Tracking (education)

Based on Wikipedia: Tracking (education)

The Sorting Hat of American Schools

Here's something most Americans experienced in school but few ever think about critically: at some point, someone decided whether you were "advanced," "regular," or "remedial." That decision shaped which teachers you got, which classmates surrounded you, and quite possibly the trajectory of your entire life. This system has a name. It's called tracking.

And it's been one of the most controversial practices in American education for over a century.

Tracking means separating students by perceived academic ability into different classes or even entirely different curricula. If you were ever in an "honors" class, a "college prep" program, or conversely a "basic" or "vocational" track, you've been tracked. The practice sorts students into educational lanes, and once you're in a lane, switching can be surprisingly difficult.

How Tracking Differs From Ability Grouping

Before we go further, let's clear up a common confusion. Tracking is not the same thing as ability grouping, even though people often use the terms interchangeably.

Ability grouping is small-scale and temporary. A teacher might divide her math class into three groups for a single lesson: students who need to review multiplication tables, students ready for the new material, and students who need something more challenging. Tomorrow, those groups might be completely different. The groupings are informal, flexible, and made at the discretion of the individual teacher. They don't appear in any permanent record.

Tracking operates on an entirely different scale. It's institutional. It's often permanent—or at least sticky enough that moving between tracks is rare. And it affects not just one lesson or one subject, but potentially a student's entire school experience.

Think of it this way: ability grouping is like rearranging seats on an airplane. Tracking is like deciding whether someone flies first class, economy, or gets bumped to a later flight entirely.

The Origins: Immigration and Segregation

Tracking emerged in American schools during a very specific historical moment. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, compulsory schooling laws were bringing millions of new students into public schools—many of them the children of immigrants.

School administrators faced a challenge: how do you educate a classroom where some students speak English fluently and others barely speak it at all? Where some come from families with books and others from families where the parents never attended school?

Tracking was the solution they landed on. Sort the students. Give the "prepared" ones an academic curriculum. Give the others something more practical—vocational training, perhaps.

The problem was obvious almost immediately. The students deemed "unprepared" were disproportionately poor, immigrant, and non-white. The academic tracks remained disproportionately wealthy and white. What was sold as educational efficiency looked an awful lot like internal segregation.

By the 1920s, some schools had developed eight or more distinct tracks. These weren't neutral categories. They were designed to slot students into what administrators called their "probable social and vocational futures." If you came from a working-class family, the system anticipated you'd have a working-class future and educated you accordingly.

Race, Law, and the Long Shadow of Segregation

The racial dimensions of tracking have deep legal roots. In 1850, a federal court ruling called Roberts versus The City of Boston upheld separate school curricula for Black and white students. The justification? The belief that different races had inherently different intellectual capacities.

A century later, the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown versus Board of Education declared that separate schools were inherently unequal and unconstitutional. This was supposed to end educational segregation in America.

It didn't work out quite that simply.

In much of the South, schools didn't actually integrate until the early 1970s—nearly two decades after Brown. And when integration finally did happen, something curious occurred. Schools that were now technically integrated often became intensely tracked internally. Black students and white students attended the same school building but rarely sat in the same classrooms.

Sociologist Gerald Grant documented this phenomenon at a school he called Hamilton High. Desegregation at the building level had been achieved. But inside those walls, tracking created a new form of separation.

Throughout the 1980s, federal courts in Mississippi and Georgia took up cases challenging race-based tracking. In each case—Quarles versus Oxford, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People versus Georgia, Montgomery versus Starkville—the courts ruled in favor of the school districts. The legal argument that won? Tracking was being used for legitimate educational purposes, to help students learn at appropriate levels. Statistical imbalances in who ended up in which track weren't enough to prove discrimination.

The Modern Research: Disparities Persist

Researchers have continued to document stark racial disparities in track placement. In Charlotte, North Carolina, sociologist Roslyn Mickelson conducted a detailed study of both between-school and within-school tracking. Her conclusion was blunt: tracking functioned as a tool to maintain white privilege, systematically placing African American students in lower academic tracks.

The numbers are striking. Multiple studies have found that white students' baseline chances of being placed in high-track courses are often twice as high as those of disadvantaged minority students with similar academic records.

This isn't ancient history. Studies published in 2015, 2018, and beyond continue to document large disparities in course-taking patterns between white students and students of color.

How Students Get Tracked Today

Modern schools rarely use the word "tracking." Administrators often go out of their way to avoid it. But the practice persists under different names and through subtler mechanisms.

Schools use test scores and grade requirements to determine who can take which courses. They create prerequisite chains: you can't take Advanced Placement Chemistry without first completing Honors Chemistry, which requires a certain grade in regular Chemistry. Teacher recommendations carry weight. So do guidance counselor suggestions about which "program of study" fits a particular student.

