Volume 8, Number 5 The Coalition of Essential Schools May 1992

HORACE

Once we expectevery student to meetthe highest goals,the reasons weaken

„for separatingclasses into abilitygroups. But whatelse has to changewhen schools stoptracking? How can

kids so various learn

together, turningtheir ditTerences totheir best advantage?

13Y KA'rl ILEEN CUSHMAN

Essential Schools' 'Universal Goals':

How Can Heterogeneous GroupingHelp?"I'M ALI. FOR TRACKING:

Thecid ore Sizer declares emphati-cally, and i know he's got to bekidding. On this most volatile andemotional issue in American second-

ary education, the chairman of theCoalition of Essential Schools surelydc,es not equivocate. Heterogeneousgrouping-mixing students ofdifferent ability levels in academicclasses, instead of streaming themwith like peers in tracks towardclass-born and race-sorted futures--

is central to the Coalition's vision, 1

always thought. Doesn't it fit rightinto those "universal goals for everytudent," that "personalized educa-tion" CES's Nine Common Prin-

ciples call for? I wait for the othershoe to drop, but not for long. "Justgive me as many tracks as there arekids/' Sizer finishes with a grin.

Beneath his joke, though, isa dead serious challenge to theteachers, parents, students, andcommunities of Coalition member

scliools. A 1982 researcli analysis byJames and Chen-Li Kulik found noevidence that students learn more

when grouped by ability; at lowerskill ]evels, a 1986 study shows,students actually learn /ess. Teachersset higher goals, like critical tlioughtand independent learning, forhigher-track students, and focusmore on discipline and conformity inlower-tr.ick classes, the nationwide

' Study of Schooling revealed. Legalchallenges to tracking over the last25 ye,irs have argued its segregativeaspects: substantially higher percent-

ages of African-American andHispanic students are placed inlower-track courses, statistics show.

Moreover, homogeneous groupingmay deprive students at alllevels ofskills essential for their future success.

If we want citizens who take an active

and thoughtful part in our democ-racy, Sizer argues, they must gettrained fc,r this in school-workingtogether on equally challengingproblems, and using every possibletalent toward their solutions.

Yet few educational issues raise so

many hackles as heterogeneousgrouping, especially in the secondaryschool. Tlie most vocal opposition tomixed-ability classes typically comesfrom the parents and teachers ofhigh-achieving students, who fearclasses will become less challengingas they accommodate the learningneeds of those less well prepared.But teachers at alllevels worry aboutde-tracking. Getting students ofdifferent levels to work together wellimplies new teacliing methods andsometimes entirely new curricula,they say-and that requires time,

practice, and freedom from teacherevaluation procedures geared to theold ways.

Tracking itself takes differentforms at different schools. Some

systems keep kids on an unvaryingpath labeled "honors," "collegeprep," "general ed," or "special ed";others group students by ability onlyiii certain subjects like math andEnglish. Others simply set upsequential courses by department,

Getting students ofdifferent levels to worktogether well impZiesnew teaching methodsand sometimes entirelynew curricula.

and limit who takes them so that

a form of de facto tracking results.Who makes the decision about what

courses a student takes also is key toa school's stance; many kids in low-track courses, encouraged by well-meaning advisers, actually think theyare taking college prep courses.

Whichever form of ability group-ing a school has employed, thedecision to de-track requires arethinking sc) fu ndamental as toupset almost every apple cart in theplace. Moreover, schools in the midstof change can find as many ways tomix students ti,gether as they oncehad ways to separate them. How canEssential schools stimulate the

highest caliber work at every level,respecting the sequential nature ofsome areas of learning and yetgenerating a shared intellectualdiscourse among all students? Inconversations with Essential school

people at various stages of thisprocess, a range of approachesemerges--i ngenious, cautious,bold-that displays on yet anotherpalette just how broad the Coalition'sspectrum has become, and just howmany challenges its schools face asthey change.

