Tracking and Ability Grouping

Submitted by: Georgette Nassar-Raie

In many schools, students are placed into groups or classes according to their teachers’ assessment of their abilities. When students are placed in classes with different content or different levels of content, this practice is called tracking. However, when they are grouped within classes on the basis of ability, it is called ability grouping.

More than half of all U.S. elementary schools use some form of ability grouping, though a small but a growing number of schools are moving away from it. Some begin ability grouping as early as the first week of kindergarten. Tracking is more commonly used at the junior high or high school level. These practices were formulated to allow students proceed at their own pace, so that more capable students would not be held back and bored, and less capable students would not be overwhelmed or left behind.

However, there are several serious problems with tracking and ability grouping. Most important, these practices affect student’s achievement above and beyond differences in student ability, largely because of different teacher expectations in different ability groups. The process by which people are placed in tracks and ability groups are biased: Group or track placements are frequently influenced by social class, race, ethnicity, and other irrelevant characteristics. Another problem with tracking and ability grouping is that once a student is placed in a given track or ability group, it is very hard to move to another one. Among students of comparable ability, those placed in higher tracks learn more and ultimately complete more years of education than those placed in lower tracks.

On the other hand, students placed in low tracks generally do more poorly than students of similar ability who are not tracked but instead are placed in classes or groups with higher-ability students. When they reach high school, students are placed in either vocational or college-preparatory tracks. Again, this has a substantial effect on the amount of education that students ultimately get.

In general, lower-income and minority children are over-represented in lower-ability tracks. Numerous studies indicate that social class affects track placement, even among students of similar ability. In conclusion, placement into tracks is often haphazard and disorganized.