This started out as a simple fact-gathering exercise to ensure complete information was available to the school board as it made decisions regarding the honors program for seventh and eight graders. What became apparent is the information presented to date was not merely unbalanced, it was a detracker’s wish list which went far beyond what published proponents of detracking feel is truly necessary. This response has two components. The first is a reading list that provides insights into the dynamics of the discussion and pointers to the research-based results which clearly favor per-subject ability grouping for high-ability students. The second section briefly looks at how the tracking controversy was contrived, the cost to taxpayers and under-served students, and asks the question that has become standard when reviewing a national tragedy, "What did they know, and when did they know it?"

The first prerequisite for seeing through the fog is the book, Please Understand Me by David Kiersey and Marilyn Bates. This helps shift the debate from excellence versus equity to questions about the temperaments of students and teachers and the quality of their interactions in the classroom (and with the school board). The book makes five important contributions to the ability-grouping debate:

1. It contains a prerequisite overview on the four personality temperaments (SJ, SP, NT, NF)
1. It discusses children’s learning styles; of particular interest is the NT child who benefits well from direct instruction and may need interaction with NT peers to overcome feelings of isolation. To coin a new buzz-phrase, pedagogy should be temperamentally appropriate as well as developmentally appropriate; not all middle school students are kinesthetic learners yearning to roam free!
1. It presents teaching styles associated with the four temperaments. Note that it is the NF temperament that can manage a "three-ring circus" in the classroom.
1. It provides a model for the "basics" versus "socialization" conflict: There are more SJ educators (basics), but the NFs (socialization) are more articulate. Both the SP and NT students (who often aren’t understood by their teachers) are likely to have no advocates as educational fads oscillate between the SJ and NF extremes.
1. It discusses the role each temperament is predisposed to play in the change process, particularly the role of (and need for) the NF spokesperson.

The second and third references for seeing through the fog are the articles by Paul George, Is It Possible to Live with Tracking and Ability Grouping and Untracking Your Middle School: Nine Tentative Steps Toward Long-Term Success. In the former article, Dr. George discusses how ability grouping can be done fairly, and goes so far as to admit:

In the latter article, George demonstrates ignorance or indifference to the needs of high ability students, and a willingness to incite divisiveness:

George then discusses how the second group of parents should be incented to speak out against the unjust and unfair monopolization of good teachers by the first group’s children.

Paul George is not the only advocate of untracking who merely alludes to hidden costs. In Alternatives to Tracking and Ability Grouping, Anne Wheelock quotes middle school teachers:

Wheelock goes on to note "asked what they might do differently if they were to begin again, many principals emphasize, ‘More staff development!’"

One is left to speculate that a better outcome might result by making the same investment in both staff development and empowerment but not detracking!

In general one is hard pressed to find use of the scientific method in the "studies" cited to support detracking; with some, detracking is more of a creed than a proven educational methodology, as seen by one opponent’s comment from Educational Leadership:

Even Dr. Robert Slavin, the most authoritative researcher among the opponents of ability grouping has made his biases known to The New York Times, November 1, 1992:

Apparently the touted heterogeneous classrooms produce a surprisingly homogeneous outcome!

Since, as noted in the Phi Delta Kappan (December, 1994), "Successful detracking is tantamount to school restructuring" one might wonder if the detrackers’ efforts at middle school restructuring is as expensive (and educationally questionable) as their own words suggest. Apparently so:

One community took an "unprecedented opportunity" following middle school implementation to overhaul its services for high ability students. The Greensboro, North Carolina News and Record (October 17, 1995) included some familiar names:

Their plan for advanced learners is available at http://www.greensboro.com/pcqe/nlsum97.htm as of summer, 1997:

The Guilford County plan should look familiar; it’s much closer to what our school system has been doing for the last 25 years than any of the recent "developmentally appropriate, heterogeneous grouping" proposals. (As if subjecting an advanced learner to coursework four grade levels below her ability could be "developmentally appropriate." See http://www.nwrel.org/nwedu/fall_97/article2.html, reference four) In fact, the inflated claims of the detrackers have been adeptly refuted by Dr. Bonnie Grossen of the University of Oregon (see How Should We Group to Achieve Excellence with Equity? reference five, http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~bgrossen) As Dr. Slavin said, "Educational innovation is highly susceptible to faddism, which is fostered by a lack of attention to careful evaluations" (The New York Times, January 6, 1991).

