Tracking. Does Your High School Do It?

Parents Forum
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<p>We older folks probably remember the time when once you entered high school you would be assigned to either a college prep, general ed or vocational "track". This type of rigid segregation by perceived academic ability has fallen out of favor among educators in many parts of the country, including New York State. While I am uncertain if NYSED has formally adopted an anti-tracking policy -- I'm sure some CCers can set me straight -- the message that has come down from Albany is that tracking is something public schools should not be doing. How individual high schools have complied with this directive shows some real differences, however.</p>

<p>At our HS, for example -- which is quick to tell you "we don't track" -- classes are offered at either the Honors/AP/College-Credit level, basic Regents (college prep) or, for lack of a better term, AIS Regents (college prep). For those unfamiliar with NYS it is Ed Department policy that ALL NYS high school students be prepared for college. There is a fair amount of mobility between classes, however. A student might take AIS Regents Geometry, Basic Regents Spanish & Biology and Honors English & Global History. Very few students take all of their core subjects on the Honors/AP/College-Credit level as they might have when tracking was school policy.</p>

<p>It's done a little differently at the public school my wife teaches at. They offer a smattering of AP and dual enrollment courses, but most are Basic Regents level classes where the prospective Valedictorian might sit next to a severely learning-disabled student or the class slacker who is barely pulling a "D" average. The goal, again, is to graduate all of them with a NYS Regents diploma that will enable them to attend a college.</p>

<p>I'm curious as to how other high schools in NYS and around the country are handling the tracking issue. Does your school track? If not, what sort of system has been put in place for the greater good of all students?</p>

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<p>Our school has “standard,” “advanced,” “honors,” and AP. Both advanced and honors are considered college prep. Many students take honors courses in their strong subjects and advanced courses in their weaker ones. The best students, of course, are in honors/AP in everything.</p>

<p>There might also be a level below standard for the special-ed kids.</p>

<p>Students can also be accelerated one or two years in math, so, for instance, honors algebra 2 will have freshmen, sophomores, and juniors in the same class.</p>

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<p>jingle – Does your state have a policy requiring that all students get a “college prep diploma?” I should also clarify that NYS does allow for a local diploma in rare cases where a special needs student cannot pass the required number of Regents exams despite repeated efforts. These are strongly discouraged, however, at least in the school districts I am familiar with.</p>

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<p>Our highschool tracks, college prep, honors, and AP. The college prep classes include mostly kids who are classified or with a 504 plan. BTW we are in NJ.</p>

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<p>I Indiana, we have a Core 40 diploma (which allows a kid to get into college) and the Academic Honors that meets the requirments of the flagship universities and more selective schools. For instance, the Core 40 requires 6 credits in math, and the academic honors requires 8. Core 40 has no foreign language requirement, but academic honors requires 6. Within our school we identify “gifted” students" and teachers are allowed to determine who is eligible to take AP classes.</p>

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<p>Well, nobody calls it tracking any more (back when I was in school, it was A, B, C track), BUT it’s still pretty widely done. On difference I see? Everybody gets highfalutin names for their track. Jingle’s school looks like a perfect example. The lowest track is “standard” and there are three others above that (advanced, honors, and AP). Really? There are so many exceptional students that there’s a need for 3 tracks above “standard.”</p>

<p>No, I’m not picking on Jingle (sorry if you felt singled out there, jing). The names of the tracks at that high school are something I see too darn often. I’ve been in higher ed goin’ on 20 years now. The students certainly aren’t coming in any more prepared, but the names of their high school classes are a whole lot more impressive.</p>

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<p>The question of AP eligibility is another one where the answer depends on where you go to school. I know high schools where anyone with an 80/85/90 grade in the prereq course can take an AP and other schools where you have to take a test to get in. Some schools let only kids on the “honors track” take APs while others are open to any kid who the teacher of the prereq course or guidance counselor recommends.</p>

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<p>^^I don’t think my kids’ high school has any pre-reqs for AP at all. Then again, the district only offers 8.</p>

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<p>DD’s public HS (on the other end of the state from HV) has a variety of course levels - Fundamental, regents, advanced, AP - and students can choose higher level courses as long as they meet the background requirements. They also offer an entire selection of vocational-type courses which anyone can take if they can fit them in. This gives the students a lot to choose from and they can explore some things that might interest them. </p>

<p>DS’ private HS is basically a college-prep. There are Regents and Honors and a few AP courses. Very little in the way of choices outside the main curriculum. In general you have to test in or be recommended for anything higher than Regents. Of course, you have to test to be accepted in the first place, as well.</p>

