On September 12, the Education Week website moderated a live chat with Jay Matthews and Ronald Wolk, who collaborated in writing The Last Word: The Best Commentary and Controversy in American Education. The website welcomed members of different parts of the education world to ask questions of Matthews and Wolk.
Tonya Jefferson posed a question about ability-based student tracking, asking why it isn’t used more frequently in school systems:
“Nowadays, talented and gifted students suffer from boredom and low-ability students suffer from frustration and embarrassment as teachers struggle to differentiate instruction.”
Her point of view does carry some weight, but I’m still a bit skeptical. Tracking may seem like it makes both learning and teaching easier, but it also takes away many opportunities for lower-level students to challenge themselves or even experience how challenging an honors or AP class may be.
Ms. Jefferson believes that tracking allowed students to be taught according to their special abilities and needs. Jay Matthews believes the exact opposite, stating:
“The real problem is our insistence in locking students into age-based grade levels and lockstep time schedules, and force feeding all of them the same curriculum at the same time in the same way.”
I thought it was interesting how both Ms. Jefferson and Mr. Matthews supported the idea that students should not all be taught by a blanket curriculum. Jefferson thought that tracking allowed for more specialized teaching, while Matthews thought that tracking prohibited students from receiving an adequate, personal education.
Tonya Jefferson’s question was the only one to receive responses from both Jay Matthews and Ron Wolk. Wolk responded emphatically:
“Our Schools have long been guilty of sorting and classifying kids into winners and losers, and we need to eliminate that process completely. If we organized schools effectively and abandoned some of their archaic and harmful practices, we would be able to personalize education in a way that would enaable [sic] students to proceed at their own pace, so kids who need more time and help would get it, and kids who can move faster are able to.”
Wolk’s answer seems both to harsh and too optimistic. While I relate to his theory that schools often categorize students too much and often set them in ruts headed towards failure, I also feel as though he is promising that by annihilating “classification” schools would solve their problems with tracking and blanket-teaching. While adopting an optimistic outlook towards students at all performance levels is a major step in the right direction, it is still merely that: a step. I do believe, however, that tracking does put students’ education in a restrictive box. It doesn’t allow for challenges to all students and may even act as a crutch for others. Tracking should be reevaluated, but I don’t think that Ronald Wolk has the answers.
September 12, 2007
The Last Word: The Best Commentary and Controversy in American Education
