Which school do you want to support?
On paper, California's student body is incredibly diverse. On closer inspection, it is well sorted. Some of that sorting is intentional — is that a good thing? Selectivity, diversity, and inclusion are competing priorities in the history of American public education.
Throughout childhood, students grow accustomed to being sorted, or to sorting themselves: by age, by gender, by height, by neighborhood. Not so long ago, students were explicitly sorted by race. As discussed in Lesson 5.1, today the sorting persists by zip code or community, often with similar effect.
Within schools and districts, schools routinely sort students academically. Most colleges and some high schools are selective; students must demonstrate their ability and commitment to gain admission. In many high schools Advanced Placement courses are the academic equivalent of making the varsity team, and not all students make the team. Other schools allow students to be admitted into these more challenging courses based on student and parent choice.
The practice of grouping students according to readiness or ability is sometimes known as tracking, particularly where groupings persist from one class to the next. Tracking is common in elementary and middle grades in the form of reading groups or reading levels. In middle and high school grades, tracking is common for math classes.
Tracking is generally out of favor among education equity advocates, especially in mathematics. In its place, education leaders tend to favor differentiated instruction, where teachers work to serve multiple learning levels in the same class. Not all educators agree that this improves results for students. Arguments in favor of tracking can be found in this article from Education Next and this one from the Atlantic.
Selective policies tend to benefit those who ask
Some schools work to attract similar birds of a feather as part of an educational strategy. For example, some schools promote their emphasis on the arts. Others promise an enhanced focus on technology. Schools that emphasize Gifted And Talented programs (GATE) attempt to identify students with exceptional academic promise and provide extra learning opportunities appropriate for their needs.
In the past, both the federal budget and the state budget included funds to support programs for gifted students. As we discuss in length in the Ed100 blog, federal and state funding once supported gifted programs, but that is no longer the case. Where gifted programs exist in California, they are locally funded.
California school districts may offer programs for gifted students (it's allowed) but they don't have to. It is entirely a matter of local control.
Single-sex schools attract attendance with the premise that simplifying the social framework for their students can boost academic focus. The available evidence suggests that all other things being equal, there could be some merit to this theory. Some studies show academic achievement is generally higher in single-sex school classrooms than in co-ed ones, but the research finding is not straightforward. Like most social science, the data are messy and the validity of this conclusion can be disputed.
California’s first new single-sex public school in twenty years opened in Los Angeles in 2016. It’s an all-girls school. California law prohibits sex-segregated schools, but federal law permits them. LAUSD obtained a California waiver from the State Board of Education to open the school.
It is common for private schools to be selective, but selective public schools are rare. In California there are very few of these schools. One of the most famous is San Francisco's Lowell High School. In 2022, several members of the board of San Francisco Unified were recalled, in part for eliminating the school’s selective admission system. Read more about it in the Ed100 blog.
At the risk of stating the obvious, selective policies tend to benefit those who ask to be selected. Selecting anything (or being selected for something) usually requires action, even a small one like raising a hand, filling out a form, or talking to a teacher. These small barriers requiring student self-advocacy or parent advocacy tend to reinforce patterns of selection, even unintentionally.
Each school, intentionally or unintentionally, develops its own reputation for the ways in which it is selective and the ways in which it is diverse. In cases where parents have a choice about where their children attend school, they respond to these signals. Parents can influence the balance their local schools strike between these two competing values.
The next lesson will examine the role of special schools for children at risk.
Updated June 2018, December 2018, November 2019, July 2022.
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Carol Kocivar June 13, 2022 at 8:56 pm
Our blog “Are selective schools evil?” explains the issues.
https://ed100.org/blog/selective-high-schools
https://ed100.org/blog/selective-high-schools
Carol Kocivar June 5, 2022 at 6:14 pm
"In recent years, some school systems have detracked math programs, in particular, to address achievement gaps, and California is considering doing so statewide through 10th grade.
Math is the most-tracked subject, and proponents of detracking – including the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics – argue that eliminating tracking creates more equal opportunities for all students.
But California’s proposals have fueled heated debate, with opponents arguing that detracking is unfair to students who are more advanced learners."
https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/detracking-in-k-12-classrooms?utm_source=usn_tw&utm_campaign=tw_edu
Caroline February 18, 2020 at 1:13 pm
Pamela Wright April 16, 2018 at 3:48 am
Jeff Camp - Founder April 17, 2018 at 12:37 pm
francisco molina February 23, 2019 at 10:55 am
francisco molina February 23, 2019 at 11:01 am
jen_bullock December 5, 2017 at 7:43 pm
[Ed100 Editor note: messages like this one from Jennifer are VITALLY helpful. We couldn't keep Ed100 up to date without tips from our readers.]
Jeff Camp - Founder July 28, 2016 at 3:11 pm
_Bruce Ross August 26, 2015 at 8:31 am
Obvious, but until you see it play out, it is not obvious how strong the effect is.
I live in a county that effectively has open enrollment and free transfers wherever there is room. (The County Board set the policy years back, and since they will grant any transfer that a district denies, there's no point in denying them.) It's not really an ethnic/racial thing, but it broadens the divide between the aspirational middle class and everyone else. Our kids attend and I love our neighborhood school, but it is striking -- and sad -- how many of my peers literally would not think of sending a child there.
Jeff Camp - Founder September 24, 2014 at 3:03 pm
The short version: the research found evidence that gifted programs may work best for motivated students that are NOT classically "gifted" with a high IQ. The EdExcellence take: "So why would a program impact high scorers and not those with high IQ? Perhaps high test scores demonstrate non-cognitive traits, like longer attention spans and willingness to meet social expectations, which are important in gifted classrooms. In any event, the findings suggest that creating separate classrooms in every school for top-performing students is a cost-effective way to significantly boost performance, even in the poorest neighborhoods."
The full report sells for $5 at http://www.nber.org/papers/w20453
Brenda Etterbeek June 15, 2019 at 2:09 pm
Caprice Young April 23, 2011 at 10:54 pm
Grouping students with like interests and learning needs can be a great way to deliver high quality education in a more individualized way. As long as the placements are made thoughtfully and at the choice of the students' guardians, more specialized educational environments can really work well.
I participated in the bussing folly of LAUSD 30 years ago (yeah, I'm ancient). Merely bussing kids across town did nothing to integrate the classrooms or lunch areas. However, in Magnet schools, which select students in a lottery basis in order to group students by interest or learning style, we actually shared classrooms, libraries, lunch pavilions and friends. It took away that awkwardnes and let us get to know eachother as people with similar interests-- which is how friendships more naturally form.
David B. Cohen April 20, 2011 at 10:43 am