New Structures Can Help

"[f every child is to be taken asherself," Ted Sizer says, "teachershave to know where that kid's head

and heart is-which implies asmaller student foacf per teacfer. Atthe same time teachers will need the

maximum authority to adjust classtime, materials, and pedagogy sotliey cal, help her move ahead."When schools are small enough, heargues, and their structures simpleenough, teachers can remain quite

HORACE

flexible in how they challengeindividual students. "Schools could

learn from the best athletic and

drama coaches," he says, "how toplan and regroup from day to day,based on where the kids are and

what they need to exercise their'4 Ultuo.

In practice, this often entailsbreaking a large high school intosmaller "houses," and teamingteachers across disciplines to get theirstudent loads down. At Boston

English High School, for instance, the400 students in the Multicultural

Program represent "as diverse a mixas that of the whole school," says itsdirector, Susan Fleming. Bilingualstudents in a host of languages studythe same curriculum as "regular ed"students in classrooms next door to

each other; they mingle for manyprogram-wide activities; and, like allBoston English students, they aregrouped across ability levels forhistory and science, but not math andEnglish.

Team teaching can be a powerfulstructural tool for making heteroge-neous grouping work. At ThayerJunior/Senior High School, a smallpublic school in Winchester, NewHampshire, a team of three teachersworks with each grade level mixingstudents of all achievement levels.

The result is a deemphasis on theladder of sequential courses mostschools employ to sort and selecttheir students. "Kids lose track of the

sense that theyre'in class,"' com-ments Coalition researcher JosephMcDonald. "They're'in team'-which means they can be produc-lively at work in other parts of thebuilding, on meaniligful projects thataren't limited by time and space."This works best, he notes, in a small

school like Thayer, where it's easierto keep track of kids' physicalwhereaboufs.

Another structural choice simpli-fies the curriculum into a few broad

areas of inquiry, abandoning thecourse as organizing unit andarranging intellectual endeavorsaround themes or projects thatinclude a range of students. In a

2

recent six-week unit at McCaskeyHigh School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for example, 170 tenth-gradestudents and eight teachers took upthe task of constructing a publicdefense (against invading aliens) forthe continuation of life on Earth.

They meet daily in an unstructuredfive-period block, integrating work insocial studies, math, science, andcommunication arts.

"rhe raw material for the defense

was produced by small groups-some ability-grouped, some not-studying specific content matter fromthose four subject areas," says DanMcGary, a curriculum supervisor forthe district office. 'Then mixed

groups of students processed whatcame out of that, integrating it intothe defense statement." Overall,

McGary says, the school's goal is togive students a mix of experiences-some subject-oriented, others aimedat solving problems, but all orga-nized around authentic intellectual

experiences. "Certain activities-worksheets or cookbook kinds of

labs-have traditionally beenassociated with lower ability levels,"he says. "We want to eliminate those

unchallenging routines for allstudents."

Pmjects require avariety Qfskins, notjustthe narrow ones that

traditionally definekids as giged or slow.

Project-based curricula have theadvantage of requiring a variety ofskills from students, not just thenarrow competencies (like verbaldeftness or math acuity) that havetrd#1&11119'du;rasd oMYfereagifted or slow. "I've found that a kidwho's great in math is often not sogood at interviewing, writing, orgroup skills," says Suzanne Valenza,who teaches cross-disciplinarycourses at University Heights HighSchool, a New York City alternative

May 1992

public school. "Working on a groupproject, he realizes that everything'sconnected-which helps him stopignoring the areas he's less good atand get his act together." In thatsense, she argues, separating kids byability actually keeps the most ablestudent from achieving to fullcapacity.

Jf schools decide to regardprojects as the basic learning unit,however, they must design time andspace into their structures to encour-age such work. Art or music studios,labs, workshops, computer centers .canall become places where kids cancome in during free or scheduledtjme and work on a project over time.Harvard University professorHoward Gardner makes a strongargument for the educational worthof such prc,jects in his 1989 book ToOpen Minds. Among other things, hesuggests long-term apprenticeshipsthat expand a studenfs learningoptions and nurture her idiosyncraticintelligence through some valuedcommunity activity. In China,Gardner notes, "students work on a

day-to-day basis with acknowledgedmasterst in a domain, and notonlylearn to hone their skills throughregular drill in a meaningful contextbut also acquire sense of how todeploy knowledge outside formalschooling."

