New York school district gets ‘creative’ by tracking students for reading instruction

Everything old is new again.  A Westchester County school district is trying a “new approach” of tracking students for reading instruction.

PORT CHESTER — After cutting a staff of reading specialists from the budget, the schools are starting a new approach for children who need extra help in literacy.

All four elementary schools will dedicate one period a day to specialized literacy instruction, based on students’ needs. That replaces a practice of pulling particular children out of classes for reading assistance.

“It’s pretty creative,” said Carlos Sanchez, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the district. Those with the greatest needs will be grouped accordingly, and those performing above grade level will take part in enrichment programs.

Tracking, or separating students into instructional groups based on their proficiency levels, begin to fall out of favor in the 1960s because it was considered inconsistent with “equality of opportunity”.  I remember hearing one local school administrator tell parents that grouping students by ability before 8th grade would permanently scar them.  But since it’s now portrayed as a “creative” method of “specialized literacy instruction”, it may have found new acceptance by the PC police.

The fact is that meta-analysis supports ability grouping.

The academic benefits are clearest for those in the higher ability groups, but students in the lower groups are not harmed academically by grouping and they gain academic ground in some grouping programs.

Today’s proponents of ability grouping stress that it should be based on proficiency levels and should offer flexibility so students can move between groups when appropriate.  Instead of “tracking”, a more descriptive term is “flexible proficiency grouping”.

Pull-outs and differentiated instruction are problematic

To replace grouping, schools have tried pulling students out of class for additional services and offering differentiated instruction within the classroom.  But there are problems with these alternatives.

“In a pullout program, kids miss something to get something,” Sanchez said.

“In this type of set-up, everybody gets what they need. Nobody’s falling behind because they miss a half-hour of curriculum,” Sanchez said.

Differentiation places an unreasonable demand on teachers, with a recent survey finding that 83% of them find differentiation difficult to implement in practice.  No surprise there, with many classrooms including students three or more grades levels apart in academic skills.

Lumping all students together is not the best option, and could be a factor in the growing achievement gap.

This approach stunts later achievement levels for many students of varying ability levels.  But it’s the students on the lower end of the distribution curve who probably suffer the most, with fewer resources to make up for an inadequate educational process.

Cutting costs while improving student achievement
The Port Chester schools turned to proficiency grouping after budget cuts forced staff reductions.  A silver lining to the new era of controlling public education costs may be that more schools begin to try new “creative” approaches.  Over the years, heterogeneous grouping fueled the need for smaller class sizes and bigger staffs, so an unexpected outcome of “new” instructional methods could be improved academic outcomes at lower costs.

Related:

• Increase class size while improving student achievement – it can be done (Education Quick Takes)
• The Efficient Use of Teachers by Steven F. Wilson

How do public schools treat below-average students?

How do public schools treat average and below-average students who may not be “college material”?  In the era of closing achievement gaps at all costs and “college for all”, are these kids being short-changed?  Are all kids being hurt, just some more than others?

Michelle Kerr, an English teacher covering a unit on Elizabethan theater in her high school class of students with “reading abilities ranging from fifth grade to college-level“, had a miracle moment when she played the audio of the Milton sonnet, “Methought I saw my late espoused saint“.

… such perfection as twenty-some-odd adolescents with no particular interest in literature being touched to the core by a Milton sonnet.

Even Kerr’s students with the poorest literacy skills were able to appreciate great literature, a rare occurrence in a system that promotes equal opportunity for all but does not always deliver it.  The irony is that public schools seemed to have increased achievement gaps with their “college for all” and “everyone is equal” mindset.  This is consistent with Robert Samuelson’s view that high schools have been undermined in the switch a predominantly college-prep mode.

Implicit in the expectations for all students is the belief that truck drivers, manicurists, retail clerks, fire fighters, and all other occupations that aren’t driven by intellect, simply aren’t good enough. They don’t matter. These aren’t lives that might benefit from beauty or poetry, an opinion about the Bill of Rights or, hell, even an understanding of why you should always switch if Monty Hall gives you the option.

Naturally, anyone on the “college for all” bandwagon, reformers and progressives both, would vehemently deny such beliefs. But the logic of their demands is inescapable. Students have no way to step off the college train. … Denying them that choice leaves failure as the only other option. That lack of options betrays the value system at the heart of those who deny education the right to sort by abilities and interest.

Obsessed with ending the achievement gap, our current educational policy pushes everyone down the same college path and then blames the teachers when they don’t get the desired results. Lost in these demands are the millions of students who are doomed to years of boredom and, worse, a sense of inadequacy-lost, that is, until the teachers are blamed, again, for failing to help them achieve more.

This problem starts in the early grades, when public schools force students of vastly different proficiency levels into the same learning groups, thus denying almost all children the type of education most appropriate for them.  At the very least this system breeds boredom, a sense of inadequacy, and cynicism.   Fast learners are denied the chance to accelerate at the pace most comfortable for them, while slower learners are denied the extra practice they need to develop fundamental skills and knowledge.  Teachers are burdened with differentiating instruction, a costly strategy with questionable efficacy.

This approach stunts later achievement levels for many students of varying ability levels.  But it’s the students on the lower end of the distribution curve who probably suffer the most, with fewer resources to make up for an inadequate educational process.

It’s possible that a system intended to close achievement gaps actually widens them.

Education, long praised as the great equalizer, no longer seems to be performing as advertised. A study by Stanford University shows that the gap in standardized-test scores between low-income and high-income students has widened about 40 percent since the 1960s—now double that between black and white students. A study from the University of Michigan found that the disparity in college-completion rates between rich and poor students has grown by about 50 percent since the 1980s.

HT Joanne Jacobs

Related: Schools will use tracking and more nonfiction reading to improve achievement

Ability grouping produces positive results for high level students

Ability grouping:

The academic benefits are clearest for those in the higher ability groups, but students in the lower groups are not harmed academically by grouping and they gain academic ground in some grouping programs.

That’s the conclusion from Meta-analytic Findings on Grouping Programs – James A. Kulik, The University of Michigan; Chen-Lin C. Kulik, The University of Michigan; 1992.  Here’s the abstact:

Meta-analytic reviews have focused on five distinct instructional programs that separate students by ability: multilevel dasses, cross-grade programs, within-class grouping, enriched classes for the gifted and talented, and accelerated classes. The reviews show that effects are a function of program type. Multilevel classes, which entail only minor adjustment of course content for ability groups, usually have little or no effect on student achievement. Programs that entail more substantial adjustment of curriculum to ability, such as cross-grade and within-class programs, produce clear positive effects. Programs of enrichment and acceleration, which usually involve the greatest amount of curricular adjustment, have the largest effects on student learning. These results doe not support recent claims that no one benefits from grouping or that students in the lower groups are harmed academically and emotionally by grouping.

This is a relatively old report.  I’m not sure if its conclusions have been rejected by more recent research.

The full article is here.