Even scheduling plays a role. If the only section of Advanced Calculus conflicts with the only section of Spanish Four, a student might have to choose between them. These aren't overt tracking decisions, but they shape academic trajectories just the same.

Parents with time, knowledge, and social capital often intervene in these processes. They request specific teachers, push for their children to be placed in advanced courses, and challenge decisions they disagree with. Parents without those resources are more likely to accept whatever placement the school assigns.

The Intensification of Academic Coursework

One significant change has occurred over the past few decades: high school has become more academically intensive across the board.

The graduating class of 1982 took an average of about fifteen academic courses during high school. The class of 2004 took nineteen. The percentage of students completing precalculus or calculus coursework jumped from roughly ten percent to nearly thirty-three percent.

Vocational education—once a major track unto itself—has declined substantially. The old three-way division of "college prep," "general," and "vocational" has partially collapsed into a system where almost everyone is theoretically on a college-preparatory path.

This hasn't eliminated tracking. It has changed its form. Instead of separate programs, schools now offer multiple levels within academic subjects. A single school might offer five different levels of mathematics. Some schools have three different versions of Geometry alone.

Larger schools and schools with more diverse student populations tend to have more elaborate tracking systems. The logic makes a certain kind of sense: with more students at different levels, more differentiation seems necessary. But it also means that students in these schools face more high-stakes sorting decisions.

The Case for Tracking

Tracking has its defenders, and their arguments deserve serious consideration.

The most straightforward argument is pedagogical. Teaching is easier—and potentially more effective—when students in a classroom are at similar skill levels. A teacher doesn't have to choose between boring the advanced students and losing the struggling ones. Lessons can be calibrated to where the students actually are.

For gifted students in particular, research suggests real benefits. Studies by researchers named Kulik and Kulik found that high-ability students in tracked classes achieved more than similar-ability students in mixed classes. The gains weren't just academic. Being surrounded by intellectual peers helps gifted students understand their own abilities more realistically, rather than always being the smartest person in the room.

There's also a psychological argument. When students are grouped by ability, they compete against genuine peers. A student in a lower-track class might realistically aspire to be at the top of that class—an achievement that could build confidence and motivation. In a mixed classroom, that same student might always rank near the bottom, with potentially damaging effects on self-esteem.

Some tracking advocates also note benefits for lower-ability students. In classes without high achievers present, struggling students might feel less intimidated and more willing to participate, ask questions, and take intellectual risks.

The Case Against Tracking

Critics of tracking raise equally serious concerns.

The fundamental problem is that tracks are never actually homogeneous. Even in a "high-track" class, students have different strengths, learning speeds, and gaps in their preparation. Whatever efficiency gains tracking provides in theory get diluted in practice.

And students learn at different rates. Even if a track starts out homogeneous, it won't stay that way. Some students accelerate; others plateau. Unless schools constantly reassess and reshuffle—which most don't—the tracks become increasingly poor matches for the students in them.

Then there's the question of who ends up where. Low-track classes are disproportionately filled with low-income students and students of color. High-track classes are disproportionately white and affluent.

Education researcher Jeannie Oakes has argued that this pattern doesn't actually reflect students' learning abilities. Instead, it reflects historical prejudices and institutional inertia. The roots of tracking, she points out, lie in an era when "social Darwinism"—the belief that some groups were simply intellectually inferior—was mainstream. The Americanization movement wanted to assimilate immigrants but also to channel them into appropriate social roles. The working class needed workers; the tracks made sure they got them.

The Teacher Tracking Problem

Here's something that often goes unnoticed: it's not just students who get tracked. Teachers do too.

In a 1984 study of a suburban high school, researcher Merrilee Finley observed what she called "teacher tracking"—the matching of teachers to tracked classrooms. The pattern was consistent: the most experienced, most skilled, and most motivated teachers got assigned to the high-track classes. The newest and least effective teachers got the low-track classes.

This makes a certain kind of bureaucratic sense. Teaching high-track classes is considered a reward, a sign of status. Senior teachers claim those classes. New teachers get what's left.

But think about what this means for students. The students who need the most help—those in low-track classes, often struggling with academic skills, sometimes dealing with challenging life circumstances—get the least experienced teachers. The students who arguably need help the least get the most skilled instructors.

Studies using national data have confirmed this pattern repeatedly. It's one of the most consistent findings in tracking research. And it creates a self-reinforcing cycle. Teacher tracking perpetuates student tracking because experienced teachers are invested in the system that rewards them with desirable assignments.

What Happens Inside the Classroom

Even if students in different tracks had equally qualified teachers, they wouldn't receive the same education. The curriculum itself varies dramatically.

