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[NOTE: This exchange between a middle grades teacher and detracking expert
Anne Wheelock occurred after the teacher read the introduction to Wheelock's
book, "Crossing the Tracks," here on the MiddleWeb site.]
>To: wheelock@shore.net
>Subject: Tracking
>
>I have accessed the
introduction to "Crossing the Tracks" via the
>MiddleWeb site.
>I understand your beliefs as they address tracking or
>"ability grouping" in the classroom. I have taught math and
science for
>at least fifteen years in high school,junior high and middle school
>classrooms. The classes in the high school were, of course, tracked
as
>"college bound" and "basic." I am now teaching eighth
grade in a
>"junior high" that has adopted bits and pieces of the middle
school
>philosophy and methodologies and has dropped many of these bits and
>pieces just as quickly! I am the only eighth grade teacher who has
>purposely attained a middle school teaching certificate in the past
two
>years and, honestly, believes that the student in grades 5 though 9
have
>special needs.
>I am now on a districtwide committee to develop action plans for our
>"mission." Our committee's objective is to improve student
persistence
>(which is currently at about 75%--up from 68% last year). I am of the
>belief that the majority of our future drop-out students adopt the
>typical "at risk" behaviors in the middle grades (assuming
they
>experienced some success before that). Last year I lobbied for a class
>of "at risk" students (those who had failed two or more classes,
or
>their grades were so low that in combination with environmental/social
>factors were more "at risk" than others. No student with an
IEP was
>considered for the class.
>I believed that with the lack of basic
>reading/math skills and organizational skills that through more small
>group and hands-on learning approaches, along with purposely taught
>organizational skills, that I could help bring them up to level. I also
>believed that by purposely encouragely interpersonal contact with the
>students and home, the student's self esteem would grow and they would
>be more likely to keep "doing school." This grouping idea
seems to be
>in direct conflict with your research (and everyone else's on the
>block!).
>Now I have to decide what to do for next year. I honestly believe that
>the kids have profited from this grouping. They will definitely be
>grouped when they go to the high school into the "basic" and
"college
>bound" classes. What would you say to me to try to convince me
to throw
>them back into the melting pots of 25-30 students per class and less
>time for remediation and personal attention?
>Looking for answers,
>Linda
ANNE WHEELOCK'S RESPONSE:
Dear Linda: You sound like a wonderful teacher! The simple response to
your question is that I'm not sure I would even try to convince you to send
your kids back into the melting pot where they get no help with skills or
individual attention. From what you've written, I think that this is a
situation that no one teacher, however professionally skilled, caring, and
committed, can solve.
I'm not sure the most important question is "To Track or Not to Track."
There may be other issues worth looking at first.
You didn't say too much about your school, but let me lay out a few
thoughts that come to mind that I can only hope will apply to your school.
I absolutely agree that kids who later drop out begin to disconnect in the
middle grades. Lots of these kids are poor, but regardless of their income
level or social background, the way schools respond to income or social
background contributes in a huge way to what happens to the kids. (If
you'd like a little background on this, take a look at the Teachers College
Record, Fall 1986 for a whole issue on how schools contribute to the
problem of dropping out.)
Holding kids back in grade, closing tardy kids out of school, suspending
kids
(sometimes for truancy) are all some of the practices that undermine school
commitment. You may be interested in knowing that being overage for grade
(say, 13 in 7th grade, 14 or over in 8th, etc.) is more powerful a factor
in
dropping out than low basic skills.
(If you send me your mailing address, I will send you a copy of a book
called "Before It's Too Late: Dropout Prevention in the Middle Grades."
Or perhaps I can ask www.middleweb.com to post it.)
If you were to describe a school that is "working" pretty well,
I would say
that it would be worth a schoolwide effort -- or even the effort you might
make with a few like-minded colleagues -- to make some arrangement for a
very special "add on" program for the small group of "at
risk" students to
get extra school year help, personalized attention, contracted rewards,
group support, and summer help that would support them in the melting pot
classroom. In that situation, they would have the benefits of
individualized attention, extra resources, your great teaching AND the
opportunities to learn that characterize the high track.
BUT, from what you have said, I'm not so sure that your school is "working"
very well for most kids. You've described a district where the dropout
rate is seriously high, even though it is declining. You've also described
a school that seems unfocused, trying something here, dropping something
there. This can be a recipe for low expectations for students and
organizational purposelessness.
And if you have a drifting school, demoralized teachers who are in a rut,
and a lot of challenging students, "add on" approaches are not
going to be
very effective in doing much beyond "protecting" the most vulnerable
students from the harm of a chaotic "regular mainstream."
If you have lots of non-promotions or suspensions, the need for "add-on"
programs will just continue to grow.
Working on your district committee, you may want to start by just looking
at middle grades data -- or even better, data for each school that has
middle grades (even if they are called junior highs), disaggregated by
grade and by race. I'm thinking of attendance rates, suspension rates, and
non-promotion rates, especially. If you can, try to find out the number
of students who are overage for grade.
You may want to reflect on these data. How have some school practices or
policies contributed to these numbers? What might alternatives be to
routine suspensions? To non-promotion?
Then you may want to consider this: If such high numbers of students are
being placed at risk, maybe it's the school that needs help just as much
as
the students.
I think sometimes it's helpful to think of a whole-school overhaul plus
add
on programs. You might look at models for "whole school" change.
These
models could include the "Talent Development Schools" (check out
the
website for the Center for Students Placed at Risk - CRESPAR
- at Johns
Hopkins University) or "Accelerated
Schools" at Stanford University. These
models really focus on creating a climate in which all students learn
high-quality curriculum (say, for example, one of the NSF science
curricula), AND they do so in heterogeneous classes, AND kids who need it
get extra help (yes, sometimes in separate settings), AND the counselors
are geared to helping teachers play to kids highest aspirations, AND there
are things like student-led parent conferences that get parents involved,
etc.
All this is to say that in schools that are doing the steps above (and this
is in part what the rest of "Crossing
the Tracks" describes), you would not
have to "protect" the kids you are working with from the mainstream
because the mainstream itself would be supportive and rich, nurturing and
challenging.
Schools do transform themselves to do this! They need a good stable
principal and a handful of committed teachers with a vision of students
learning well to start. They need extra resources (sometimes from state
departments of ed, sometimes from foundations), they need professional
development that is tied to specific curricula, they need time (8-10
years), they need new routines that emphasize and reward student effort
and
communicate that all kids are part of the larger community of learners.
Maybe they need the superintendent to close them because they are so bad,
and open them again with new leadership.
So, in the meantime, you may be doing the best thing that can be done given
the circumstances.
Whew!! You've proably had enough, so I will close now.
Anne