And which careful evaluations were not attended to? Several citations of Dr. Grossen’s date between 1972 and 1985, the same period of time which the detrackers were preparing to burst upon the national stage of popular media. Detrackers found that the existing literature, however, could be dismissed on the political grounds of special interest. Other research that was contradictory to their conclusions could simply be ignored, or selectively cited to support their own opinions. As demonstrated by the Sunday New York Times, November 1, 1992, it was enough for detrackers to assert "only a small percentage" of children would suffer:

The final irony is: Even Dr. Slavin knows there is not enough money to train teachers and provide tutors once children deficient in basic skills leave elementary school; his "Success for All" program shifts funds from special education and remediation to prevention and early intervention during elementary school.

How did the detrackers succeed? George and Oakes pursued a blatantly political strategy, implying their opposition came from unenlightened elitists and special interests who were insensitive to the equity needs of minorities. While they spoke with the voice of enlightened compassion, they coached supporters and subverted the education of children. As Dr. Oakes noted, "Some of the savviest school administrators I know work with parents whose kids are not in the top track to feel comfortable with that and to speak up at meetings." Dr. George lauded "one wily school administrator" who made honors math available to students only in addition to the standard math course and with the corresponding loss of an exploratory course (presumably without diminishing the exploratory and developmentally appropriate nature of the middle school curriculum).

Many of the detrackers simply redefined terms on the fly. One noteworthy exception among the detrackers was Dr. Slavin, who showed care in speaking of "between-class ability grouping" (by which he meant grouping without a suitably differentiated curriculum), knowing that his results did not hold when suitable differentiation was provided. In contrast, the National Education Association spoke of "rigid academic tracking" (1988) which in time came to include "between-class ability grouping" which became practically indistinguishable from "ability grouping." The New York Times observed that "Jeannie Oakes, an education professor, defines tracking as ‘any effort to organize a system that results in students who seem to be alike in ability being taught together, separated from others.’" This occurred despite existence of case law which clearly established that tracking (into vocational, general, and college prep tracks, for example) was illegal, but ability grouping (with appropriately differentiated curriculum) was in fact preferable to heterogeneous grouping!

The detrackers extensively cited (and mis-cited) their own papers and those of colleagues, and as a group simply ignored peer-reviewed work published in more prestigious conferences and journals. A paper which the National Middle School Association cites as favoring heterogeneous grouping in middle schools did not even find favorable results in the middle schools studied, only in K-8 schools (which are often ability grouped). Dr. Slavin was aware that his own conclusions "should not be read as indicating a lack of differential effects of tracking."

With the exception of Dr. Slavin, the detrackers rejected the scientific method, preferring self-selecting, self-reporting surveys of administrators to the time-consuming controlled studies of student achievement performed by educational researchers. For the detrackers, evocative language ("the junior high school, by almost unanimous agreement, is the wasteland—one is tempted to say cesspool—of American education") replaced reproducible results.

The conclusions were obvious even before the debate was born. Lower ability students benefit from appropriate intervention and grouping with students of average ability. Students of average and high ability benefit from challenging instruction targeted to their level of ability. Group the students accordingly and provide necessary intervention. And ensure the teaching staff receives the training and tools appropriate for the skilled exercise of a vitally important profession.

In reviewing the mis-spent millions and under-served students, parents, communities, and teachers, one does discern a cesspool of American education.

But it is not the junior high school.