Age-grouping of students isanother false convention, Ted Sizerasserts. "Schools set it up so thatSusie goes in this track because she's14 years old and can do X, Y, and Z,"he says. "Ideally, we should continu-ally reshuffle students of differentages into appropriate learninggroups as they reach the level of skillrequired." Some elementary schoolsfollow such a pattern under theJoplin Plan (better known in the1960s than today), which groupsdaildral, ky,riwil"w,lvialf intfmmip-age classes mingling high with lowachievers. (This goes far, its propo-nents assert, to thwart the sense of

failure that often dogs lower ability.ranked classes, a self-perpetuatingcycle often linked to racial and classprejudice.) Another example comes

HORACE 3

Working within anarrow age range seems

only to emphasize allother diflerences, to

from the Crefeld School, a privateEssential school in Philadelphiawhere students ages 12 to 18 minglefreely in two ungraded groups,loosely organized as an upper schooland a middle school.

The effects of eliminating age-grading are noticeable, Coalitionstaffers say, at Brown University'sSummer High School. Besidesbringing together students frompublic and private schools, rich andpoor backgrounds, and many priorskill levels, the classes also mix alldifferent ages, from eighth to elev-enth graders. Somehow, observerssay, this age diversity has an impor-tant influence on how readily thestudents accept the rest of thevariations among them. Workingwithin a narrow age band seems onlyto emphasize all other differences, toill effect.

Strategies for Mixing AbilitiesWhat teaching methods work best inmixed-ability classrooms? How canstudents of widely various skill levelsencounter the same demandingmaterials, explore them to the limitsof their abilities, and enrich each

other's experience with the specialtalents each one brings to class?Particularly, how can the top tenpercent of students, on whose behalfmuch of the fuss is raised, be pushedahead instead of dragged down bythe heterogeneous learning group?

One common solution is the

£:laRWOEFF.BantiRIN.Lvirilits '(SmSp-erative leaniing," or "collaborativelearning," which has enjoyed widevogue in the last decade. In theBoston English "global issues" courseSusan Fleming team-teaches withtwo other administrators, for ex-

ample, 34 tenth to twelfth graders

work in small groups on the samereading and writing assignments.More able kids will inspire and leadthe slower ones, the cooperative-learning theory has it, and everystudent will contribute his or her

own particular strength and flavor tothe learning ste'w.

"We give them pretty challengmgmaterial," Fleming says. 'llhey readit together, identifying the majorpoints in each article; then they quizeach other on the content. Each kid

will get one question to answer onthe quiz, but the group is graded forits whole performance, so there'sincentive to get everyone up tospeed." Choosing complex andinteresting topics like immigration,she says, ensures that even the mostable students face real intellectual

challenges. On the written positionpapers they complete each term, eachmay write at a different level, but allare facing the same task, "There'salot of interdependency among thestudents," Fleming says. "It' s noteasy stuff, and everyone bringssomething to contribute."

Does coverage of content sufferwhen teachers emphasize groupwork like this? In an article publishedin Thayer High School's publication

A

L

1 HORACEm

I HORACE is publishedfive times yearly at BrownUniversity by the Coalitionof Essential Schools, Box

1969, Brown University,Providence, RI 02912.

Subscription is free.

Editor:

Kathleen Cushman

Managing Editor:Susan Fisher

May 1992

1

"Here, Thayer, and Everywhere,"tenth-grade math teacher ElizabethWhitcomb has described her conster-

nation at the thought of teachinggeometry to those who might not beprepared for it, and her gradual"conversion" to a strong preferencefor mixed-ability classes, at least atthatlevel

Early intervention iscritical when a student

drops behind in aheterogeneous class.

