Tracking Tracks: How School Policies, Procedures, and Leadership Approaches Impact Students’ Opportunity to Learn Math

• In Event: Racialized Tracking: Interrogating the Structures, Culture, and Policies That Produce Inequality

Abstract

We explore how students experience inequality in terms of tracking in mathematics education in high schools in the United States. Using a critical quantitative framework, we employ multigroup multilevel path analysis to identify students’ differing track placements related to student identity and academic factors in the context of race/ethnicity. After identifying these differing experiences, we then consider how school policies, produces, and leadership approaches impact those differing levels. Our findings suggest Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous students are overrepresented in remedial courses–particularly when counselor and teacher recommendations weigh more heavily in track assignment than students’ test scores or previous grades. We offer recommendations for practitioners, researchers, and policymakers to enable more students to access higher-level courses and improve student achievement.

Authors

• Meredith Wronowski, University of Dayton

• Margaret Thornton, Rowan University