How Schools Work

How Schools Work PDF Author: Rebecca Barr
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780226038124
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
As budgets tighten for school districts, a sound understanding of just how teaching and administration translate into student learning becomes increasingly important. Rebecca Barr, a researcher of classroom instruction and reading skill development, and Robert Dreeben, a sociologist of education who analyzes the structure of organizations, combine their expertise to explore the social organization of schools and classrooms, the division of labor, and the allocation of key resources. Viewing schools as part of a social organization with a hierarchy of levels—district, school, classroom, instructional group, and students—avoids the common pitfalls of lumping together any and all possible influences on student learning without regard to the actual processes of the classroom. Barr and Dreeben systematically explain how instructional groups originate, form, and change over time. Focusing on first grade reading instruction, their study shows that individual reading aptitude actually has little direct relation to group reading achievement and virtually none to the coverage of reading materials once the mean aptitude of groups is taken into consideration. Individual aptitude, they argue, is rather the basis on which teachers form reading groups that are given different instructional treatment. It is these differences in group treatment, they contend, that explain substantial differences in learning curricular material.

How Schools Work

How Schools Work PDF Author: Rebecca Barr
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780226038124
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Get Book Here

Book Description
As budgets tighten for school districts, a sound understanding of just how teaching and administration translate into student learning becomes increasingly important. Rebecca Barr, a researcher of classroom instruction and reading skill development, and Robert Dreeben, a sociologist of education who analyzes the structure of organizations, combine their expertise to explore the social organization of schools and classrooms, the division of labor, and the allocation of key resources. Viewing schools as part of a social organization with a hierarchy of levels—district, school, classroom, instructional group, and students—avoids the common pitfalls of lumping together any and all possible influences on student learning without regard to the actual processes of the classroom. Barr and Dreeben systematically explain how instructional groups originate, form, and change over time. Focusing on first grade reading instruction, their study shows that individual reading aptitude actually has little direct relation to group reading achievement and virtually none to the coverage of reading materials once the mean aptitude of groups is taken into consideration. Individual aptitude, they argue, is rather the basis on which teachers form reading groups that are given different instructional treatment. It is these differences in group treatment, they contend, that explain substantial differences in learning curricular material.

Keeping Track

Keeping Track PDF Author: Jeannie Oakes
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300174069
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Selected by the American School Board Journal as a “Must Read” book when it was first published and named one of 60 “Books of the Century” by the University of South Carolina Museum of Education for its influence on American education, this provocative, carefully documented work shows how tracking—the system of grouping students for instruction on the basis of ability—reflects the class and racial inequalities of American society and helps to perpetuate them. For this new edition, Jeannie Oakes has added a new Preface and a new final chapter in which she discusses the “tracking wars” of the last twenty years, wars in which Keeping Track has played a central role. From reviews of the first edition:“Should be read by anyone who wishes to improve schools.”—M. Donald Thomas, American School Board Journal“[This] engaging [book] . . . has had an influence on educational thought and policy that few works of social science ever achieve.”—Tom Loveless in The Tracking Wars“Should be read by teachers, administrators, school board members, and parents.”—Georgia Lewis, Childhood Education“Valuable. . . . No one interested in the topic can afford not to attend to it.”—Kenneth A. Strike, Teachers College Record

Alternatives to Tracking and Ability Grouping

Alternatives to Tracking and Ability Grouping PDF Author: Anne Wheelock
Publisher: R&L Education
ISBN: 9780876521991
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 92

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Book Description
A number of respected school systems are now seeking alternatives to tracking and ability grouping, alternatives that will ensure a better education for all students whatever their abilities. This handbook introduces practitioners to educators around the United States who are developing alternatives to harmful grouping practices. After a brief review of the roots of sorting practices and their impact on teaching and learning, the book describes features of classrooms and schools that have begun to use heterogeneous groupings and other innovative strategies. These features include high expectations for all, agreed-upon outcomes, coaching to help all students, innovative learning strategies for all, structures that support inclusive learning, and counseling for all students for success. The steps that schools may take to replace traditional grouping practices include developing school-based leadership and parental support, providing professional development, and support, creating districtwide commitment, planning for change, phasing in change, and developing supporting policies. In conclusion, schools that have started the untracking process have seen student achievement and self-esteem rise. Sufficient training and resources for teachers and staff is crucial for making for process work. Contains a glossary and nine references. (LMI)

