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All our Ducks In A Row
(Released to the web February 25, 2007) The precision of language can be an impediment to true understanding, especially when the buzzwords of the educational arena are thrown around like the wild throws of a little league team waiting for the coach to show up on a Saturday morning. We should describe what we mean and if we find that it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we’ll all know it is a duck—whatever the name being used. The first full public explanation of what the Readington school district administration intends to create in the way of a student ability-grouping system came on February 21 at an HSA sponsored meeting about the new district strategic plan. Previously, questions about rumored grouping strategies were raised at three different board meetings by people outside the district, with little substantive response. A survey recently sent out to parents about a grouping strategy caught some unaware and the language of the survey had other parents fuming because it was seen as a “push-poll” in which a particular viewpoint was being foisted on unsuspecting respondents. Reaction to the push for grouping has ranged from pleased and even organized rejoinders from some parents of “gifted and talented” youngsters to bitter disappointment from parents who had hoped for a concerted effort by the new administration to foster differentiated and heterogeneous instruction; criteria that was actually included in the search for a new superintendent last year. The results of the parent survey were predictable. While admitting that the language of the survey was unintentionally flawed and therefore deceiving as critics had said, Superintendent Jorden Schiff said during the February 21 meeting that parents of children in grades K-5 responded positively by 60% to the first question and positively by 80% to the second question. Respondents in the middle school were so few—about 50—that he elected not to release those numbers. So, what is the big plan? The grouping focus is on mathematics, with some attention to language arts. Details are still a little fuzzy, but the plan includes a remedial math grouping and advanced math grouping in fourth and fifth grades, a pre-algebra grouping in sixth grade, and something along the same lines of the grouping already in place in seventh and eighth grades, except that advanced algebra classes would be accelerated by the standard in place now. In language arts, the idea would be that some students would be in a world language grouping five days a week, and others in a remedial grouping taking a world language one day and a remedial language arts class the next day. These groupings would entail physical separation of children to different classrooms. For example, a fourth grade teacher would send some of her students to another classroom during a math period and perhaps accept other students into her classroom for that period too. During that math period, a general classroom teacher would become a specialist in one math grouping. An additional benefit, according to the superintendent, is that our classrooms can be “right-sized,” meaning that grouping would help to avoid situations where class sizes are especially small or big. It isn’t clear if that would also impact staffing levels. The criteria for these groupings are said to include state tests like NJASK required under NCLB legislation and also a new testing system to be proposed shortly called NWEA. The NWEA testing would be carried out in each grade two to three times a year and be used to guide the grouping and also classroom instruction. The superintendent hastened to add that teacher and parent input would be part of the criteria too, allowing a parent, for example, not to accept an advanced grouping if desired. Those are the facts as publicly known so far. So, what does this mean? The administration has taken pains to explain that this new scheme is not about “tracking,” a word which has especially negative connotations. Searching available studies and general media articles on tracking yields a common definition of the practice as being the grouping of children based on perceived ability. Going back many decades “perceived ability” meant IQ testing, but that has been replaced in the past two or three decades by standardized test scores. The administration believes that their version of grouping is different from tracking because they intend to make it flexible and in some sense voluntary, depending on the input of parents. Still, the superintendent did mention during the February 21 meeting that this new practice—whatever its name—is intended to help students be prepared for calculus classes in high school and to assist in bringing test scores up to the level of districts similar to Readington. The high school tracks for mathematics depend on knowledge of algebra first and the Readington groupings would allow some students to advance in that area. Presumably the administration also feels that groupings in mathematics would allow more tailored preparation for state testing. Readington is not the first district to suggest a grouping scheme that seems to quack like a duck but that is given a different name than a duck. For instance, a young researcher from the University of Michigan, studying two area high schools, was exasperated to find that the schools she studied specifically disagree with “tracking” and yet they group students according to ability, giving some students the advantage of a track that leads to calculus study. The parallels with the Readington plan are apparent: “Farmington also does start placing students into advanced math as early as middle school to identify the advanced students and place them in more challenging math classes. I’m not sure why Farmington does not consider this tracking. Canton does this as well, but at a different time and in a different way…students [in Farmington] are placed in an advanced math course starting in 6th grade based on the recommendations of the student’s 5th grade math teacher and are then a full year or so ahead of their peers in math. In Canton, the placement into a higher level of math does not occur until 8th grade, when students in 7th grade take a math placement exam and either remain in the normal math curriculum or are placed into freshman-level math in 8th grade, allowing those who placed out to learn the math curriculum a year ahead of other students. Advanced students from both schools are at the educational advantage of being able to take calculus prior to graduation, whereas other students will not have this opportunity.” Administrators in Readington argue that flexible ability-grouping will allow struggling students to catch up with more advanced peers by them having the benefit of special attention. Numerous experts say, however, that once placed in a group or track, students tend to stay there. By whatever name the Readington grouping goes by, the fact remains that students will be physically separated and that they will quickly understand why. The social, emotional and motivational implications of being separated from peers based on supposed ability should be abundantly clear to anyone who remembers being a child, and countless formal studies back up that understanding. Being labeled as being in the “slow” or “fast” group not only confuses the pace of learning with the capacity to learn, but it cements in place the limiting expectations of both students and teachers. All of this would be based on narrow interpretations of learning—test scores—and would require parents or teachers to intervene and prove a negative to prevent the grouping selection for a particular child from occurring. What is more, having a mechanism in place for children to potentially change to another group or track, however likely or unlikely, does not alter the fact that the advantages of heterogeneous grouping are gone. Regardless if a handful of children are allowed to change groups, the majority of children will be homogeneously grouped in certain subjects. A parent insisting that his or her child be placed in a different math group than