Oakes found that high-track classes emphasized critical thinking. Students engaged with complex materials, analyzed arguments, and developed sophisticated reasoning skills. Low-track classes leaned heavily on workbooks and drills. Students practiced basic skills but rarely encountered work requiring deeper thought.

In high-track classes, teachers could focus on content. In low-track classes, teachers spent significant time on discipline and classroom management, leaving less time for actual instruction.

These differences exceed what you'd expect based simply on students' starting points. A recent study of eighth-grade English classes found that students in low tracks read less challenging texts than students with similar achievement levels in regular classes. Low-track students received more instruction in basic skills and strategies, while grade-level students analyzed actual literature.

This matters because education is cumulative. Students who spend a year on workbooks fall further behind students who spend a year analyzing literature. The track becomes a prophecy that fulfills itself.

An International Perspective

It's worth noting that tracking isn't universal. Different countries handle academic differentiation very differently.

Germany has perhaps the most rigid tracking system in the developed world. After fourth grade—when students are around ten years old—children are sorted into different types of secondary schools: Gymnasium for the academically oriented, Realschule for intermediate students, and Hauptschule for those headed toward vocational careers. The decision is made early and changing tracks is difficult.

Finland, by contrast, keeps all students together in comprehensive schools through age sixteen. There's no tracking. Classes are heterogeneous. Yet Finnish students consistently rank among the highest in the world on international assessments.

Japan uses a hybrid approach. There's no tracking within schools, but high schools themselves are ranked and students must test into them. The effect is tracking at the school level rather than the classroom level.

These comparisons suggest that tracking isn't necessary for educational excellence. Countries that don't track manage to educate their students quite well. But they also suggest that context matters. What works in a small, homogeneous society like Finland might not transfer directly to a large, diverse nation like the United States.

The Fundamental Tension

At its core, the debate over tracking reflects a tension between two values that most people hold simultaneously.

On one hand, we want schools to meet students where they are. A student reading at a third-grade level and a student reading at an eighth-grade level probably shouldn't receive identical instruction. Differentiation seems not just sensible but necessary.

On the other hand, we believe in equality of opportunity. Every student deserves access to challenging curriculum, qualified teachers, and high expectations. When tracking systematically gives some students more opportunity than others—and when those some students are disproportionately white and wealthy—it seems to violate fundamental American ideals.

Both of these intuitions are reasonable. The difficulty is that they pull in opposite directions. More differentiation risks more inequality. More equality risks failing to meet students where they are.

What Might Work Better

Some schools have experimented with alternatives to traditional tracking.

Detracking—eliminating tracks entirely and teaching all students together—has been tried in various places with mixed results. When done well, with appropriate support and professional development for teachers, it can narrow achievement gaps without dragging down high achievers. When done poorly, it satisfies no one.

Flexible grouping represents a middle ground. Instead of fixed tracks, students might be grouped differently for different subjects, with regular reassessment and opportunities to move between levels. This captures some of the efficiency benefits of tracking while reducing its permanence and rigidity.

Some schools have focused on equalizing resources across tracks rather than eliminating tracking altogether. If low-track classes got the most experienced teachers rather than the least, if their curriculum was rigorous rather than remedial, if expectations remained high—tracking might become less problematic.

The Stakes

What makes tracking so consequential is that education is sequential. Each year builds on the one before. A student placed in a low track in sixth grade learns less challenging material, falls further behind the high-track students, and becomes even more clearly a "low-track student" by eighth grade.

The track doesn't just reflect where a student is. It shapes where they end up.

This is why track placement decisions carry such high stakes, even when schools try to make them routine and bureaucratic. The parent fighting to get their child into the honors class isn't being pushy for its own sake. They understand, perhaps intuitively, that the track matters.

And because parents with resources fight harder and more effectively, tracking can become a mechanism that amplifies existing inequalities rather than mitigating them.

Looking Forward

Tracking remains deeply embedded in American education. Despite decades of criticism, despite documented disparities, despite experiments with alternatives, most American schools continue to sort students by perceived ability into differentiated educational experiences.

Perhaps this reflects the genuine difficulty of the problem. Classrooms contain students with wildly different preparation and needs. Teachers face impossible demands. Tracking, for all its flaws, offers at least a partial solution.

Or perhaps it reflects the power of inertia and vested interests. The current system works reasonably well for the students who land in high tracks—and those students' parents tend to have the most influence over educational policy.

What seems clear is that tracking isn't going away anytime soon. The question isn't whether to track but how—and whether the system can be made more equitable, more flexible, and more responsive to students' actual needs rather than their demographic categories.

Every student who passes through the American school system gets sorted. The sorting matters more than most of us realize when we're going through it. Understanding how and why we got sorted is the first step toward deciding whether we want to keep sorting future generations the same way.