Education and Its Tracking Devices

Tracking is a common practice in education. Tracking is the sorting of students into different levels of classes based on their academic ability. For instance, a high school math department could have four, tracked sections: remedial, basic, college-bound and advanced placement (AP). Even elementary schools track readers into sections, often with cuter names, derived from animals or colors. Students and parents squabble over their students' track placements, as a small storyline on Desperate Housewives showed. The tracking process begins with assessments: formal tests, previous grades or a combination. Teachers then recommend tracking placement, with final decisions left to parents. Parents may want to challenge their children and advance them, or fear overwhelming their children and keep them at the lower track. Plenty of factors influence where students are tracked, such as teachers and parents' previous experiences, education levels, expectations and resources such as time and money. Tracking can help or hurt a student. It definitely influences their future in education.

Tracking in education can create problems, which is why some educators want to eliminate the practice. Students who end up in the wrong track, too high or too low, can become discouraged or bored. Students then make poor behavior choices, which starts a domino effect. Additionally, teachers who favor a mainstreamed system as opposed to a tracked system emphasize that typically lower tracked students are "brought up" by higher tracked students. Students who typically struggle with education systems mimic the successful ones' behavior and attitudes, thus improving their grades. Finally, the movie "Waiting for Superman" highlights some other problems associated with tracking. Schools normally assigned lower tracked classes to new, inexperienced teachers. Combine a new teacher with students who have an assortment of needs, and behavior issues become the focus of the class, not learning.

Of course, the problems with tracking are part of the benefits. Those higher students who set a wonderful example for lower students may buckle under the responsibility. Another scenario is for those example students to mimic the lower students, bringing down an entire class section. Tracked students have similar education expectations in regards to grades and behavior. Finally, advocates for tracking in education repeatedly state that if parents and teachers abandon the tracking system, students will track themselves once electives enter student schedules. Students who opt out of study halls for art, band or chorus often end up with similar core classes because electives are only held once or twice a school day. Students inadvertently track themselves, and teachers continue by meeting separate classes' needs, whatever they may be.

Tracking in education is controversial. What and how teachers teach tracked and non-tracked classes greatly differs. Tracked students make friends within their classes, and in turn, join organizations together and create lives together. Tracking in education helps some students, but it also damages others.

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