Mathews Examines Return Of Ability Grouping

Jay Mathews writes at the Washington Post (3/17) "Class Struggle" blog that the practice of dividing elementary students into ability-based reading groups, which fell out of favor in the 1970s and 1980s, has quietly returned to US classrooms. "Depending on your point of view, the No Child Left Behind law deserves credit or blame for the return of" the practice. Mathews writes that Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy "examines this turnabout in his new report, 'How Well Are American Students Learning?' ... Loveless's research shows that the anti-tracking movement had some effect, although middle schools and high schools still have one set of courses for college-oriented students and a less demanding set in the same subjects for those not so academically inclined."