Is It the Road to Ruin or the Fast Track to Success? : Education: The debate is a national one, with research showing lower-level classes as the losers under tracking.

The current debate in Vista over whether to group students according to ability--commonly known as tracking--is mirrored throughout school districts nationwide.

The thrust of much educational research over the past several years is that tracking hurts those children placed in lower-level classes because teachers have lower expectations for the students, and the students respond accordingly because they see themselves tagged as low achievers incapable of academic success.

Not only are such children left poorly prepared in reading and math--and without an option for attending college--researchers say, but most of them tend to be black or Latino, leading to additional charges that tracking resegregates students in ostensibly desegregated schools.

But much of the data--which calls for mixing students of different abilities to boost self-esteem, expectations and performance--flies in the face of the common wisdom of parents and teachers, engendered over more than half a century of tracking practices.

Advocates of tracking say separation by ability allows teachers to concentrate their talents with homogeneous groups of students, eliminating problems of discipline, intimidation and frustration that otherwise would occur if students labeled as low-achievers mixed with those who can learn faster.

“I’d say there are honest disagreements between educators over the value of tracking,” said Kermeen Fristrom, director of basic education for the San Diego Unified School District, which is in the forefront nationally among school systems moving away from tracking.

“We have teachers who are unhappy with our program and with the change in the students that they have in their classes, and who still feel strongly that tracking is better for students,” Fristrom said.

Yet San Diego administrators concluded that, by and large, tracking does not work, especially when students in the so-called remedial classes continue to receive Ds and Fs.

San Diego is eliminating tracking in its elementary schools, where it has commonly taken the form of grouping within classrooms, as opposed to separate classes at the secondary level.

A new reading program beginning this summer, based on state Department of Education guidelines, will use literature read by all students in a class, rather than three levels of reading texts for three and sometimes four different ability groups. Students will be broken into groups at times, depending on specific skills and enrichment lessons, but the separations will be temporary and will vary according to activity.

“It’s not going to put weak students together in a continual group anymore,” Fristrom said.

The district’s common core program, now in its third year, is gradually eliminating remedial-level courses at the junior and senior high levels. At the minimum, all students will now take math, science and English courses that, if satisfactorily completed, could qualify them for admission to the University of California or California State University systems.

“We still have gifted and advanced-placement tracks, so we are not as radical as some opponents of tracking who say there should be none at all,” Fristrom said.

Tom Boysen, who heads the San Diego County Office of Education, said that in general, he believes research validates the move toward reducing the number of academic tracks, “since the evidence does show that students in lower tracks are more dispirited . . . and we can learn from the Japanese and others, in contrast, who put students (of varying abilities) together and who find the tone of the class is likely to rise.”

But Boysen also reflects the views of Fristrom and many educators around the country that they must give strong support to teachers to learn new teaching styles, and provide strong support for students to cope with higher-level classes.

“Otherwise, the elimination of tracking alone will lead to frustration and poor results for everyone,” he said.

“I think you must have strong motivation on the part of both students and teachers,” Boysen said. “I believe that this is much more a question of motivation rather than ability. . . . Sure, there some differences (in ability), but if you look at the connection between high achievement and intelligence, I would bet that homework and parent support have a lot to do with it.”

For that reason, Boysen has been a strong advocate of expanding the AVID program originally begun in San Diego city schools.

AVID, for Advancement Via Individual Determination, identifies students long labeled as remedial or slow learners and places them in advanced courses while giving them special tutoring, tips on homework and class organization, as well as positive peer-group reinforcement. A new study by UC San Diego sociologist Hugh Mehan indicates the grades of most AVID students have risen, that test scores are up and that enrollment in post-secondary schools has increased.

“It clearly shows that you can take students with remedial characteristics and put them in the same tracks with regular students and they do as well or better,” Boysen said. “AVID is clearly a very, very important part of the solution.”

“No one is saying that every kid starts in the same place and that you just dump them together,” said Hugh Boyle, a longtime teacher and head of the San Diego Teachers Assn. “You need sustained effort, and it comes down to changing the way you teach.”

Fristrom said there is some truth to assertions by supporters of tracking that low-level or remedial classes need to be taught better, not eliminated.

“Yes, if we could teach them in the same way we teach advanced classes, achievement would increase,” Fristrom said.