"Detracking Across the Distribution"

PI: Thad Domina, Assistant Professor of Education

Co-Investigators

• Andrew Penner, Assistant Professor of Sociology
• AnneMarie Conley, Assistant Professor of Education
• Emily Penner, Ph.D. in Education Student

Abstract

While tracking is often decried as an ineffective and inequitable educational practice, previous research provides little evidence to suggest that detracking benefits students. We use data from a diverse California school district to examine the role of a multi-year effort to raise the inclusiveness of high-level middle school math courses. By placing nearly all 8th graders in Algebra I courses, the district reduced the degree of racial, ethnic, and skills-based classroom segregation. However, our findings regarding the effects of curricular intensification on later achievement are mixed. We find that 10th grade test scores increase in the study district over the roll-out period and curricular intensification seems to have loosened the link between students' prior achievement and their 10th grade scores. But the test score gains associated with taking algebra in 8th grade decrease as it becomes more common, and the rate of student 7th-10th grade math score growth seems to have slowed as the district intensified mathematics curricula. We conclude by considering the effects of curricular intensification on students' self-efficacy and motivation, and discussing the ramifications of our findings for future curricular intensification policies.