Derailed from Success: The Usage of Tracking in American Secondary Education
Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), honors, college preparatory, general academic, and remedial are all just a handful of terms to describe the differing levels of academic rigor secondary education courses may possess. Each denotes a set of expectations, intensity of study, variance in curriculum, and at times, completely different subsets of students and faculty. They’re part of a greater system, known as tracking, which has grown in the United States as educators, parents, and politicians sought to find a way to help those students on an advanced path continue their growth while aiding those who fell behind to catch up - serving two needs at once. Tracking, in theory, promises to provide a curriculum and pace of learning best suited for a child. But in practice, that is rarely the case.
To understand tracking and how it has evolved, it’s necessary to return to its origins in the early 1900s. Tracking was initially implemented due to the arrival of immigrants, especially those from Ireland and Italy, who were considered less competent than their American counterparts. Not wanting to burden current students with immigrants assumed to be academically inferior, tracking was created to separate students into ability-based tracks and center their education around the specific capabilities and needs of different students. From its very onset, tracking has been built on untrue, prejudiced beliefs about the intellect of so-called ‘others.’
In its current form, tracking has become the newest form of segregation, without being explicitly race-focused. Disagreggate data collected by the U.S government and Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) from tracked schools in the United States has shown that on average, “White students are 1.8 times as likely as Black students to be in an Advanced Placement class.” While being enrolled in an AP course may not seem to be a big deal, it can bear consequences for minority students when it comes to undergraduate admissions and future opportunities. Placement in higher-tracked paths, like IB and AP courses, means certain students are given the opportunity to earn a higher grade-point average (GPA) and potentially gain admission to universities looking for higher GPAs and more rigorous courses of study. The data provided by the CRDC demonstrates that tracks encourage racial separation, with minority students placed in lower-level classes as opposed to their white counterparts. This sorting of apparent ability is not without biases, as teacher’s often make judgement calls on what academic path a student should be placed. The racial lines tracking follows are not a result of organic, measured academic aptitudes. Even if tracking promises good intentions and teacher’s claim to be impartial judges, racial bias trickles into decisions concerning the tracking placement of minority students and assumed academic superiority of White and Asian students. As a result, tracking further disadvantages POC students in a system already constructed to handicap their success..
In addition, the practice of tracking is detrimental to students of lower socioeconomic status (SES) who are more likely to be placed in lower tracks. Studies have shown that “tracking widens the gap in achievement and in the probability of graduating between students of high- and low-SES backgrounds.” Education, often considered a great equalizer, has instead become an enforcer of preexisting inequalities and discrepancies in academic treatment and future opportunities.
One of the main problems with tracking is that it’s predicated on the notion that students and their abilities are stagnant, with no room for improvement. By placing a child on a designated track, you reduce them to the expectations and outcomes associated with said track. Furthermore, children maintain their academic capabilities, rather than excelling past them.
While tracking aims to help those students who fall behind, it often does the opposite and instead resigns students to academic stagnancy. Rather than helping students who struggle more with school, tracking has been shown to do the opposit by contributing to declining academic performance. Research has shown that the discrepancies between higher and lower tracks widen the achievement gap, by increasing opportunities and performance for advanced track students and lessening levels of scholastic achievement in lower track students. Remedial classes, which aim to bring students grappling with academic difficulties, actually hinder their potential success as students suffer from underqualified personnel and lack of resources.
Further, tracking effectively separates students from interacting with one another, dividing the student body into distinct groups that take the same classes together. Both those on higher tracks and lower ones suffer from this reality, missing out on interacting with their classmates and diverse points of view. Growing up, I was placed on an advanced or honors track, eventually culminating in taking multiple APs throughout high school. My acquaintances and friends were those on the same track, those who shared my schedule. However, there was a whole other population I never interacted with because of tracking. I graduated only knowing a third or so of my class, around 132 out of 396 students. I ended up with a yearbook full of people I had never spoken to, others I had never seen. They were strangers I just happened to be in the same building with for 4 years. Sometimes I wonder about the people I missed out on.
A century after its first implementation, tracking has become commonplace in secondary education as parents and educators alike strive to help every student and their unique needs. On the surface, tracking holds promise, but underneath lurks a system predicated on prejudice and the reinforcement of inequality. Despite the troubled nature of this system, many parents and students are reluctant to let it go and ‘de-track,’ typically those who already have a place on a higher track. These parents claim that putting their children on other tracks would hinder their success or colleges are less likely to accept them if they take a less rigorous course load. Both of these concerns are completely valid and hold merit. However, this concern is one shared by those placed on lower tracks as well, who are unable to access the greater benefits and resources given to high tracks or that opportunities that lie ahead, including admission to higher education. The detriment done to minority and low SES students is not something that can be ignored for the benefit of higher-tracked students who suffer too from a lack of a diverse learning environment. No child is wholly benefiting from the flawed approach intended to justly address student capabilities.
The road to a better system is rocky when one considers how entrenched tracking is within American secondary education. Alternatives have been offered up to replace tracking. In places like California, the “honors-for-all” approach strives to provide the same level of education regardless of aptitude. Other approaches include having aggregate classes composed of students with varying needs or decelerating the pace of education for all students, regardless of academic aptitude, in hopes of fostering better understanding and retention rates. No solution is a perfect fix, but they represent a change that desperately needs to happen for the betterment of American education and students.