the test scores would suggest that child belongs in has only accomplished moving that child to a different homogeneous group. There is no heterogeneous math group available, after all. Similarly, a teacher who would like to use differentiation methods in a heterogeneous environment to teach math or language arts in grades that are now being grouped will be out of luck—their best choice would be to lobby their principal to be assigned a particular group. That brings us to another area of concern. There are multiple levels of potential problems with regard to teachers in this grouping system. First, we know from experience in Readington that when some teachers who lack the skills, the confidence, or the leadership from administrators to effectively differentiate within their classroom, they will jump on an opportunity to give away “problem” children to peer specialists. That is partly why the intervention program began to grow exponentially in years past, quickly dwarfing the size of similar programs in other districts. At one point it seemed as though half of our children would be “classified,” to use the favored term. The “small first” program began to creep into other grades, too. Once regular classroom teachers understood that they could relieve themselves of the burden of teaching to disparate student abilities, they leaped at the chance to make their lives easier. The current administration might argue that the use of so-called objective state test scores and supplemental test scores from the NWEA program in determining grouping placements will avoid abuse of the program. Yet, that argument would run counter to their other argument that test scores will not be relied upon too heavily for placements. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Second, as teachers grow within this grouping system, their skills at providing individualized or differentiated instruction in these core subject matters will only atrophy. A teacher cannot be expected to become expert at meeting the needs of all students in math or in language arts if that teacher is limited to teaching a narrow, homogeneous group of students. It might be argued that teachers could be assigned a different group level each year for a wider exposure, but the reality is that none of these groups are heterogeneous and that teachers must spend years gathering lesson plans and materials and practicing their craft in the same environment to reach the level of an expert. That is why most teachers prefer to teach within a grade level of their previous experience rather than jump to much higher or lower grades. Third, the management of teachers is complicated by grouping because administrators must now assign specific groupings to teachers who may not want or may not feel comfortable with a particular track. Some teachers in Readington still believe in heterogeneous groupings and prefer to handle the wide needs of children themselves. Others are comfortable handling one or two advanced or struggling children in their classroom, but would find a whole class of one or the other either too challenging or too limiting. Administrators will be forced by factors of scheduling to override these concerns and make at least some teachers unhappy with the grouping they receive for math or for language arts. That doesn’t bode well for the turnover problem and it isn’t fair to ask teachers to limit their career experience to one narrow grouping. Finally, teachers who attempt to counter the placement of a student that was based on test scores will be in the same position with administrators as are parents. They will be forced to prove a negative and to throw a monkey wrench in scheduling and grouping in order to effect a change. Parents, teachers and administrators are put at odds from the beginning should any party want to override a placement that was based on test scores. The tension, the time and the additional effort hardly seem beneficial to anyone. Students who feel unfairly placed will also struggle. Instead of the ad-hoc and unlabeled clustering among peers in a well run differentiated and heterogeneous classroom, some children will invariably find themselves in a rigid math track where they are under or overwhelmed with the level of work. Since students in fourth through eighth grades are not especially well known for choosing to make waves, many will settle for the lowered expectations of their group and do the minimum they need to do, or they will struggle in a difficult group until they are humiliated by being reassigned to a different group. To suggest that this will not happen is to imply that testing methods and teacher observations are perfect, always. In this grouping strategy mistakes are crippling or humiliating. In a heterogeneous environment, mistakes can be corrected more quickly and without a humiliating fuss. The National Association of School Psychologists in their position paper on ability-grouping and tracking “supports the instruction of students within heterogeneous classrooms that recognize and accommodate individual student differences in learning style, ability, and interests.” They contend that cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, small learning groups, scaffolding and curriculum modification, learning communities, and even sparingly used grouping across age levels are superior to “a single and a set curriculum which is delivered at the same pace for all students within the classroom.” The paper also states that: “The effects of ability grouping have been analyzed and debated related to various populations including individuals identified as gifted and talented, individuals identified with educational disabilities, individuals of minority status, and economically disadvantaged students…the practice of whole class ability grouping/tracking can deny many children of their statutory right to equal educational opportunity.” The stated goals of the new administration in implementing the ability-grouping scheme are to better prepare Readington students for high school tracking in math, to raise test scores compared to similar school districts, and to give teachers a method to handle what we are told are dramatic differences in student ability as soon as fourth grade. In this context it isn’t a stretch to wonder if we have failed to do the right thing in K-3 if we are already experiencing such dramatic differences, said to be several grade levels, in fourth grade and up. The fourth grade level is generally the point at which dramatic differences tend to disappear among children. In many studies of Head Start participants and in other studies comparing different school trajectories, and in every child development textbook, researchers and experts note that by third and fourth grade the differences in ability tend to even out among children. In Readington we are told that the opposite is occurring. Is this due to the failure to provide a comprehensive full-day kindergarten program? Are our curriculum choices such as the Everyday Math program playing out poorly? Could we be doing a much better job teaching math and language arts in the earlier grades so as to better prepare our students for later grades? Are we being fooled by inaccurate and narrow testing results into believing that dramatic differences exist when they really do not? These sorts of questions are not being debated, but, rather, the foregone conclusion is that we have a problem that can only be addressed by separating children according to tested ability for certain core subjects and giving up on the differentiated and heterogeneous approaches recommended by organizations like the National Association of School Psychologists and other experts. At this juncture, it appears as though our new administration is set to put all of our ducks in a row, each row defined by testing and taught in a homogeneous group for math and in some cases for language arts. Whether we call this duck ability-grouping or tracking or something else, our children and our teachers will know that what walks like a duck and quacks like a duck is very likely…a duck. For further study:
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