth season) was a program that separated students who aren't ready to learn from students who are ready. And you cite that as an example of how teachers are responsible for all students?

@ Campbell

What grade do you teach? If it's not middle or high school you're need for illusion is pretty deep.

@ Campbell

Is there a difference, in this context, between responsibility and fault? You say I have to do what goes without saying in most classrooms (in the world). Does it seem to you that I'm someone who doesn't know a teacher's basic goals? I make mistakes for sure, and most of them have nothing to do with the conventions of English, and many of them do ("you're" for "your" up above). Making mistakes is our daily lot. But not noticing reality, or not showing even the slightest skepticism of consensus reality, just plain terrifies me. I don't know why there isn't a public outrage that Alonso has told principals to ignore offenses previously held to be grounds for suspension or expulsion.

Did it strike anyone else as interesting that at the end of the school year last year, when the Baltimore Sun ran a slide show of students getting out for summer break, all pictures of students rejoicing were taken no fewer than fifty years ago? This is not to say the Sun should try to get pictures of schools at the end of this year. If I were a city student getting my picture taken, I wouldn't hesitate to break a Leica or two.

@ a teacher:

I've taught 6th-9th grades at different schools, some LA and some Social Studies.

And I absolutely mean, in this context, a difference between responsibility and fault. I should have made that clearer. We teachers are rarely at fault for the needs our kids have when they come to school. We didn't turn off their lights at home, or take parents out of the house, or sell drugs on their corner, so lots of problems aren't our fault. But they are our responsibility. Not because it's fair or logical to saddle us with that, but because no one else can or will take it on.

Nor do I want to pretend that everything will always go perfectly. Of course city classrooms will have behavior problems, yours and mine included. But the response cannot be that bad kids don't get attention. They need tons of attention, if for no other reason than because they'll drag down the performance of the class.

And I'd like to respond to your suggestion about curbing suspensions. I don't totally agree with the way principals were pressured to suspend fewer students, but I see the logic and I can at least play devil's advocate here.

Suspensions don't really work. Kids who get suspended a lot don't improve, period. Often, they decline - I'm sure you've seen it yourself. And the suspensions don't affect other kids either, the would-be "send a message" logic."

When tons of suspensions are handed out, what usually happens is good kids stay good and bad kids stay bad. What's the point of that?

What we need to do is stop labelling schools "Persistently Dangerous" by the way they suspend students. All that gets us is administrators who falsify records to hide suspensions or worse, who keep violent offenders in classrooms to avoid a stigma. I applaud MSDE for slamming the "Persistently Dangerous" process publicly every year. It's foolish.

@ Campbell

You see the logic of Alonso's telling administrators to cut back on suspensions? Yeah, the careerist logic. Suspensions go down, he gets his bonus, and to lazy eyes things seem better than they were.

I still don't see a distinction between fault and responsibility. You're just switching up words, not parsing meanings.

I think it's time the phrase "playing devil's advocate" be retired. Why advocate for the devil?

A school that has been labelled persistently dangerous may in fact be one of the safest public schools because after parents pull their kids out of the school, the class sizes are workably small. Ask parents whose kids went to Calverton last year if this is true.

Good kids staying good is a lot better than good kids going bad--which is what happens when they're forced to share classrooms with students who aren't socialized.

It's obvious you have a big heart, but it belongs in county schools.

Let's see, what has Campbell revealed about what kind of teacher he is? He wants all kids in class, won't make excuses for students who struggle, will spend his energy on all of his students (even ones with bad behavior), will try many strategies, will hold others in the school accountable, has taught multiple grades and subjects, and believes every student can learn....yeah, that sounds EXACTLY like the kind of teacher I want to push out of the city into the county! (sarcasm)

@ a teacher:

Can you clarify for me? Are you saying that the process for labelling schools Persistently Dangerous is an effective one? Or even that schools like Calverton are better for it?

And a question I really want to know the answer to: what do you suggest we do with students who repeatedly behave badly? If you could implement any plan, what would you do?