Pedagogical Research: Annotated Bibliography on Benefits of Detracking
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Position Statement
“In the resolution passed in 1977, NCTE condemned the “transformation of the English language arts curriculum from a holistic concern for language development to sequenced but isolated and often unrelated sets of reading and writing skills”—practices that often occur in lower-tracked classes—and urged “that NCTE actively campaign against testing practices and programs which, masquerading as improved education for all children, actually result in the segregation and tracking of students, thus denying them equal education opportunity.”
Segregation of students based upon the perception of ability denies equity in education by denying students the right to participate in the richest language environment possible. NCTE’s “Strategic Plan” General Objective 7 states: “The Council promotes the institutional, instructional, and community conditions under which literacy best develops”; therefore, the Council promotes the elimination of tracking students in language arts classes.
In 1991 the Council passed the following resolution proposed by the Committee on Tracking and Ability Grouping in the English Language Arts Classrooms, K–12:” (NCTE, 2018-2022)
-Additionally the endorsements of this position statement include the International Reading Association (IRA).
Detracking for Excellence and Equity
In this book authors Carol Corbett Burris and Delia T. Garrity, veterans of the Rockville Centre School District, offer an experience-based and research-supported argument that detracking--implemented with planning, patience, and persistence--can do in every school district what it did in theirs: raise achievement across the board and dramatically narrow the achievement gap. Their main goal is a practical one: to provide educational leaders with proven strategies for launching, sustaining, and monitoring a successful detracking reform.
- Why detracking is necessary, the benefits it brings, and how to build support among teachers and parents
- How to revise curriculum to “level-up” instruction
- How to establish a multiyear, personalized professional development program to help teachers address new instructional needs
- How to best support effective teaching and learning in a heterogeneous classroom” (ASCD, 2022)
Changing the ways in which schools group students, and the mechanisms by which teachers expect students to demonstrate learning, yields a great many benefits, particularly to students who struggle in their schooling—but also, when constructed carefully and deliberately, to students who perform at the highest readiness levels.
National Education Association (NEA)
The NEA encourages school districts to pursue “a commitment to affirming inclusion of all students, respect for educators as professionals, and support for a proven, research-based, and culturally responsive education,” providing communities clear understanding that promoting the achievement of all students is paramount. (NEA, 2022)
Once the decision to detrack is made, the leadership has to run with it. "You can't wait for a consensus. If you wait for everyone to get on board, it's never going to happen," Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre School District, says. "If you have any chance in closing the achievement gap, you can't continue to give kids a different curriculum and expect everyone to do okay." (ASCD, 2010)
“Detracking means placing students with mixed abilities and academic achievement in the same classes, with the intention of exposing all students to high-quality curriculum.
Proponents of heterogeneous classrooms say tracking stigmatizes children and exacerbates racial and economic achievement gaps. Black, Latino and low-income students, as well as English-language learners, are disproportionately represented in low-track classes. Students in lower-track classes tend to receive less rigorous instruction focused on rote skills. And studies have shown that low-achieving students do better academically in detracked classrooms with a more challenging curriculum.
Providing an excellent education for all students is not easy. But tracking is a cop out,” Welner says. ‘To default to a tracked system pretty much ensures that you are denying a high quality of education to the students who are not in the high-track classes.’” (U.S. News and World Report, 2022)
Tracking and Student Achievement from Hanover Research
A review of the effects of tracking on student achievement and educational equity. Please see in particular Section II: Strategies to Reduce the Impact of Course Tracking (pages 17-26), especially Strategies to Mitigate the Negative Impacts of Tracking on page 17, Detracking Strategies on pages 18-20 and Profiles of Detracked Schools on pages 21-26, which also includes detracking timelines.
The Effect of School Tracking on Student Achievement and Inequality: A Meta-Analysis
Results indicate that de-tracking reforms—which postpone tracking, reduce the number of tracks, or smooth out the distinctions across tracks—have the potential to reduce inequality in educational opportunities based on social background without harming overall student achievement.