Jack Thorman - Tracking

Out of all the issues we have addressed during the course of this internship, I am most conflicted by the issue of tracking within our education system. What I noticed during our discussion is that we seemed to be having two different debates. The first one being, is tracking racially motivated, and if so, should we eliminate it. The second debate was if, there was not a racial stigma attached to tracking, should we still eliminate it. I believe that tracking is often racially charged and leads to a separation of races within schools. Although this is unacceptable, it is unrealistic to get rid of tracking. When a teacher teaches to the middle of the class, those who need extra help get left behind and those who need less help are unnecessarily held back. The articles brought up the idea of bringing in more teachers and having smaller class sizes but this seems extremely difficult due to the lack of money and overcrowding that many schools deal with. To me, the best bet seems to be dealing with the racial issues that arise from tracking. No student should be placed in a track based of any preconceived notion that a teacher may have. In addition, the stigma that comes with being in certain tracks needs to be eliminated. Stigmas make it much harder for a child that has the potential to move up to actually do so. There are no easy solutions to eliminating the stigmas that come with being in different tracks or to eliminating the racial barriers that tracks create, but I do not think eliminating tracking is the right solution.