"My goal was that all studentswould not only be reached, but alsochallenged, often beyond self-imposed limits," Whitcomb writes."I also wanted them to know that

true mathematics could be done at all

levels." She combed source materials

for problems that could be exploredat several different mathematical

levels--finding the shortest pathbetween three points on a riverbank,for instance-and encouragedstudents to go as far with them asthey could. "While some studentsmay not have realized the widerange of applications at first," shewrites, "they were able to appreciateand understand them once otherstudents made the discoveries."

Whitcomb's students often work

in twos and threes, with more

advanced students coaching others innecessary concepts. On manyassignments, she offers a morechallenging version along with thebasic problem; anyone can try it forextra credit, but there is no penalty ifone doesn't. She also asks students to

think through each week, in written

journals, an "unsolvable" problemfrom their week's work, and to try todiscern and analyze what made ithard. "As theyear proceeded thejournals provided the heterogeneousclassroom with something veryvital," Whitcomb writes, "an activitywhich everyone could do and fromwhich everyone could gain accordingto his own level."

HORACE

Such strategies are common inmixed-ability situations, andWhitcomb is among many Essentialschool teachers who say that studentswork harder and do better when theytake part in them. Holly Perry, aThomson Fellow and principal ofPhiladelphia's Academy for theMiddle Years, a public middleschool, describes what happenedwhen her school decided to offer

Algebra 1 to all eighth graders,including a special ed teacher as partof the teaching team. "One of our topalgebra students right now is aspecial ed kid with a reading andmath disability," she says. 'I thinkifs really a matter of confidence.There are so many levels of hurt foryoungsters who are set apart that itactually gets in the way of cognitiveprogress."

Early intervention when a studentis dropping behind in a heteroge-neous class is critical, teachers

agree-which is one reason a smalland flexible school structure is so

important to its success. "When astudent needs remediation, we work

with the problem right there at thetime," says Jo Stokes, a McCaskeymath teacher with a heterogeneousAlgebra 2 class "We have a fulladvisory period daily to give stu-dents extra help, and we have collegestudents come jn from the local

university to tutor kids."Another key factor is support

from other teachers-in planninglessons that can challenge all stu-dents, in identifying kids who needextra attention, and in cooperating sothey can get it without delay. Manyteachers who work successfully withmixed groups team up with specialed resource teachers or aides, student

teachers, interns, or parent helpers.The key, say those who do it, is tomake such help freely available to allkids in the class, so as to remove anystigma attached to special ed or extrahelp.

Finally, classroom managementskills can make or break the mixed-

ability class, Susan Fleming notes."You can't change your teachingstrategies unless you have your

4

classroom management down/' shesays. "You have to be rier on whatneeds to be done, and there has to be

some kind of accountability at theend of dass-ten minutes or so to

pull in and report back Irs a messybusiness, and irs not that easy. Thepeople it works for the best seem tohave their kids'on task' all the time."

Seminars and Mixed GroupsSeminars provide another practicalstrategy for drawing students ofdifferent skilllevels together inchallenging classes. At Chicago'sSullivan High School, for instance,every student in the school partici-pates in weekly semina in Englishand histog, monthly seminars insciences, and occasional ones in

subjects like math and languages.

The entire faculty and staff have beentrained to lead seminars, and periodi-cally the whole school gathers forenrichment or special-topic seminars.

The practical effect, seminaradvocates argue, is twofold. Studentsall read the same work-at Sullivan,

a demanding mix of classics andcontemporary authors--and so sharein the same intellectual ground ofideas. And the excitement and

controversy generated by those ideasprovides the stimulus to go back andmaster the necessary skills to explorethem further.

Some schools go to great lengthsto make sure the actual text of, say,Romeo and juliet is read by all ninthgraders; others tailor the experienceto skill levels by reading Charles andMary Lamb's retelling, for instance,or by seeing the play in performanceor on film. At Sullivan everyonereads the original text, but reading

Seminars orgcinizea course's learningoutcomes-reading,writing, analyzing-without requiring thatevery student haDethe same skills.

