Tracking

Tracking is dividing students up into separate classes with others who share their level of aptitude scores. The reasons for doing this is because some people believe that the truly gifted children are being held back by the others. They think that they would benefit to be in classes with people of the same intelligence.

The Chamber Council on Adolescents Development believes that tracking is "one of the most divisive and damaging school practices in existence." I completely agree with them. To me it sounds a little too much like the segregation we worked so hard to get away from. I believe if our schools were separated bye intelligence levels then some students would begin to feel dumb and would develop a lower self esteem. Also at our school if a student is a lot smarter then the kids in their grade and is not getting anything out of their classes then they cab be moved up a grade. I think this is a lot better solution to students not being challenged then separating them is.

However, things similar to tracking happen at our school a lot more then we would think.We have AP classes which are advanced placement classes and are designed for students who want to be challenged. Then we have directive studies classes which are for students that need a little extra help on their school work. You could consider this a little bit like tracking because it does separate students by intelligence. The one important difference though is that students can't be forced to take these classes.