Heterogeneous Grouping

High-achieving learning environments generally do not track students and instead encourage heterogeneous grouping and assignment strategies. According to Oakes and Lipton (1992), along with these new arrangements come inevitable changes in school structures and practices, which might include reconstructed curriculum and expanded instructional strategies that better accommodate the learning styles of a heterogeneous group of students.

Grouping and tracking have been issues of concern for years. Slavin's 1988 review of the literature, for instance, supports several findings about grouping and tracking:

• Some evidence suggests that high achievers gain from ability grouping at the expense of low achievers, but most studies find no such trend. Overall, the effects of ability grouping are near zero for students at all achievement levels. (p. 69)

• Ability grouping is often ineffective even at the secondary level, where student differences may be considerable. (p. 72)

• "Grouping may doom children who are not in the top tracks to second class instruction and, ultimately, second class futures." (p. 74)

References