Originally published on Brooking Institution's Brown Center Chalkboard, October 4, 2021.
Tracking is back in the news. Controversy erupted in Virginia earlier this year when a proposal was floated requiring every student to take the same math class through 10th grade. The idea was quickly abandoned, with officials explaining that it’s “just a thought process right now.”
In California, a draft of the 2021 Mathematics Framework took a step beyond the thought process, formally recommending that all students take common, heterogeneously grouped math classes through 10th grade and that no student be allowed to accelerate until 11th grade. The document declares, “The lack of tracking or acceleration will allow all students to regard mathematics as a subject they can study and in which they belong” (ch. 7).
***Continue reading on the Brookings Institution's Brown Center Chalkboard: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2021/10/04/does-detracking-promote-educational-equity/