Tracking

I believe that tracking should be eliminated. With tracking, there are simply too many negative consequences. Teachers, whether they realize it or not, tend to push students on the standard track less because of preconceived notions made from the fact that those students are on the standard track. In addition, students on the advanced track get more opportunities than students on the standard track. With this, the achievement gap is further widened. But other than this, tracking also, in a sense, encourages stereotyping. Often, we associate advanced track with Whites and Asians, and standard track with Blacks and Hispanics because unfortunately, that is what we see most of the time. And because they are in the standard track, there are certain stigmas associated with them. This becomes a sort of social norm that is ingrained in our minds, which makes it significantly more difficult to change that view.

If tracking is eliminated, it benefits all the students. By putting all the different-leveled students together, the lower-leveled students won’t feel as inferior because it won’t be advertised that they are lower-leveled, like what happens with tracking. And in response to the argument of how the higher-leveled students are being pulled down, that just depends on perspective. There was a study done about student success (in terms of yearly income) in Penn State and UPenn. As one may have guessed, the UPenn students had greater success. However, if only the students that got accepted in both schools were compared, they had equal success. Basically, the students that were “capable” succeeded no matter where they went. Therefore, I propose that those higher-leveled students would not be affected by whether they are with lower-leveled students or not. But for the sake of argument, let’s say they are affected. Then yes, they might be pulled down academically but, they can gain valuable experience helping the lower-leveled students in the class. This goes back to how school should not only be about academics but also social interactions; academic-related things can be learned through a book but social-related things are learned through experience. It is extremely important to interact with people that have different paces because of the different perspectives these people can offer. This creates diversity in the classroom, which is vital in attaining a good education.