Child Tracking Essay

All students have gone through the tracking system. Some have benefitted greatly, some have failed, and everything in between. The tracking system is not an innately bad idea or system, however when carried out in the way that it is, more students are hamred then helped. Tracking affects every aspect of a child’s success, and when your worlds against you, how can you be expected to succeed?

Intro

When a individual walks into a school, he or she will see students talking, laughing, and completing assignments throughout the day. This individual can see the formal curriculum and teacher philosophies placed in conspicuous places around the school. What he or she will not see is the hidden curriculum that is being emplaced by teachers, students,

Many minorities including Hispanics, and African Americans, specifically males, are observed in the lower tracks (Artiles & Trent, 1994). On the other hand those of Asian decent including; Chinese, Korean, Indian and Filipino have been observed in abundance in the higher tracks (Quinton, 2014). Those individuals in higher socio-economic classes are often places in the higher tracks (Quinton, 2014). When examining the children in special education, males appears to have a higher prevalence compared to females, however this academic gap is not observed by educators as often as socioeconomic status and culture (Artiles & Trent, 1994). This gap was evident in the college boards yearly review of individuals taking and succeeding in the highest track, which is considered the advanced placement track. It was noted that “6 in 10 Asian students [have] a 60 percent or higher likelihood of succeeding on an AP course … compared to 4 in 10 white students, 4 in 10 Hispanic/Latino students, 3 in 10 black/African American and 3 in 10 American Indian/Alaska Native students.”(Collegeboard.org, 2014). On its own, this data would be mean that students of Asian decent must be the smartest of the races, which is a stigma in schools viewed by both teachers and students. In reality this stigma is being pushed onto the Asian population, leading to overrepresentation of this population in the higher

An English language learner is an individual that is acquiring the language of English. Although every student is acquiring English in school, this term will be regarded as students who are learning English as a new language. On the other hand, a Speech or language impairment is defined as a student who presents with deficits in one of the five domains of language; phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, or pragmatics. The defining feature between the two within the school system is that English language learners are not considered to be in special education where as those with speech-language impairments are. Despite the many differences between these two categories, English language learners are often wrongly diagnosed with speech language impairments (asha.org,