What is Being Done?

Below are some organizations and individuals who are working on the issues surrounding ability-grouping. Many more are needed as most of the focus is still primarily on tracking or between-class ability grouping.

Teaching Diverse Students Initiative (TDSI)

http://www.tolerance.org/tdsi/

Undertaken by Teaching Tolerance, in partnership with the National Education Association, the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, prominent scholars and excellent teachers, TDSi offers a suite of free online professional development tools designed to help educators improve their skills in working across lines of race and ethnicity.

TDSi is embedded within a larger framework of best practices for teachers. Through the TDSi tools, educators can learn about and get the tools needed to address issues and concepts surrounding flexible heterogeneous grouping, culturally responsive pedagogy and collaborative problem solving between teachers and administrators.

Tom Loveless

Senior Fellow for the Brown Center on Education Policy

http://www.brookings.edu/experts/lovelesst

Loveless, a former sixth-grade teacher and Harvard policy professor, is an expert on student achievement, education policy, and reform in K-12 schools.  He has authored articles for various journals and also authors The Brown Center Report on American Education, an annual report explaining important trends in achievement test scores.

Loveless’ book, The Tracking Wars: State Reform Meets School Policy (Brookings Institution Press, 1999), examines two states’ attempts to dismantle tracking in public middle schools.  His research, book, and articles often highlight the facts surrounding ability-grouping in schools and have been used by many to spread awareness of these issues.

WISE: Working to Improve Schools and Education

http://www.ithaca.edu/wise/ability/

The purpose of this website is to provide anyone interested in improving U.S. schools with valuable information and resources about important issues in education and teaching…It focuses on analysis of contemporary issues in education, with particular emphasis on issues of equity, diversity, multicultural education, and the development of schools more effective for ALL students and families. The purpose… is to help students interested in education and teaching develop greater sociocultural understanding and skill and a critically reflective framework and knowledge base for making informed decisions about issues of educational policy and practice.  The site has a page with numerous links to other sites and organizations working specifically on the issues surrounding ability grouping, many of which include the issues surrounding within-class ability grouping.

After clicking on the link below, select Ability Grouping, Tracking, & Alternatives from the index of topics in the sidebar to the left.