Tracking by another name

When I originally read the articles included in Kappan’s special issue on identifying and developing talented youth, I believed there to be a glaring omission by the authors: They did not include any real mention of the choice to integrate “gifted” students into heterogeneous classrooms (e.g., detracking). In other words, the authors positioned themselves on one side of the debate regarding gifted education, namely maintaining separate GT programs (e.g., tracking) while attempting to identify and serve more racially diverse students. What was missing in the articles was the other side of the debate. Not one of the authors wrote about stopping the practice of sorting students into “gifted” and “non-gifted” programs in the first place. Therefore, I suggested that educators reimagine the traditional structure of separate and unequal GT categories, services, and resources and consider expanding access to gifted pedagogy for all students.

Detracking GT is considered “a remedy for the negative effects of tracking” (Rubin, 2006, p. 4).  As Alvarez & Mehan (2006) wrote, “Whereas tracking segregates students of varying background into separate courses of study and holds instruction time constant, detracking has the potential to hold high standards constant and varies the amount of instruction time, and social and academic supports” (p. 83). This is not merely ideology; heterogeneous grouping is both a learning theory and an organizational practice that seeks to provide rigorous instruction and high expectations to all students.

Unfortunately, the main arguments I made in my commentary have been deeply misconstrued and recast by Plucker & Callahan. First of all, I never suggested that districts or schools eliminate advanced learning opportunities, which they claim multiple times in their response. Actually, the opposite is true. As I explained in my piece, all students — not just those labeled GT (who are also disproportionately white) — would benefit from having access to advanced learning opportunities: “Now is the time to unbuild this structure by phasing out traditional GT programming and turning our attention to schoolwide programs (such as Complex Instruction and the Schoolwide Enrichment Model) that offer all students access to excellent instruction in diverse classrooms.” I cited ample evidence regarding how GT programs were intentionally built to benefit white students, and about how districts/schools could unbuild these unfair and discriminatory structures by phasing separate programs out.