Ava Bridges - Tracking Post

The concept of tracking was a big thing at my old public school in New Jersey.  There were normal CP classes for math, english, history, science, and language.  Then there were the honors classes for all these classes as well.  If you were in a CP class you were considered dumb or average, where as when you were in an honors class, you were considered smart.  In order to get into an honors class you had to have a certain grade average and you needed a recommendation from your teacher in that specific class.  My school was not that diverse so there wasn’t really a racial divide between the two classes.  The concept at Avenues is completely different from my old public school being there is absolutely no tracking.  There is only one history, English, and science class for the entire grade and everyone is required to take that one class. There are different math sections but all the sections are ultimitaly learning the same stuff just in different ways.  There is definitely less of a divide in my grade at Avenues than there was at my old public school and I think that tracking has a lot to do with it.  If you were in the math honors class, it was almost certain that you were also in the rest of the honors classes as well.  It wasn’y very common that a student would just take one or two honors classes.  This created a huge divide in the school because all the students who were in the honors classes would hang together and all the kids who were in the CP classes would hang out together. Without tracking, the school is much more of a community and a place to feel welcome.