Gracie Gibbons: Discipline and Tracking

            I believe that it would be beneficial to students to eliminate tracking, but only to a certain point.  The helpful part of tracking, in my opinion, is figuring out where a student is in certain subjects and which ones they need the most help in.  This only makes sense in order to give the student the help that they need.  However, tracking has been taken to such extremity today that it has created many problems for students.  The main problem comes from “honors” and “regular/college prep” classes.  While being in challenging classes may be beneficial to the “honors” students, what about the “regular/CP” students?  In many cases, more resources are put into bettering the honors and advanced courses when at least some of the resources should be put into the classes with the students in need.  I have nothing against honors and advanced classes because it’s unfair if say a student excels in a certain class and flies through the work and gets bored for the rest of class.  However, more attention needs to be put into the CP classes.  Also, the stigmas surrounding these classes creates many problems, the main one being a self-confidence issue.  Students that are put into “lower” groups and classes, especially at a young age, can very likely develop a lack of confidence in their abilities and therefore a lack of motivation to excel.  Essentially what I am saying is that tracking should be used to better a student’s abilities, not put them down in some cases.  This is why I believe that tracking should be kept but not to such an extremity as it is in today’s schools.