As a middle level educator for the majority of my career I have been a staunch opponent of tracking. Sifting and sorting students based solely on academic levels seemed capricious and elitist. Students who struggled were provided with few models while those in the upper strata benefited from a disproportionate level of resources. I’m not going to spend timing quoting research and referencing multiple studies. They’re out there. In general the research shows that heterogeneous grouping benefits average and below average students while having no negative impact on the highest students.

Now that I’m a high school principal for the first time, however, I’m asking myself if there isn’t some potential benefit to tracking, at least at the high school level. It’s almost not worth debating since every high school uses tracking to some degree. Honors classes. AP classes. Survey classes. In the traditional schools the tracks are as clear as those of a fifteen hundred pound moose in a parking lot in Anchorage in October (No, I haven’t really seen a moose in a parking lot. Yet.) In Highland Tech’s personal mastery system students, in essence, track themselves. If they’re a ninth grader who has mastered ninth grade concepts in math they “level up.” Though we do not have honors classes per se, we have a fair number of students who are leveled up beyond their grade level and each year we have students who graduate before their chronological time. Conversely, we also have students who struggle to level up and are consequently grouped with students younger than themselves for instruction. We have rigorous standards for graduation beyond those of the traditional Anchorage schools. Students must earn an additional 1/2 credit in math, and while elective options abound in science, social studies, and language arts in the traditional schools, our program is such that students must complete challenging work at grade level all the way through.

In addition to the academic standards, students must also meet PSS (Personal, Social, Service), careers, and technology standards, as I mentioned last week. Consequently (there’s that word again) our graduation rate is not a celebratory statistic. We have a rigorous program. And while many of the students we draw come to us because of our unique ability to challenge them and free them from the constraints of a time-bound system, many students come to us for our unique safe and nurturing learning environment. While that is an attribute I would never sacrifice, it nevertheless fills our ranks with students we know from Day One will struggle to fulfill graduation requirements.

With ten content area teachers and one special education teacher teaching four subjects at seven grade levels plus advisory and electives, we simply do not possess the capability of offering students leveled classes within a grade level strand. We’re stretched as thin as we can be and our assistant principal is even “on the floor” teaching two different electives. If we have any hope of retaining and graduating a higher percentage of students we must conquer this 10/28+ inhibiting structural conundrum. We need to closely examine our graduation requirements and determine what other options exist for students who would have other options in a traditional system. None of us wants to compromise our standards, our philosophy of personal mastery, and/or the safety of our environment. But when we walk in the door tomorrow morning we know we will be looking at some students we’re going to lose. Can we track without tracking? Can we modify requirements without compromising standards? Today I’m asking the questions. Next time, I’ll try to put forth some answers.

Cultural observation: Back in Chicago, we’re fond of the phrase, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” Here in Alaska I’d say, “It’s not the cold, it’s the dark.” As everyone tries to intimidate me with the onset of Alaska winter, I brashly respond, “I’m from Chicago, you can’t scare me with your winter. It’s just darker and longer.” How true, how true. It has already snowed and I am starting each day with a five minute window scraping. But it’s not seeing the sun until nearly nine each morning that’s the most disconcerting. Even when we “fall back” next weekend, the days are getting shorter and shorter. I’m going to have to start using one of those happy lamps, I think.