Should All Grade School Children Be Separated by Their Learning Levels?
(Amityville's new program raises concerns that the kids are just being tracked.)

Board members and administrators of the Amityville school district claim that their recent proposal to divide elementary school children into high-, regular- and low-performing classes is designed for remediation, not tracking, and is being done with the best interests of the lowest performing students at heart. But if that is the real reason for the proposal, why create a separate top track for students who already score well on standardized tests?

The board members and the voters who elected them have earned the mistrust of the majority of parents and teachers in the district by failing to meet the needs of the public school children in the past. Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe that this plan is anything other than a political effort to segregate "problem" students in remedial classes while providing a safe-haven in the top track for middle-class, predominantly white, children remaining in the district.

The district has a long history of racial division. Since the 1960s, its borders have been gerrymandered to dilute the strength of African-American voters and insure white school-board majorities. Currently, the public school population is less than 20 percent white, but whites hold six out of seven seats on the school board. Many of these board members were elected with support from anti-tax white voters who either do not have school-age children or who send them to private or religious schools. As a result of local politics, Amityville teachers are working without a contract, school budgets are regularly threatened with defeat, and even when budgets are approved, funds are tight.

District officials argue that the new academic levels in grades one through six are temporary so they do not constitute permanent tracking. But an examination of the special education program in Amityville tells a very different story. In districts like Babylon, Cold Spring Harbor and Half Hollow Hills, the overwhelming majority of students who receive special assistance are in regular classes for most of the day. In Amityville, however, 70 percent of special education students are isolated from the rest of the school population more than 60 percent of the time. This is the third- highest rate of academic isolation in Long Island schools. It strongly suggests that, based on past performance, the new tracks will become permanent and students will be kept separate.

Amityville's public schools face serious problems. The district rates near the bottom on Long Island in a number of important categories. Third- and sixth-graders have the second-poorest performance on readings tests in Suffolk County. Its high school seniors earn among the fewest Regents diplomas; 35 percent do not go on to college.

Amityville's problems cannot be solved cheaply. And Amityville may not be able to do it by working alone. There are alternatives to tracking that do not stigmatize children and segregate classrooms. Smaller class sizes and the use of assistant teachers may help all children perform better. Programs in which specialists visit students in their classrooms can aid children who still need extra assistance. Teacher development workshops can show staff how to use group work so that children teach each other.

Community leaders must address the differences between the racial composition of the school board and the public schools. The heated response to the tracking plan shows that parents do not trust the board. Unless public schools are seen as a resource for the entire community and fully funded, student performance will be unlikely to improve. As the old saying goes, "people buy a school district, not just a house." Continued poor test scores and possible state action to take over the district threaten the value of everyone's property.

It is past time to reconsider the division of Nassau and Suffolk counties into 126 autonomous school districts. Nationwide, people are demanding higher educational standards as the best way to prepare young people for the global, high-tech economy of the 21st Century. The state and country cannot afford inequitable school funding and the refusal of local voters to educate other people's children. Tracking elementary school children in Amityville is both an inappropriate and unjust solution to educational problems that must be addressed on county and statewide levels. Children may end up feeling even more inadequate because they were placed in the lowest group, further undermining their ability to perform in school. The latest Amityville horror should be defeated.

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OTHER VOICES:
This program is designed to assist children who need to improve their basic skills. The program is not tracking. This is a temporary grouping that tries to reduce the number of remedial students. Their exit, we hope, will be very swift. We are moving in this direction because the academic achievement in our district has been near the basement of school districts on Long Island. The results have been so low that we felt we just couldn't go another year without helping all the children. And we believe that our children can learn and do better. Testing will be ongoing and we'll be reporting the results to the public quarterly. We've already moved children out of the program because they've tested out. We are not looking at the children based upon their race. We are looking at them based upon their skills. That is the only criterion.
- Dean F. Bettker, Amityville school district superintendent

Academic tracking is a fast track to nowhere for the children it is inflicted on - especially those at the low end of the track. It's been proven ineffective and often harmful to minorities. That's why elementary school tracking is almost unheard of on Long Island - except in Amityville. With zero input from parents or teachers, children who can ill afford it are being experimented on at the whim of a runaway school board. Many minority "low end" students are being robbed of self esteem and the education they deserve and the mostly white "high end" students gain a false sense of superiority. It's racist. It's manipulative. And it simply doesn't work.
- William Caffrey, president of the Amityville Teachers' Association

I don't think this is tracking. Absolutely not. [According to studies on education], if you don't really get to a child by the third grade, that child is going to have a hard time the rest of his or her time in school. We want to impact every student right now. Basically all the we on the board have said is that we would like to see three contiguous reading levels or less in a class so the teachers can do their job. The basic skills remedial plan was tried last year [in one school] and they had fantastic results. One kid improved the equivalent of three years - and that's dramatic. So we said, "Why isn't this program tried throughout the district?" We don't believe there's something wrong with the children. We believe the children can do it.
- Stephannie A. Andrews, president of the Amityville School Board

I don't view it as tracking. There are many ways to bring kids up to standards. This looks like a reasonable approach and it's certainly one that in some respects is being compelled by the school report cards and by the higher learning standards that the Regents have imposed. The reality is that the school districts with the highest levels of minorities happen to be the lowest-funded districts. Ideally, the state would be able to insure that all students have an equal opportunity from a funding level, but politically the state is not prepared to do that. So, if this district is trying something else within its limited resources, I'm not going to accuse it of being racist. On face value, it looks like the district's trying to do something so the "racist" label disappears, because its kids would be achieving like other kids who are given greater opportunities.
- Robert Johnson, Regent for the 10th Judicial District

In any learning environment, some children are going to learn faster than others. You have to be careful that children don't become stigmatized by how you group them. Kids are very quick to catch on to definitions. If separating children is going to help make them more successful, then I would support it. But if that separation is defined in such a manner that the student feels he or she is not intelligent and incapable of being successful - or if any negative stereotype is placed on it - then it's going to make that child very vulnerable and it's going to be a hindrance rather than a help.
- Lavinia Dickerson, co-executive director of the Institute for Student Achievement

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Copyright 1998, Newsday Inc. LI TOPIC / Should All Grade School Children Be Separated by Their Learning Levels? / Amityville's new program raises concerns that the kids are just being tracked. SIDEBAR: OTHER VOICES. (See end of t., pp B07.