Читать книгу Five Practices for Equity-Focused School Leadership - Sharon I. Radd - Страница 18

Ability-based grouping, or "tracking," is a common practice in schools consistently proven to perpetuate inequity, illustrating how inequity in schools spans across the four levels.

First, the practice of sorting students is historical, going back to the very beginning of public education in the United States. At the start, public schools were free as they are now, but they were not intended to educate everyone. Instead, they were intended for the "top 10 percent"—those considered "most educable." As you look at the conversations in schools today related to tracking, this approach continues: The current system of enrichment and advanced placement classes alongside remedial classes perpetuates the idea that students have different levels of ability and their courses should be structured accordingly, despite ongoing research findings that all students can learn at high levels and are best served by enriched and rigorous courses.

In today's schools, programming and policies serve to sort and separate students according to perceived abilities. For example, special education programming, ability tracking, and programming for English learners are supported by an intricate network of systems, processes, tools, and activities as well as underlying "theories of action" and paradigms. In these ways, inequity is both structural and institutional. In the case of tracking in mathematics programs, for instance, schools use standardized and localized tests to assess students' mathematics ability. Structurally, individual performance on these tests is connected to future opportunities for education and, eventually, employment; a school's overall performance dictates the desirability of that school and the home property values around it. Institutionally, tests are built into the school budget and schedule; further, test results impact class placement, staffing, and budgetary decisions. Further ensconcing this inequality is the historical way that teachers learned to teach mathematics in their preparation programs, often learning that the development of math skills is linear, meaning that a student cannot go on to learn the next skill until she has mastered the current skill. These qualities combined create a complex historical, structural, and institutionalized web that keeps both the inputs and the outputs of this system the same. Years of effort under No Child Left Behind served to further entrench this system in many schools, accelerating the sorting of students and schools via schedules, classrooms, practices, programs, and products. Ultimately, this system is based on the paradigm that the development of math skills is a fixed linear process and that the performance of mathematical calculations at a specific point in time reflects a student's fixed intellectual capacity.

Last, the idea that this system is fair, effective, and appropriate is held and carried by individuals (teachers, administrators, parents, students). It is transmitted and acted upon between individuals—that is, interpersonally—perhaps none believing they are creating or perpetuating racial and economic inequality. And yet, this system of tracking consistently divides students by race and family income under the guise of perceived ability, such that White, nondisabled, middle- and upper-income students are over represented in accelerated classes, while students from lower-income families, students with disabilities, and students of color are overrepresented in remedial classes.

Ask yourself: Do I believe that some students are more capable based on their race, economic class, dis/ability, religion, sexual orientation, family background, and so on? Or can I acknowledge that inequity is built into the system at the individual/interpersonal, institutional, structural, and historical levels? If you answer yes to the second question, then the solution is not to "fix" people who have been marginalized and excluded from this system; instead, it is to fix the system!

Consider how this information applies to your context. Here, it is important to continue the reflection you began in the Introduction: Take the time to write your responses.