Ability Grouping in the Early Grades: Long-Term Consequences for Educational Equity

• In Event: Parents and Families' Influences on Education

Abstract

We provide the first longitudinal evidence informing long-standing concerns over ability grouping in the early grades. Using ECLS-K data we develop achievement growth models examining the degree to which within-class ability grouping in K-3rd grades predicts reading test scores from K-8th grades and 8th grade English coursework. We find students are not ‘locked into’ the same ability groups across grades, but exposure to ability grouping in the elementary grades predicts achievement years later. Achievement gaps between comparable grouped and ungrouped students increase with every year of exposure to grouping and persist up to the 8th grade. Students’ ability group placements in the early grades evolve into divergent educational paths, which grow further apart with multiple years of grouping.

Authors

• Sophia Catsambis, Queens College - CUNY

• Anthony Buttaro, The Graduate Center - CUNY