Talking Point 6

Talking Point 6: Tracking: Why Schools Need to Take Another Route by Jeannie Oakes

Premise:
• Ability of students
• Marginalizing students
• Grouping of children
• Accomplishment
• Uneven Opportunities
• Unfair Advantages
• Uncomfortable in class
• Average students left out
• Cognitive tests showing learning over time
• Tracking students in unnecessary
• Mastering of skills speedily
• Active learning
• Complications in Work
• ‘Real World’ Problem Solving
• Changes to the School Systems
• Test scores unreliable

Author’s Argument:
Oakes argues that by just judging students’ abilities based on test scores is an inefficient way of measuring a student’s learning ability and new methods need to be employed in the classroom to assure that all students are given equal learning opportunities by allowing for all students to be challenged.

Evidence:
1. “One fact about tracking is unequivocal: tracking leads to substantial differences in the day-to-day learning experiences students have at school.”
2. “For example, in average classes, many teachers expected relatively little of students. They established set routines of lecturing and doing worksheets, held time and workload demands (both in class and for homework) to a minimum, accepted and sometimes even encouraged distractions and rarely asked students to think deeply or critically.”
3. “Recent work of cognitive psychologists suggests, for example that academic ability is not unchangeable but developmental and grows throughout childhood.”

Questions/Comments/ Point to Share:
Oakes’ article brought forth an argument that many students are not all given the same opportunities to succeed in life. Some of the more precocious children are given the advantage over others when it comes to teachers and resources giving them a chance to be much more successful. The article, overall, was an easy read and made a direct point that something needs to be done in order to eliminate the unfair academic treatment taking place in many public schools throughout the country. It relates to other texts that we have read because it talks of a progressive movement for action and awareness regarding the unfair advantages that some students gain. It is something that Johnson would wholeheartedly agree with the problem needs to be brought out into the open and needs to be discussed.