My Opinion on Academic Tracking

      Who constitutes the upper and lower echelons of learning should not be based on biased, lengthy tests. A student who is an avid, competent student but a poor test taker, is likely to be placed on a lower track, (and stuck there), despite his or her prior successes in a classroom. This mode of assessment points to the lack of individual attention that our students are granted; they aren't viewed holistically. Practices such as academic tracking substantiate the already profound inequities that plague our broken education system. Though tracking purports to categorize children solely on the basis of their academic capabilities, this categorization actually ends up segregating and alienating children by race and socioeconomic class. This destructive practice must be dismantled.
      In many of our professional development sessions we discuss racial diversity and desegregation. Integration, however, doesn't just have to be associated with race–we can broaden the definition. While schools need racial and socioeconomic diversity, they also need academic diversity. Tracking stunts the emergence of the academic diversity that is crucial to any students' growth as a learner.
    Schools are supposed to provide both academic and emotional support. They are supposed to accommodate their students in ways that don't degrade or undermine their potential. By relegating certain students to lower-level classes, schools and administrators are sending a reprehensible message to individuals whose minds are tremendously malleable. They are stripping individuals of access to higher-level instruction simply because a test doesn't deem them well-equipped enough to handle or deserve it. Schools need to invest themselves in ensuring that their students are receiving the education that will bolster rather than hinder them. Tracking constructs a rigid taxonomy of academic abilities, and halts students' mobility to ascend. The perils are extremely explicit and extremely disconcerting.
   I happen to despise irony. The concept of alienating certain students based on their academic  potential is simply antithetical to the presupposition that all students, regardless of external circumstances, are entitled equal access to fundamental and developmental resources. Academic tracking strips students of the chance to excel. It bars them from their peers; students placed on lower-tier tracks aren't given the chance to learning from and engage with peers of different skill levels. Exposing students to the vast spectrum of academic ability sparks creative and intuitive and critical thinking. Academic tracking is extremely divisive, demeaning, and demoralizing. Schools must preserve and boost students' confidence, show regard for students' self-esteem, and demonstrate respect and patience for students' development as learners. By implementing and espousing academic tracking, they are doing the exact opposite.