Abstract
Students of color in the United States have historically been denied access to a college-preparatory mathematics education largely due to tracking policies and practices. To address this historical injustice, a partnership was developed between a highly diverse high school and higher education to initiate a collaborative process to detrack the mathematics program at the school. We report the results from empathy interviews conducted with the “Franklin High” administrative team and mathematics teachers. The four primary themes that emerged from the interviews concerned the school’s student diversity, the focus on preparing students to enter the IB course sequence, how detracking must go beyond simply providing equal access, and the importance of the Franklin High staff having an equity-oriented growth mindset. These findings accentuate how successful detracking efforts require stakeholders to have an historical understanding of the racist policies and practices that have led to segregated schools and tracked classrooms.
Highlights
Success in college-preparatory coursework is one of the most significant factors in college admission decisions and postsecondary enrollment (Battey, 2013)
We report the results from empathy interviews conducted with the “Franklin High” administrative team and mathematics teachers
Cultural and Linguistic Diversity of the School Community is a Vital Asset for Detracking. It was common for Franklin High administrators and mathematics teachers to talk about the diversity and culture of the student population at the school as something that they valued
Summary
Success in college-preparatory coursework is one of the most significant factors in college admission decisions and postsecondary enrollment (Battey, 2013). In pre-tertiary mathematics classrooms in the United States, students of color continue to be denied access to a college-preparatory mathematics education due to tracking policies and practices, availability of Advanced Placement courses (i.e., honors courses), and low academic expectations embedded in teacher and counselor referrals (Battey, 2013; Patrick et al, 2020). Known as ability grouping, places students into groups or classes based on perceived academic ability and is common in the United States in secondary education (Burris & Garrity, 2008; Oakes, 2005). We share our process for how we collaborated to understand and instigate successful heterogeneous grouping of mathematics classes, known as detracking, at a highly diverse, urban high school in the United States. In close partnership with administrators and teachers at “Franklin High,” we initiated an in-depth study of the
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