May 1992

1

One school creates

courses whose intellec-

tual questions arecommon to avariety ofsources at ditrerentlevels.

tutors are available to work with

students on difficult texts-a practicethat, to work, requires the commit-ment of space and out-of-class time.

Seminar-style discussions oftendraw out the best from less

advantaged students whose lifeexperience can amplify their class-mates' understanding of texts. "Kidswith street smarts may be in someways actually better prepared to dealwith ambiguity, to make inferences,and to apprciach a subject fromdifferent points of view than are kidswho have been trained in a 'rightanswer' mentality," says Ann Cook,

who co-directs New York City'sUrban Academy, a small publicalternative school. "Just because youcome from a middle-class environ-

merit doesn't mean you're moreanalytical-you may just be moreverbose!"

Some seminars draw a number of

sources together to answer "essentialquestions" like "What is power?"Others, notably Socratic seminars,focus around interpreting specifictexts. In either case, seminars serve to

organize a course's desired learningoutcomes-reading, writing, com-paring, analyzing, summarizing, andso forth-without undue emphasison every sfudent's having the sameskills. A seminar can easily befollowed by work in small groups onspecific content areas, or by a writingassignment to develop the ideasunder discussion, or by a project thatrequires other kinds of mastery, likeinterviewing or data collection.

Sullivan High School tries tofollow Mortimer Adler's "three-

colunin" teadiing philosophy-combining the Socratic method for"understanding," small-group or

HORACE

individual coaching for skill develop-ment, and presentation-style instruc-tien for gaining information. Theapproach is reflected even in theschool's physical arrangement ofclassrooms, which often have small

adjacent rooms where students canwork either unsupen,ised, with acomputer, or with a tutor.

New York's Urban Academyarrived at a similar teaching method,says Ann Cook, after seeing thetrouble seniors ran into when theytook classes at two local colleges theschool has links with. "One of our

faculty went along and sat in on theclasses to see where the difficulties

lay," Cook says. "Very often the kidsjust needed a clearer articulation ofthe demands of the course, or some

help with structuring their time andstudy skills." After getting suchcoaching back at school, Urban'sseniors started to do much better;

and soon the school incorporated thesame technique into its own curricu-lum. One teacher leads a discussion

class; another teacher sits in on thatclass and then runs a lab class" towork on some of the issues of

process-organizing evidence,categorizing, thinking througharguments.

Another strategy putskids into demandingcourses, then coaches

them in the skills theyneed to do well in them.

'We're putting kids into ademanding academic situation andthen helping them to achieve what isexpected," Cook says. "The skills ofreading, writing, and critical analysisare then supported at the pointwhere they are needed, asa result ofthe demands of the course."

Even students who come to

Urban Academy from academicallyselective high schools have littleexperience in inquiry and criticalthinking, Cook says-so the hetero-

5

geneous ability group all has thesame intellectual task to face. The

school addresses skill differences bycreating courses where the intellec-tual questions are common to avariety of sources. "We have a coursecalled Novels,' for example, wherethe central question is what makesgood writing," she says. "Or we lookat Columbus from a historiographicalpoint of view-using primarysources, textbooks, children's books,

or just what students already knowfrom growing up in America. Weask,'Is Columbus who we think he

is, and how do we know?'" We're

not looking for a lower level ofintellectual inquiry, but for ways topush everybody to do more. We'relooking for equal access to theinteresting questions."

Can Everyone Be Gifted?

Equal access lies, in fact, at the heartof the ability-grouping issue. "Theschool's job is to open the door aswide as possible to every student,"says Ted Sizer. In its second year ofheterogeneous grouping, HodgsonVo-Tech High Schoolin Newark,Delaware has all its ninth graderstake biology, then lets them choosebetween two equally demandingscience courses (chemistry andprinciples of technology), dependingon their field of interest. "Now that

kids know th«ve all got to do it,they see themselves as capable ofmore challenging things," saysguidance counselor Joann Miro. "Wejust won nine awards in the state-wide Science Olympiad, where twoyears ago we never even entered it!"

