Tracking: Why Schools Need Another Route - Jeannie Oakes

             Reading Jeannie Oakes' article on "tracking" gave me a good sense of both the pros and the cons of the technique of tracking. Some parents believe that tracking could be good because their "smart" child would be placed with all the other smart children and therefore they would never get placed with the lower level, or misbehaved students. However this causes a problem of segregation in the schools. Many of the times these lower-performing students come from a low income family or are many times people of color. Tracking is another way that these students are faced with a greater disadvantage than their white, or wealthy pears.

              I connected my blog this week with Emily's blog, I have the same opinions on tracking as Emily does.  I feel as though tracking is not a good technique used in the school system and I feel as though we can find a better, more efficient way of teaching students. Emily says "Being integrated into a classroom with less and more successful students will help influence those who are less academic to do better." I agree with this idea, however I feel like the students who don't do as well may feel discouraged if they don't perform as well as the "smarter" students. But on the other hand tracking can be just as discouraging. 

         
          I too saw in my school that when students were separated in AP, honors, college prep, and essentials the higher up groups always thought they were better then say the college prep and essentials kids. What I did like that my high school did was the groups weren't set for every class for example, in math and english I was placed in the college prep classes and for science and my anatomy class I was in honors. So based on how well I did in a certain subject I was place in a certain level class. 

        Here is a video that I really enjoy watching and I can connect to this reading:

         The question I formed while reading the article was "what better system can the schools use to end this education segregation, and keep all students and parents happy?" is that even possible?