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<p>this thread is the reason why colleges have such a hard time discerning what each HS’s GPA really means…</p>

<p>and the whole AP enrollment issue between schools/states etc makes it even more difficult…some are walk-in programs where anyone can take an AP class to the other extreme where you have to have an “A” in the previous honors course and take a test to be admitted to the AP class…</p>

<p>not all school profiles reflect ANY of this…</p>

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<p>We’re in NY as well, hudsonvalley, so we have the same breakdown of options you mention. I remember the rigid tracking when I was in hs in Connecticut 40 years ago - Academic, Business, Vocational, and General. Not often did the tracks intersect.</p>

<p>Quite a bit of tracking goes on in our middle school, and it has an impact on which kids qualify to take APs or the fabled most challenging curriculum in high school. 8th graders who don’t perform at a certain level are blocked from taking high school level courses in foreign languages or science. The criteria are murky, too. It’s not only a matter of grades; attitude factors in, whatever that means. (Resulting in a friend’s son being unable to take high school science in 8th grade but then winning first place in that subject at the National Science Olympiad a few years later … no one said it’s a perfect system. :D).</p>

<p>Tracking for math starts even earlier. A kid had better have a 90-plus average in 5th grade math if he/she wants to qualify for Algebra in 6th grade in order to be able to take the top-level calculus class in hs. No one calls it tracking, of course. (Though if it quacks like a duck …)</p>

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<p>I only know my son’s school has honor’s courses because he’s in an honors science class that’s listed as honors. I don’t know what determined it. The only thing I can think of is he did comparatively well on the science portion of the district’s standardized testing in
8th grade.</p>

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<p>We’re in NY too, not quite the same options, but similar I think. (Maybe only the names are changed?) There are four possible levels - Sheltered (which usually means they take extra time to cover the same material), Regents (which is basic college prep), honors and AP. Shelter is unweighted, Regents weighted 1.05, honors and AP are both weighted 1.1. Nearly everyone takes the first year of foreign language as a two year course stretched out over 7th and 8th grade and about 1/3 take Algebra 1 and Regents Biology (aka Living Env.) in 8th grade. There are a handful of students who negotiate starting high school level math and/or science in 7th grade. </p>

<p>Theoretically there are no honors courses for 9th graders, but since Chemistry and Geometry are considered 10th grade courses, students who took Bio or Algebra in 8th grade generally get placed in honors courses in those two subjects. There also appears to be some secret tracking. Nearly every kid in my son’s gifted elementary school class was in his section of history for example, even though they claim they mix up sections. </p>

<p>Our school offers 24 APs, though they often conflict with each other as many are offered only in one time slot. For the ones a lot of students take, (APUSH, English, Calculus) the decisions as to whether you can take them are based on grades, a school test, and teacher recommendations. Same with most honors classes. That said, the high school attitude is generally if you think you can do it, they will let you do it. We had very little problem getting our older son appropriately accelerated, while it was a constant battle in elementary school and middle school.</p>

<p>While some people might call this tracking it’s very different from what I experienced in 7th grade when we had tracking and we spent the entire day with our track taking exactly the same courses no matter what our strengths or weaknesses were, or in 8th grade when tracking had been abolished and I ended up in classes with brilliant kids sitting next to ones who could barely read. That was such a disaster I got whisked off to private school. :)</p>

<p>One thing I dislike is that while their are opportunities for kids who are smart in math and science to accelerate there really is nothing in place for kids whose strengths are in the humanities or social science.</p>

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<p>“One thing I dislike is that while their are opportunities for kids who are smart in math and science to accelerate there really is nothing in place for kids whose strengths are in the humanities or social science.”</p>

<p>I think this is a problem at many high schools. Fortunately for my humanities-minded D2 our school began accelerating selected students in English the year she entered 8th grade. The downside was that they dropped accelerated science, which would have devestated her math/science sister who is currently a college junior.</p>

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<p>Mathmom: While some people might call this tracking it’s very different from what I experienced in 7th grade when we had tracking and we spent the entire day with our track taking exactly the same courses no matter what our strengths or weaknesses were, or in 8th grade when tracking had been abolished and I ended up in classes with brilliant kids sitting next to ones who could barely read. That was such a disaster I got whisked off to private school. </p>

<p>Me too. 7th Grade. NY. THREE MONTHS to read Johnny Tremain in the suddenly untracked English class. About 5 pages of reading in class, per day. Stopping wherever the five page rate left you, without regard for the story. </p>