Some schools continue ability-grouped courses because of pres-sures from the community, but insistthat students be allowed to enroll in

any course they are willing to try. Atone Coalition member school servinga well-to-do area in a large Southerncity, the principal spoke franklyabout the results. "We're all trying todo things that eliminate dropouts,"he said. "If we can make students feel

successful and not give up, that is thepoint. We allow students to make achoice, but we don't generate the

May 1992

HORACE'S F,MAIL

I TEACH 9 AND l0 YEAROLDS

in Narragansett, Rhode Island.Been there 17 years, all at thefourth grade. As a member of theCitibank Faculty, rve beenlistening toalot of conversationconcerning heterogeneousgrouping. lt's interesting thatmost high school people thinkthat the "problem"doesn'texistatthe elementary level While it maynot be as overt, it is there, and the

fact that it is underground makesitmoreof a problem than mostpeople realize.

Many grammar schools stillgroup by ability levels. If there arethree classes at a given gradelevel, one will consist of the

'ligh" students, one will beaverage, and one low. The typical"reform" has been to put onegroup of each level in eachclassroom. Unfortunately, whathappens is that the teachers keepthe students within the group formost of their work, especially inreading and math. So for perhapstwo-thirds of the day, thestudents are homogeneouslygrouped, with little movementwithin the groups. Ananswer tothis problem is called "wholeclass / small group" instruction.The students may all read thesame books, but are constantly re-mixed for skill instruction. Our

team runs a variation of this

where we shume all 75 students

for skill time. Lots of work, but

seems successful onseverallevels.

Simon Hole

Narragansett, RI

CORAL SPRINGS MIDDLE

School (grades 6,7,8) eliminatedadvanced-average-basic grourings three years ago. Achieve-ment tests have continued to rise,

while demographics show adownward trend. A great deal of

pamntand community prepara-tion preceded elimination oftracking. Teacher deliverysystemsandatmtegiesareanimportant component of change.

Pat Ciabotti

Broward County, FL

HORACE

heterogeneous groupings ourselves.It's like diving-I know how high aboard I can dive from, and I'm not

going up any higher." Critics assailsuch systems as subtly perpetuatingclass and racial barriers to achieve-

ment. But this principal disagrees;his school encourages students tomove up on their own, he says, byusing exhibitions and performanceassessments so that students afraid

they won't do well on conventionaltestjng measures will make bold totry more demanding courses.

Even if the state requires itsschools to provide programs for"gifted" children, as in Georgia, thosewho believe in heterogeneousgrouping still find ways to put it inplace. Salem High School, a new

Coalition public school twenty milesoutside Atlanta, uses eighth-grade"teacher ratings" on new ninthgraders' records to carefully (andconfidentially) balance each of theirthree ninth-grade teams for mixedability levels. The school then opensits "honors curriculum" to anystudent who will contract to meet its

standards..

"To qualify, a student has to come

up with an open-ended criticalquestion in two subject areas, foreach of two consecutive quarters,"

says Marilyn Fifield, a social studiesteacher who helped devise thehonors program. "1 have a studentthis quarter who is analyzing whyour county grew the way it did overthe last 20 years; next quarter she'lldo a multimedia presentationprojecting growth trends over the

next 20 years, interviewing all kindsof city officials." A faculty mentorguides the progress of each projectand a three-member panel of teachersassesses it on completion; the workmust receive a C or better to appearas an honors grade on the student'stranscript. The system allows a ten-day grace period after signup, duringwhich students may change theirminds.

"We've seen students who were

not even labeled as high averagetaking up the challenge," says Fifield."And the gifted students, who so

6

often get channeled into narrowlyacademic areas, get to go beyond theborders of school into the communityand university. One student whodoes lawn service work during thesummer proposed a project onsetting up a small business; a youngcellist is creating a hybrid instrumentfrom the blueprint stage, experiment-ing with changing its tone. This getsthem to see that the ability to gobeyond the average can be a practicaland satisfying skill." Concernedabout whether the students were

getting what they needed academi-cally, Fifield says, the committeereviewed the Advanced Placement

exams; they found many of the samequestions their students had sponta-neously chosen to research.

