The idea of “tracking” students is anathema to most urban school boards and politically incorrect for school administrators. In my view tracking students honors students as individuals and, if adopted in a comprehensive and structured way, would provide real hope for American students to again become competitive on the world stage.
American K-12 students compete poorly against other advanced nations in Mathematics and Science. This sad fact has been documented for years. Education researchers and leaders have tried numerous approaches, spending millions. Around the rest of the world students must perform to be placed or stay in rigorous academic classes.
Students – and to some degree – parents are held responsible for student performance. In most school districts in the U.S. students are only responsible to attend school. They are urged and supported to achieve but have few or no consequences for non-achievement. How hard would you or I work if doing next to nothing didn’t threaten our employment?
I read a Denver Post article a few years ago that sixty percent of projected jobs in Colorado over the next twenty years required no college degree. People need a way to support themselves and their families, not a degree.
Yet the Denver Public Schools has all but eliminated vocational education, insisting all students be prepared for college. Students have different desires for their work life, different bents, different dreams, different gifts. What sense does it make to try and cram all kids through the same funnel?
When I started with D.P.S. in 1986 the dropout rate was fifty percent. I read the current rate is fifty percent. I suggest thirty to fifty percent of students should be in a vocational track.
Charter schools and vouchers are trial band aids, not solutions.
Jim Rankin taught mathematics and science at Thomas Jefferson High School, Denver Public Schools, from 1986 through 2007. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