<p>Blech. That experience still makes me furious. I sat through an entire year of English with classmates who ranged from really, really strong students to those who simply could not read. It was a lost year.</p>

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<p>I’m in California. There isn’t any requirement at the state level that high school graduation requirements should link up with eligibility for the state college systems (UC and CSU). Some districts do require enough courses to make students eligible, but my local district does not. If I remember right, less than a third of our district’s high school graduates are eligible to apply to any of the 4-year universities in our state.</p>

<p>We chose a private elementary/middle school for our kids that was very small; each graduating class only had a couple dozen students. No tracking there - actually, no grades or testing either. We picked an alternative public high school in our district that does not track. All students take AP classes and all graduate with enough coursework to apply to a 4-year college.</p>

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<p>I live in NYC and getting into a good public high school here is a bit like getting into college for everybody else. Essentially, schools are tracks and then there are tracks within schools. The eligibility requirements can make your head spin. </p>

<p>Some of the top high schools have admissions tests. </p>

<p>There’s a high school fair where lots of high schools–I can’t remember the exact #, but it’s well over 300–have tables and attempt to explain their offerings and admissions requirements. The fair is for the high schools that don’t have admissions tests–though they may have admissions standards. Many of these schools have admissions policies which REQUIRE them to take a certain # of kids from the bottom quartile of the city-wide reading and math tests. </p>

<p>The kids who didn’t get into one of the specialized high schools rank their choices. I may be out of date, but you used to get to list 8 in order of preference. Then there’s a process kind of like medical residency match, and you’re told where you are going. </p>

<p>Every year, there are a few kids who don’t get into ANY of their top 8 programs and the middle school guidance counselors go into frenzied mode fighting to get the kid in somewhere. Now and again, the kids who get placed through this desperation process end up getting into better schools than their classmates with the same list of schools.</p>

<p>Add to this that one heck of a lot of parents have very little understanding of English, and it’s an absolutely unreal process. </p>

<p>Here’s a link [Choices</a> - High Schools - New York City Department of Education](<a href=“http://schools.nyc.gov/ChoicesEnrollment/High/Choices/default.htm]Choices”>http://schools.nyc.gov/ChoicesEnrollment/High/Choices/default.htm)</p>

<p>Of course, some public schools, notably Hunter and Townsend Harris, aren’t listed here because, while public, they aren’t run by the Board of Ed. So, you can’t find out anything about them on the Board of Ed site. </p>

<p>When all is said and done, however, NYC public high schools still work better than those in most other large American cities. Of course, that does NOT mean they work as well as they should. </p>

<p>If you are poor and smart, NYC is a wonderful place to live. The top high schools here are extraordinarily good. If your kid is above-average,and not particularly talented, it can be an absolute nightmare.</p>

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<p>At my high school they had the AP/IB track (some AP courses, mostly IB), and an Honors track. I’m not sure what the track in which the majority of the students were in, I guess its just a regular track.</p>

<p>Personally I don’t care for it, I rather it be more like college, where when everyone takes Calculus, they take the same Calculus and it is at a fairly high level. We don’t need to have Physics, Honors Physics, and AP Physics, it would suffice to have Physics I: Mechanics, Physics 2: E&M, etc…</p>

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<p>We have three different diplomas, Advanced, Standard, and Modified. The requirements are different (years of foreign language, lab science, math), but no one is denied the right to take classes because of their intended diploma. The modified diploma is geared towards students with a learning disability and takes into account the number of classes/credits needed that may be needed on a support level.
Classes are available on a college prep level, preAP (honors), and AP. Not all classes come in all ‘varieties’. AP classes generally have a pre-req with a teacher approval. It is not uncommon to find students taking AP Math,/Science/English, and college prep history. For a different student (also working towards the adv. diploma) you may find AP English/Math/History, but college prep science. It’s a matter of where you place your energies and what your talents are.<br>
As a previous poster stated, yes you do end up with high achieving students in a college prep world history class (for example) with students who are not concerned with school. The first student knew going in the general students who he would be in class with. The alternative was to get slammed in APEuro. The increased homework in a subject that may not be his best may be the smarter choice to keep more time available for his other AP classes.
There is no perfect answer. It is best to allow the students to stay as fluid as possible within their individual subjects, not insisting that if you are an AP student that you must excel in all areas.</p>

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<p>highest: college prep
high: honors
norm: average
low: very average</p>