Setting High Standards

The question of standards vexesmany who worry that heterogeneousgrouping will lower the value of ahigh-achieving student's education.Conventional testing measures donot support tius: aggregate datacomparing tracked with untrackedstudents show no significant differ-ence between the two groups instudent achievement levels on

standardized tests. Once they aretracked, however, low-tracked

students do score more poorly thantheir high-tracked peers. (Some scoffthat high achievers do well onstandardized tests even if they sleepthrough school, however.) Advocatesof mixed groups argue that authenticassessment actually sets higherstandards for all students-rneasur-

ing not just facts amassed but theability to reason logically, read andwrite thoughtfully, and solve prob-lems that have no one right answer.

Opening the honorscurriculum to anystudent who will

contract to meet its

standards gives scopeto diOcerent kids' gins.

May 1992

Setting the samegoals for all studentscreates a school culture

where intellectual

energy is the rule, not

the exception.

Rather than watering down academicstandards, Ted Sizer argues, we mustraise them, even for the highest-achieving students--and that willrequire a thoughtful rethinking ofhow and what we teach, and how wemeasure success.

Even more important, setting thesame goals for all students can createa school culture where intellectual

energy is the rule rather than theexception. This carries over intoclassroom behavior as well; one

study by Frances Schwartz revealsnot only higher academic standardsin top tracks but also markedly raisedstandards for student behavior.

Differences like this, observers say,lie behind much of the fear parentshave about de-tracking-they're notjust looking for high-level academicsfor their kids, but for a level of

commitment to learning, a briefescape from the anti-intellectualismof American schools and society.

"Mixed grouping creates adifferent playing field," saysPhiladelphia's Holly Perry. "Young-sters who once behaved as if theydidn't have anything to contributeare now feeling a greater permissionto participate. And I see less isolationof nerds-we're encouraging ways todemonstrate mastery in ways thateveryone recognizes are cool." Thedifference in student achievement is

evident, she says; a visiting regionalsuperintendent could not pick out,from n mixed-ability oitihth grade

earth science di.splay, the projectsthat were the work of special educa-tion students. Other te,ichers agreethat the climate improves with mixedgroups; in her Global Issues course atBoston English, Susan Fleming says,"we have almost no one who is not

HORACE

performing, or who comes every daybut is not with us." Still, she says,because all the school' s classes are

not heterogeneous, "the kids knowwho they are--and when they gointo their tracked classes they know

what level they're expected toperform at."

Assessment practices in a hetero-

geneously grouped school, ideally,also honor the kind of reflective, non-

reductionist thinking that mixedability groups foster. The Academyfor the Middle Years has moved to

narrative report cards-it takesteachers 25 hours to write them outwhile other staff members fill in at

their posts, Perry says, but "it makesus value what we say we value."

Still, that shift in standards canalso create discomfort for students

unused to the new techniques ofheterogeneous classes. "We havebright students who go home andsay, 'I'm bored,'" says Salem HighSchool principal Robert Cresswell.'They share their parents' andgrandparents' mindset-that learn-ing consists of a lot of memorizing,right-answer tests, worksheethomework." The highest-achievingstudents also resist losing theiraccustomed, often automatic,

privilege and prestige; trackingprotects their place in a system that'sworked just fine for themso far.

What It Takes to Work

A sustained effort to educate parentsseems critical to a school's success

with a heterogeneous groupingpolicy. "We sit wor·ried parentsdown with our teaching teams andtalk about how emphasizing con-cepts, communication, and collabora-tion prepares their kids better thanthe old regurgitation of facts,"Cresswell says. "And we've startedmailing home a monthly newsletter

describing just what is going on intlieir kids' classes, and what theyshould expect their child to belearning and studying." AtMcCaskey High School, oppositionfrom parents of higher-level studentssparked a series of community

7

meetings and district-sponsoreddiscussion programs, says principalJohn Syphard. Representatives fromBrown and other universities partici-pated, written information was sentout to parents, and many parentscame to obseive classes in the

Essential Studies program. "Part ofthe problem," Syphard observes,"was that people wrongly assumeour Essential Studies program is justthe same as the cooperative learningmovement, which a lot of peoplehave trouble with for whatever

reasons. Once they see more of whatwe really do, they feel more comfort-able with it."

