Ability grouping

Ability grouping (also known as streaming, setting or tracking) is the practice, in education, of placing students into groups or classes based on their abilities, talents, or previous achievement. For example, an eight-year-old who could do complex mathematics would be placed in a more advanced class than another child of the same age who was struggling with basic mathematical concepts. Such grouping may be very fluid and temporary, such as when elementary reading teachers place children into small reading groups whose members may change several times throughout the school year. Other grouping systems, sometimes known as “tracking,” (a more controversial system) can become effectively permanent, freezing students into higher-level and lower-level tracks.

Arguments for and against
Tracking has had positive results, which explains why the system continued to exist. Tracking is more able to address the needs of individual children, improves the academic achievement of the higher level track, and prepares students for colleges or careers.

Unfortunately, these positive results often only affect the already high achieving students. Some students in the lower groups whose ability is such that they could be in a higher group may remain there for an extended period, as mobility in some educational institutions may be low. The correlation between race and ability level must also be considered. Statistics show more minority students in lower ability levels, and a disparate number of white students in higher ability levels, including, at the high school level, Advanced Placement courses and International Baccalaureate programs. In many cases, studies have shown that students who have similar prior academic achievement are placed into tracks on a racial basis, with a disproportionate level of black students being placed in a lower ability level than similarly-achieving white students.

In a heterogeneous class with students of different ability, it is difficult to provide an adequate environment of teaching to everyone. Since students differ in knowledge, skills, developmental stage, and learning rate, one lesson might be easier for some students, and more difficult for the others. Tracking addresses the needs of individual children whereby all students are allowed to advance at their own pace with students of similar ability. For example, four to eight identified gifted students at a particular grade level or in a specific subject area may be placed in the classroom of a teacher who has expertise in distinguishing curriculum and instruction for them. This practice is in keeping with the need for gifted students to be with their intellectual peers in order to be appropriately challenged and to view their own abilities more realistically.

Tracking also improves the academic achievement of the higher level tracks. Studies have shown that grouping of gifted students in special classes with a differentiated curriculum leads to higher academic achievement and better academic attitudes for the gifted. Slavin verified gifted students’ mathematical achievement with an overall positive effects (Median Effect Size = +0.34).

Ability grouping often serves as an allocation mechanism that sort students into college preparatory or vocational programs. Vocational programs are designed to develop specific occupational skills that lead to direct entry into the labor market. Academic programs are designed to develop the more advanced academic skills and knowledge that are prerequisites for post-secondary schooling prior to labor force entry. Thus, ability grouping and tracking are used to sort students into colleges or careers.

Tracking places students on different academic paths and can limit a student’s opportunity to learn by restricting the quantity and quality of course material provided in lower tracks. For example, tracking often allocates the most valuable school resources including a high currency curriculum, effective instruction, and positive teacher expectations, to students who already possess the greatest social, academic and economic advantages. In the lower track, fewer curriculum units are covered, the pace of instruction is slower, fewer demands are made for learning higher order skills, and test and homework requirements are taken less seriously. It is possible that were students in the lower tracks taught faster and expected more of, they would actually do better. Furthermore, tracking creates a feeling of inferiority among the lower track classes. Numerous cases studies point out that the lower track classes are often stigmatized by a generalized feeling that their students are not capable learners and cannot be expected to master the same kinds of skills that are demanded of other classes. Slavin attributed feelings of inferiority and worthlessness as one of the outcomes in low achieving groups.