Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality

By: Jeannie Oakes

Objectives:Objectives:

Define trackingDefine tracking What type of study did Oakes What type of study did Oakes

conduct? What were her findings?conduct? What were her findings? According to Oakes: What beliefs According to Oakes: What beliefs

underlie tracking? What effect does underlie tracking? What effect does tracking actually have? tracking actually have?

TrackingTracking

• Oakes Study: 38 schools across the US, & 300 classrooms.

• Oakes decided to look at: knowledge and skills, learning activities, --curriculum content, instructional quality, and classroom climate.

“In our search for the solution to the problems of educational inequality, our focus was almost exclusively on the characteristics of the children themselves. We looked for sources of educational failure in their homes, their neighborhoods, their language, their cultures, even in their genes. In all our searching we almost entirely overlooked the possibility that what happens within schools might contribute to unequal educational opportunities and outcomes.”

--Jeannie Oakes 1985. Keeping Track: xiv

Discussion Question:

When you were a student what did you notice about tracking or grouping procedures?

How were students separated in your school or classrooms? How did it affect you?

How did it affect your classmates?

What terms were used to describe the process then?

What terms are used now?

Jeanne Oakes in Tracking and Ability Grouping in American Schools:

Questions suggests that the following assumptions underlie the practice of tracking:

1. Students differ greatly in academic potential.

2. Separation is necessary to manage the difference.

3. Academic aptitude characteristics are stable and not generally alterable.

4. Classification can be accurately and easily accomplished.

Defining TrackingDefining Tracking

According to Oakes, tracking is a According to Oakes, tracking is a combined method of ability grouping and combined method of ability grouping and curriculum differentiation (p. 262)curriculum differentiation (p. 262) Ability grouping - grouping students together based on a Ability grouping - grouping students together based on a

shared level of intelligence; measured by teacher or shared level of intelligence; measured by teacher or standardized testsstandardized tests

Curriculum differentiation - developing curriculum based Curriculum differentiation - developing curriculum based on the ability of each “track”on the ability of each “track”

Serves socio-economic endsServes socio-economic ends

Discussion Question:

Soviet example: Do schools, as an apparatus of state power, have the right to determine occupational outcomes?

The history of trackingThe history of tracking

Origins in the curricular differentiation and Origins in the curricular differentiation and vocational education movement of the vocational education movement of the Progressive Era of education (1840-1880)Progressive Era of education (1840-1880)

Issues to consider in the history of tracking:Issues to consider in the history of tracking: Tracking is connected to socio-economic aims Tracking is connected to socio-economic aims administrative progressivism and social administrative progressivism and social

efficiencyefficiency Industrialization, the business model and Industrialization, the business model and

educationeducation

Opposing tracking [Oakes]Opposing tracking [Oakes]

Harmful to the learning process and Harmful to the learning process and contradictory to aims of educationcontradictory to aims of education

Determined by race, class, and Determined by race, class, and socioeconomic status, perpetuates socioeconomic status, perpetuates inequality (p. 263)inequality (p. 263)

lower tracks suffer from less access to lower tracks suffer from less access to knowledge, fewer opportunities to learn knowledge, fewer opportunities to learn classroom climate is counterproductive (p. classroom climate is counterproductive (p. 267-269).267-269).

students who need more instruction, time, students who need more instruction, time, and attention are receiving lessand attention are receiving less

TrackingTracking

Pedagogical considerations:Pedagogical considerations: cooperative learning, performance-cooperative learning, performance-

based assessment, mixed grouping based assessment, mixed grouping strategiesstrategies

Inclusion or “mainstreaming” studentsInclusion or “mainstreaming” students

Discussion Question:

• Excellence & Equality: Does the current structure of schooling prevent both excellence or equality?

Further considerations

1.   Tracking occurs in diverse forms, by district, within-schools, in classrooms (ability grouping)

2.   Japanese example. –Most of us are products of a tracked system, and it’s difficult to conceive of things differently. In contrast, in Japan, students begin school encouraged to take responsibility in the success of all students, but then become intensely competitive later on. Can you recall or imagine the sentiment team sports? 3. What is ability or aptitude, and how will I know when I see it? --We do not have a democratically agreed upon notion of what aptitude or ability 'is’.

Objectives:Objectives:

Define trackingDefine tracking What type of study did Oakes What type of study did Oakes

conduct? What were her findings?conduct? What were her findings? According to Oakes: What beliefs According to Oakes: What beliefs

underlie tracking? What effect does underlie tracking? What effect does tracking actually have? tracking actually have?