Tracking by Interests Could Be Right Answer for Some Students

Waffling: to change one’s mind frequently. I am about to waffle on a policy I’ve been adamantly against in the past--tracking--and feeling downright uncomfortable. However, since I publicly stated my position against tracking, it would be dishonest not to admit I’m no longer certain that tracking is always such a bad idea.

A student is changing my mind.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about Jorge--I’m changing his name for this column--on the first day of classes. He came into the room, swung his knapsack onto a table and sat down. Same routine every day. Jorge didn’t talk, didn’t take notes, didn’t do homework; he didn’t do anything.

Then I tried a new strategy. I told him he had to at least attempt the assignment. He wrote two sentences and left his unfinished paper on the desk. It wasn’t much of a sample, but enough to show he was barely literate. I volunteered to tutor him. Not interested.

At midsemester, Jorge’s report card exhibited only Ds and Fs. I checked cumulative records and noted it had always been the same. I don’t know when he turned off to school; maybe he had never turned on.

I asked him if he didn’t have to attend high school, what would he do. He said he liked to work in construction, that he liked being outside, working with his hands. In a two-line journal entry he wrote that he likes to have “quiet in his head.�

When I went to high school in New York, all students were tracked. Jorge would have been in vocational training, learning to work with tools for plumbing or metal work or printing. But years ago, noting that vocational tracks had mostly black and immigrant students, educators decided that tracking was a form of discrimination. Everyone, they said, should have an equal opportunity and exposure to college prep courses. Now I wonder if a classic education is for everyone.

What of the child who has decided that he won’t, he can’t, he’s not interested in history and science and math? What’s so sacred about a high school diploma if you can get a job without one, or be unemployed with one? What about apprentice programs instead? Or working with trade unions, even indenturing students to employers able to teach them marketable skills? We have junior colleges that offer two-year degrees, why not two-year high schools?

The L.A. Unified School District has pushed for more Advanced Placement classes, yet there isn’t a comparable push for more vocational classes. Why? Because students in vocational training generally don’t score high on standard assessment tests and the public wants schools where student scores are high. High scores mean increased enrollment, higher neighborhood property values, more prestige and ultimately more dollars. Schools get recognition for the number of graduates who go to college. No one keeps track of the graduates who get quality blue-collar jobs.

When Sylmar High School closed a successful auto shop program a few years ago, there was no parental outcry. What a contrast to the parents of students in North Hollywood’s Highly Gifted Magnet who managed to halt, at least temporarily, year-round plans for four high schools when their gifted children’s extracurricular activities were in jeopardy.

Many high school campuses have empty buildings that formerly housed printing, auto and carpentry programs. The LAUSD has some vocational programs, but not nearly enough. Kids can take Regional Occupation Program classes in the afternoon or go to the Mid-Valley or North Valley occupational centers after school and on Saturdays. There they learn to be mechanics, beauticians, electricians, day-care workers. Jorge might fill a whole day with instruction meaningful to him if he didn’t have to attend high school--where he is learning how to fail.

In England and France students get a basic early education, then specialize by the time they are 14. We could do that here. It wouldn’t be discriminatory tracking if students could self-select and even change their minds.

Every time I think I have the answer to education’s woes, a Jorge comes along to let me know I don’t. I’m no longer certain tracking programs by interest areas, not ability levels, can’t work. About all I am certain about is that we’ll never find a “one-size-fits-all� education policy for a student body as diverse as ours.

So, what’s going to happen to Jorge? There’s a good chance he’ll drop out next year and go to work in construction. He’ll be outside, working with his hands and having quiet in his head.