Ability Grouping

I’ve always had mixed feelings on ability vs. non-ability groupings.  After reading chapter 1, I still remain mixed about the pros/cons of each.  This chapter makes several good points about both.

Homogeneous grouping is the type of educational experience that I had while I was in middle and high school in the core academic areas and I always felt that was a benefit for my actual education.  There was competition, which was a positive influence to study and learn more, there was a higher order of thinking present in these classes, and most importantly I got to work with students who were performing around the same level.  When taking AP classes, all of these factors were very important to assist in achievement which would impact my college career. 

This chapter expresses all of those things as positives, but I also understand the negative aspect of that.  Oakes states that students in the lower level classes, sometimes the students refer to themselves as ‘dummies’ and that their self-esteem is negatively influenced because they are not in the higher classes.  The chapter then goes on to talk about the ‘blossoming effect’ that it can have on students when they realize they are not in the higher group; it can provide that push that students may need to put forth all of their effort into learning.

Heterogeneous grouping is stated as the big push within schools currently.  Having mixed ability groups is a more adequate representation of the ‘real world’ and I completely agree.  Giving students real-world experiences is something that is getting a lot of attention recently, specifically in our district. 

Unfortunately, I actually see the opposite of heterogeneous grouping, beginning at the middle school level.  Our ELA classes are grouped by reading levels, each grade level having 2 very low/low classes, and then go up from there; same with our math classes.  We separate students based on abilities (honors/AP level/CP level) beginning in middle school also.  The lack of access to some of the information presented in those classes can be viewed as unfair to those lower-achieving students. Once students reach high school, proportionate heterogeneous grouping is almost impossible.  The highest level of students are already prepping to take college courses (if they are not already), which not all students are going to be able to take.