Tracking in education system refers to a concept of grouping learners according to their academic abilities (Education Week, 2004). In tracking system, learners are grouped and categorized into different classes according to their intellectual abilities (Education Week, 2004).
This means that a certain class will only have learners who have same abilities. In this paper, we will assess the advantages and disadvantages of the tracking system in education as we try to investigate whether the system encourages or discourages racism in the US.
The tracking system has both strengths and weakness. Scholars argue that one of the advantages of the system is that it allows instructors to determine teaching methods and the teaching pace.
For talented students, the system favors them in that the teacher is able to meet their needs based on their abilities (Education Week, 2004). For learners with equal abilities, the teacher can efficiently apply certain teaching methods at a certain pace.
The system can be reliable for students with special needs since they need certain pace and certain teaching method.
Secondly, since the system allows students to be categorized according to their intellectual abilities, it reduces chances of learners loosing self-esteem (Perrucci and Wysong, 2008).
Once students are grouped according to their abilities, they only compare their performance with that of their peers reducing chances of lowering individual self-esteem, which may result from comparison of individual performance with others (Perrucci and Wysong, 2008).
If low-performing students compare themselves against highly performing students, they may lose confidence and reduces chances of improving academically.
In addition to this, this system of education allows gifted students to improve in terms of academic achievements (Education Week, 2004).
According to a research, when talented learners were tracked they produced better results than similar-ability learners in non-tracked system of education did (Kulik and Kulik, 1992).
In a tracked system, when talented students spend more time with their peers with similar abilities, they tend to improve their attitude and consequently improving performance.
However, when they are mixed with less gifted students, the high-ability learners tend to achieve lower grades. The system tends to be good for talented students (Education Week, 2004).
On the other hand, the system has a number of weaknesses. One of the weaknesses is that, the highly performing, successful, and experienced teachers are usually assigned to highly performing classes while inexperienced tutors are assigned low-performing classes (Perrucci and Wysong, 2008). Therefore, the system favors unfair placement of tutors.
Another major disadvantage of this tracking system in education is that it may lead to cases of stigmatization of low-performing pupils (Perrucci and Wysong, 2008).
Because of widespread stigmatization, such low-performing students tend to develop negative attitude worsening the situation. A research conducted revealed that such students tend to feel that they are “doomed” or it is their destiny to perform poorly. This is also because their teachers tend to impose this attitude upon them.
Finally, the tracking system in education tends to group students according to social class, economical status, and ethnicity among other factors (Farley, 2009).
It appears that high-performing class is only composed of students from high-income families while low-track class appears to be composed of learners from low-income earners (Farley, 2009).
Mostly, low-income earners are African Americans and hence the system is discriminating. This grouping of learning does not really reflect the academic performance (students’ abilities).
In conclusion, the tracking system of education is one system that definitely supports issues of discrimination considering that it categorizes students based on race, social-status, and other minority aspects.
In general, the system brings segregation among learners based on race and social-economics status, which is one form of discrimination.
The opinion is that, low-performing students should be encouraged by raising performance standards for them and may be by using reward system to encourage them achieve academically.
Reference List
Education Week. (2004). Tracking. Web.
Farley, J.E. (2009). Majority-Minority Relations. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice hall.
Kulik, J., & Kulik C. C. (1992). Meta-analytic findings on grouping programs. Gifted Children Quarterly 36 (2): 73–77.
Perrucci, R. & Wysong, E. (2008). New Class Society: Goodbye American Dream? Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.