Schools May Eliminate Tracking

A Cambridge School Committee task force recommended eliminating nearly all ability grouping of students in Cambridge high schools at a press conference yesterday.

The proposal, submitted by the Task Force on the Potential of Students, would abolish "tracking," or the placement of students in all classes according to their academic ability. The task force aims to upgrade the difficulty of most classes to the "accelerated" level to ensure that all students are reaching their potential, according to Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72, a chair of the committee.

The Cambridge School Committee will vote on the recommendations within the next two weeks. If approved, the plan will be instituted at four pilot schools, which the committee has yet to determine.

To start the dismantling of ability grouping, the task force suggested the complete elimination of the Intensive Studies Program, which assigns students to accelerated courses.

In its report, "Our Children, Our Future," released yesterday, the task force also recommended the development of a more academically intensive curriculum to allow all students to take challenging courses and get a more heterogeneous classroom experience.

"We wanted to move to a system where all children are great at something," said Reeves.

Samantha Spitzer, a senior at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, said many students in accelerated classes "can't function with the other groups." The task force hopes that outstanding programming across the curriculum will make accelerated classes unnecessary.

The task force also called for the adoption of system-wide benchmarks by June 1994 to make sure students have mastered basic skills by certain grade levels. Students who are not at the proper benchmark levels, which are still to be determined, will be enrolled in remedial courses.

The task force, chaired by Reeves and Larry Weinstein, vice chair of the school committee, also suggested two other proposals, involving parents in theplanning of their children's plan of study andpromoting "equity of education" to improve theschool's attention to student needs.

The task force has met monthly for the pastyear and worked with the Harvard School ofEducation in an effort to refine specificproposals that aim to develop the potential of allstudents. The committee is composed of Reeves,school committee members, school administrators,teachers, parents and students

The task force has met monthly for the pastyear and worked with the Harvard School ofEducation in an effort to refine specificproposals that aim to develop the potential of allstudents. The committee is composed of Reeves,school committee members, school administrators,teachers, parents and students