High-track studentsonen resist losing theiraccustomed, q#enautomatic, priuiZegeand prestige.

Equally important if hetero-geneous grouping is to succeed,advocates agree, are vigorous effortsto develop challenging mixed-abilitycurricula and to give teachers thetime and opportunity for profes-sional development in the new ways."We have two hours a day to workwith other teachers," says McCaskeyteacher Jo Stokes. "We also have a

district professional education centerwhere we can go and debrief, and alot of backing from our departmentchairpeople, Any time we introducea new teaching strategy, we use a lotof peer coaching." Other observerssuggest lowering class sizes for atime at the start of mixed groupingand suspending conventional teacherevaluations until faculty membersbecome more comfortable with the

now methods.

"it's a training issue," agreesBoston English's Susan Fleming."Most of our teachers don't feel

willing to do heterogeneous group-ing schoolwide; th«11 do it inhistory and science but not in mathand English. People think there's

May 1992

some linear sequence that driveswhat the high-achieving kid needswhen he goes to college, that if youdon't teach in this sequence you takeaway his ability to make it. To getteachers to identify what's fundamen-ta/ for students, and to integrate thosethings into our curriculum at everylevel, would take a tremendous

amount of training and commit-ment."

Involving outsiders in the school'sefforts-from universities to business

partnerships and parent volunteers»seems to energize programs wherestudents are expected to meetuniversal goals. And substantialencouragement is needed from theadmissions offices of colleges anduniversities, whose shadow loornslarge over the decisions made bymost high schools. "We're underterrific pressure to classify andcatalog students so they'll knowwhat they're getting," said oneprincipal. 'They know from lookingat our transcript that any coursenumber with 9 in it is in an advanced

placement track, Otherwise whatdoes a 3.9 grade pointaverage mean?"

...

HORACECoalition of Essential Schools

Brown UniversityBox 1969

Providence, Rl 02912

Rather than wateringdown academic stan-

dards we must raise

them, even for thehighest-achievingstudents, Sizer says.

As new research in cognitivescience, such as that of Harvard'sHoward Gardner and Dennie Wolf,

redefines "intelligence" to embrace amuch broader range of attributes, aprofound shift in our attitudes aboutschooling must inevitably follow.Schculs that change to reflect thisshift, as these Essential schools are

trying to do, will not be places wherethe lowest common denominator of

scholarly challenge prevails, as criticsof heterogeneous grouping fear.Instead, they could embrace far morerigorous demands, at the same timeallowing more variation in how thosedemands are met.

"If we really have faith that allstudents have intellectual power,"Joe Mci)onald observes, "a tremen-dous array of different routes opens

up to let them exercise it. Whethera kid does an internship in a localbusiness or takes an advanced

calculus class in an 'early college'setting, neither one will carry astigma. We can balance seminar-style and project-based work withsequential, stepwise material whereit is appropriate to the subject matter.If you expect that all students willmeet high intellectual standards,there's room for a tremendous

amount of responsible differentiabonin the American high school." 0

HORACE welcomes letters from

readers, and now you can sendmem by either electronic mail orthe postal service. The CESelectronic bulletin board postsnowrpR about coming issues, soyou can contribute your thoughtsand experience as an article isresearched. Use e-mail MC[MAIL

4924203 and note your messageis for HORACE, or simply respondin writing to the return addressbelow. We reserve the rightto*t for length and clarity; please*lucie your name, address, andphone number for fact checking.

Non-Profit Org.U.S. Postage

PAID

Providence RI

Permit No. 202