Analysis

Does Tracking Promote Educational Equity?

Research is more plentiful on tracking as a problem, as a source of inequality, rather than detracking as a solution. Reformers have been hampered by a lack of empirical evidence that abolishing tracking would reduce inequities. Evaluations of untracked schools tend to be based on a small number of schools or on samples that were not scientifically selected to support generalizable findings.

The Upside of Academic Tracking

Now two fresh studies, both published in March 2016, make a compelling case for continuing to cream off the top students and teach them in separate classrooms. One, from the Brookings Institution, suggests that the United States won’t produce as many students, including blacks and Hispanics, who can master higher mathematics if schools don’t begin preparing them separately, starting in eighth grade. The second one, from two economists, finds that tracking can close the achievement gaps both between high-IQ blacks and whites and between high-IQ Hispanics and whites.

Closing Advanced Coursework Equity Gaps for All Students

Even in high schools with similar levels of access to advanced coursework, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students are less likely to be enrolled in advanced courses—and even when they are enrolled, they experience less success in these courses than their peers.

Insights from the MAA National Study of College Calculus

The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) carried out a four-year study of Calculus I as taught in two- and four-year colleges and universities (2010-2014). It paints an interesting and complicated picture of the determinants of success in Calculus I and whether students continue in their mathematical studies. Among many other items, they found that:

  • Black and Latino students have less access to advanced high school courses that help prepare students for college calculus.
  • Women are especially likely to be discouraged by their Calculus I experience, even when they perform as well as men.
  • The course characteristics mostly strongly correlated with positive long-term results fell under the heading of “good teaching” which reflect the rapport between student and instructor and are much more likely to be found in a high school classroom than a university lecture hall.
  • Studying calculus in high school without scoring a 3 or higher on the AP Calculus exam did not have any effect on Calculus I performance in college.

There are certainly no simplistic “anti-acceleration” or “anti-tracking” conclusions that follow from this study.