When a high school science teacher reorganized her class from tracking to heterogeneous grouping, overall grades and interest in science increased. Structural and cultural changes she made included cooperative learning, rubrics for assessment, and complex project work. (SK)

After years of implementing Interactive Math, many California school districts have bowed to parental pressure and returned to a traditional mathematics curriculum. Reforms are catching on in Texas, Ohio, Arkansas, South Carolina, and New Jersey. The white/minority SAT score gap remains wide. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 1990…

This article suggests that bland educational policy statements concerning education of gifted students need to be replaced by policies that directly address students' intellectual, social, and emotional needs. Research is reviewed that suggests such students thrive academically and socially in ability grouped settings and that acceleration…

Responding to criticisms from James Gallagher, Richard Jaeger, John Hattie, and Robert Slavin, the authors contend that detracking creates both winners and losers. Policymakers face a tradeoff between helping low-achieving students and hurting high-achieving ones. The decision depends on how society weighs competing notions of equity and…

Although researchers believe ability grouping is widespread, national descriptive statistics are scarce. Data from the 1988 National Educational Longitudinal Study data suggest a sizeable majority of 8th- and 10th-grade students are tracked. Informal tracking patterns are similar. Low-socioeconomic students, blacks, and Hispanics tend to be…

Provides a theoretical analysis of tracking and attempts to explore the impact of this educational structure on student achievement and affective development. Explains the inconsistency in research findings supporting and discouraging use of tracking and concludes that tracking does indeed place minority groups at a disadvantage. (SLD)

This paper examines curriculum differentiation (i.e. streaming or ability-grouping). After placing curriculum differentiation in an international perspective, it outlines the main conclusions from empirical research on differentiation over several decades. Against this empirical background, it describes and considers the three specific…

Many of the primary aims of social studies education mesh with detracking reformers' goals of creating more equitable and democratic learning environments. However, little empirical data exist on detracked social studies classrooms. This article reports the results of a qualitative, cross-case comparison study of detracking in the ninth grade…

In this paper, the author looks at whether teachers give better subjective assessments to students of their own race and/or gender, conditionally on test scores. Subjective assessments are pervasive in schools; most teachers fill school records that include comments on the child's ability or behavior. And important decisions such as tracking,…

U.S. social programs, set up to address important problems, often fall short by funding specific models/strategies ("interventions") that are not effective. When evaluated in scientifically-rigorous studies, social interventions in K-12 education, job training, crime prevention, and other areas are frequently found ineffective or…

Seeking information about preconceived notions of the educational needs of children who are gifted, we asked 285 undergraduates in prerequisite classes for teacher education to complete questionnaires. Topics addressed included the need for special services for children who are gifted, perceptions of forms of service delivery in elementary…

This article considers issues of educational inequality in the U.S. South from a social work/social justice perspective. After a review of existing literature and discussion of cultural versus structural explanations for race and socioeconomic status gaps in academic achievement, findings are presented from a study examining child-, classroom-,…

Open-ended activities have been advocated in the literature of gifted education as a way to allow students who are identified as gifted to work in their own interest areas, in their own learning styles, and at their own ability levels. They are recommended as a means to differentiate instruction, but little research documents this recommended…

Five pamphlets (Practitioner's Guides) present guidelines from the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut. The guidelines are supported by theory-driven quality research that is problem-based, practice-relevant, and consumer-oriented. Each pamphlet has a section summarizing research from the literature…

Mathematics programs and mathematics teaching will change forever once a program of inclusion, that refers to more than the inclusion of handicapped students, is defined and implemented. It is apparent that mathematics has served as a filter for career and financial success. Ability grouped classes featuring pull-out programs almost universally…