The Tracking Wars

The Tracking Wars PDF Author: Tom Loveless
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 9780815720218
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
In the 1980s, a nationwide reform movement sprang up in opposition to "tracking," the controversial practice of schools grouping students by ability and organizing curriculum by level of difficulty. Officials in two states, Massachusetts and California, adopted policies urging middle schools to reduce or abandon tracking. In this book, Tom Loveless describes how schools reacted to these recommendations and discusses why some schools went along with detracking while others bitterly resisted the reform. Loveless explains that the state policies were adopted without strict mandates, financial incentives, legal threats, or new bureaucratic structures. They were also adopted without convincing evidence that detracking brings lasting benefits to students. But advocates framed tracking reform as a policy supporting greater educational equity. In response, urban schools, low-achieving schools, and schools serving disadvantaged children have reacted sympathetically to the reform. Suburban schools, high-achieving schools, and schools serving wealthier families have been less willing to detrack. Drawing on extensive survey and case study data, Loveless concludes that this reform's fate is in the hands of local decisionmakers. Schools formulate tracking policy based on their own institutional, organizational, political, and technical considerations. All school reform entails risks. One troubling implication of this study is that the risks of detracking are being assumed by schools with some of society's most vulnerable youngsters.

Ability Grouping and Tracking in American Education

Ability Grouping and Tracking in American Education PDF Author: Jody A. McClung
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ability grouping in education
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description


Detracking for Excellence and Equity

Detracking for Excellence and Equity PDF Author: Carol Corbett Burris
Publisher: ASCD
ISBN: 1416607757
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Proven strategies for launching, sustaining, and monitoring a reform that will offer all students access to the best curriculum, raise achievement across the board, and close the achievement gap.

Methods of Grouping Learners at School

Methods of Grouping Learners at School PDF Author: Vincent Dupriez
Publisher: United Nations Education, Scientific & Cultural Organization
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description
How should classrooms be formed in a school? What criteria should be used for dividing students up between schools and classes? When is tracking/streaming and ability grouping appropriate in a school system? the author reviews the research of the past decade in order to evaluate the impact of class composition on students' learning. The question of equality of opportunity is also addressed. Although it is one of the fundamental principles of every educational project in the democratic countries, what are the real learning opportunities offered to students? Among the factors that make these opportunities differ between schools, or even between classes, researchers have long studied the question of the influence that each pupil or student has on his or her classmates - the so-called ’peer effect'. Going beyond peer effect within classes, this book also considers the subtle and sometimes unintentional process of adapting the teaching level according To The level of the school, which can lead to inequalities. Beyond a review of the research carried out on these issues, The author tackles related issues of administration and education policy.

Ability Grouping in Education

Ability Grouping in Education PDF Author: Judith Ireson
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761972099
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Ability Grouping in Education provides an overview of ability grouping in education. The authors consider selective schooling and ability grouping within schools, such as streaming, banding setting and within-class grouping.

International Handbook of Research on Teachers and Teaching

International Handbook of Research on Teachers and Teaching PDF Author: Lawrence J. Saha
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387733175
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 1192

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Book Description
The International Handbook of Research on Teachers and Teaching provides a fresh look at the ever changing nature of the teaching profession throughout the world. This collection of over 70 articles addresses a wide range of issues relevant for understanding the present educational climate in which the accountability of teachers and the standardized testing of students have become dominant.

Curriculum Differentiation

Curriculum Differentiation PDF Author: Reba Neukom Page
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791404690
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Sharing methods and orientations of the interpretive paradigm, the contributors to this book sharpen our understanding of the school's differentiating function. They analyze issues and clarify persistent contradictions in traditional studies of curriculum differentiation and tracking by examining schools and classrooms and describing the processes and contexts in which curriculum differentiation produces both its intended and unintended effects. Curriculum Differentiation focuses on student's creation of meaning from differentiated classroom ecperiences. It studies lower-track students, analyzes the experiences of students in alternative programs, and contrasts the experiences of honor students in two different schools. It also offers teachers' perspectives, and analyzes curriculum differentiation from a district or system perspective. The authors challenge notions that curriculum differentiation is a neutral, necessary response to individual differences, or that it has an adverse impact on students. Professional educators interested in understanding and improving the means by which high schools carry out the nearly impossible mandate of equitably distributing "humanized" knowledge while accommodating diversity will find this book an important resource.