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.

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)

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.

Ability Grouping and Tracking

Ability Grouping and Tracking PDF Author: Patricia Brown
Publisher: National Governors Assn
ISBN: 9781558772137
Category : Ability grouping in education
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
Structures that produce negative effects for some children are discussed, including grouping practices. A role for the states in moving away from traditional approaches is outlined. Current ability grouping and tracking are critical barriers to creating high expectations for all students, and they perpetuate low levels of performance for average and below-average students and tend to maintain the low expectations often held for minority groups. Existing grouping practices tend to sort children out of learning opportunities. Systemic change is needed to link social service programs to the education system, to improve student readiness to enter school, and to define and implement accountability systems that the public understands and embraces. Change cannot occur over night, and the support of Governors and other policymakers is vital to the success of reform efforts. Some state efforts toward reform in the area of ability grouping and tracking are reviewed. Supportive state strategies are particularly possible in the areas of: (1) incentives to schools to consider more flexible grouping; (2) networks of practitioners to share successful approaches; (3) assistance to schools; (4) professional development; (5) communication; and (6) focus on the context of reform. Appendix A contains three essays on current practices, and Appendix B analyzes issues and recommendations from a recent working meeting on ability grouping and tracking. (Contains 22 references.) (SLD)

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

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


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.

RTI Strategies for Secondary Teachers

RTI Strategies for Secondary Teachers PDF Author: Susan Gingras Fitzell
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 1452268908
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
A “strategy bank” for secondary teachers This book offers a bank of proven RTI strategies for Grades 6–12, including easy-to-implement interventions and sample lessons that improve achievement for all students.

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.

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.