Historical Context

Origins of Ability-based Groups

The educational practice of ability grouping emerged in the USA around the turn of the 20th century as a way to prepare students for their "appropriate" place in the workforce. Students with high abilities and skills were given intense, rigorous academic training while students with lower abilities were given a vocational education. 

http://www.nea.org/tools/16899.htm

How has Ability Grouping Changed Over Time?

Ability grouping was generally dismissed by educators in the 1930's following research indicating that homogeneous grouping by perceived ability did not accelerate achievement.  During the 1950's, it was reintroduced to school systems in response to Brown vs. Board of Education.  Southern states used it to dillute the effects of integration by ensuring that African American and white students would not share the same classroom.  Northern states also implemented ability grouping programs in order to accommodate the large influx of African American families who migrated north after Brown. (Nelson, 2001) 

http://0-www.heinonline.org.polar.onu.edu/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/geojpovlp8&id=1&size=2&collection=journals&index=journals/geojpovlp#376

A 1961 national survey revealed that about 80% of elementary schools grouped students by ability for reading instruction. A three-group format was the dominant approach, with students organized into high, middle, and low performing groups. Although subsequent national surveys of ability grouping were scare until a John Hopkins study in the mid-1980s, carefully crafted studies of local practice reported similar frequencies. Eighty percent or more of elementary schools used within-class ability groups.

In the 1990s, several prominent political organizations passed resolutions condemning tracking, including the National Governors Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Children’s Defense Fund, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Some states urged schools to reduce tracking and ability grouping, most notably California and Massachusetts. A surprising implementation story ensued. Although the call to detrack was not accompanied by conventional incentives—the big budgets, regulatory regimes, and rewards and sanctions that draw the attention of policy analysts—detracking was, in a field famous for ignored or subverted policies, adopted by a large number of schools.

Then things changed. A mid-1990’s survey of a random sample of pre-K through fifth grade teachers reported startlingly different results. When allowed multiple responses, only 27% of teachers reported using ability grouping for reading instruction. Another 56% of teachers indicated that they used flexible grouping. Some of the teachers with flexible grouping may have utilized ability as a criterion for grouping.  Whole class instruction was by far the most popular organizing strategy, with 68% of teachers reporting its use. Removing the overlapping responses makes it clear that ability grouping served a subordinate role as a method of organizing students. When teachers were held to one response and asked to identify their primary organizational approach, the order was: whole-class instruction (52%), flexible grouping (25%), and ability grouping (16%).

A more recent survey suggests ability grouping has regained favor among teachers. Barbara Fink Chorzempa and Steve Graham (2006) surveyed a national random sample of first through third grade teachers. Their questionnaire revealed that three times as many teachers (63%) said they use ability grouping than what was found in the earlier survey.  About 20% of teachers did not ability group at all because the practice was banned by district or school policy.

NAEP data from 1990 to 2011 have been examined. Ability grouping in fourth grade decreased in the 1990s and then increased markedly in the 2000’s, with the rebound apparent in both reading and math. In reading, ability grouping has attained a popularity unseen since the 1980s, used with over 70% of students.

Will the Uptrend in Ability Grouping Continue?

Not necessarily. The current period may be the lull before the storm. Theoretically, at least, the new Common Core standards establish a curriculum that most, if not all, students will study. It is unclear how students who have already mastered the Common Core standards before beginning a particular school grade will have their needs met. The same goes for students who lag many years behind. Tracking and ability grouping have been common approaches to addressing such challenges. These two organizational strategies affect millions of students daily. Both practices shape aspects of schooling that we know to be important—the curriculum students study, the textbooks they learn from, the teachers who teach them, the peers with whom they interact. Despite decades of vehement criticism and mountains of documents urging schools to abandon their use, tracking and ability grouping persist—and for the past decade or so, have thrived.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2013/03/18-tracking-ability-grouping-loveless