Curricular Differentiation in Public High Schools

摘要

American schools are faced with two difficult, competing tasks. First, they are required to provide equal educational opportunities for all students. At the same time, they are expected to offer a differentiated education to students so that differences in abilities, learning styles, and motivational levels can be accommodated. While proponents of curriculum differentiation, traditionally referred to as 'tracking', see it as a necessary response to individual educational needs, critics charge that it benefits only students assigned to high-ability courses, and otherwise reproduces th socioeconomic inequities and racial differentiation already present in the larger society. In order to fully document the magnitude of the effects of tracking on today's children, it is important to go beyond what effects tracking can have, and determine how and to what degree tracking is actually being implemented in our schools.