American school systems are falling behind compared to other countries.Does our school limit our society? Schools should group students by ability because it allows students who are gifted to stay gifted and not be “slowed down” by students with less academic ability (pro-tracking). Less intellectually gifted students require more guidance which in turn slows down the learning for others. When students are grouped by mental ability/capacity, they are more comfortable because they can learn at their own speed.
Teachers can teach better to a smaller group of students because there is a smaller group of kids to cater to, for instance if there's a class with 11 geniuses and one average student, the geniuses will be held back because the teacher needs to cater to the one average student. This sounds harsh but it's what's needed. It's not fair to students on either end of the spectrum, less able students will not understand because the curriculum is moving too fast, and more able students will be held back. If students are grouped by ability and certain races end up in certain classes, is that discriminatory? Or is it the hard truth, or somewhere inbetween? Jill Barshay writes in The Atlantic, “it exacerbates inequality in our schools because higher income and white or Asian kids are more likely to get tracked into the elite classrooms. Students who aren’t chosen can become demoralized, or the curriculum in the average class can get too watered down.” Barshay is correct when saying students can become demoralized, however the “attempted tracking” that she is referring to is not valid. If tracking is set into place we need a new curriculum that's suited for said student ability. If you teach a curriculum that's meant for 30 kids, ranging from extremely low to extremely high ability, to a classroom of 15 kids of all the same ability you will not get the same results. Tracking allows teachers to teach better and students to learn better, as long as we have the right curriculum. This curriculum MUST consist of education that includes information on inequality and race, this is important because students need to understand that they are no better and no worse than any student above or below their tracked ability.
Alan Petersime writes “Research suggests that students perform better in smaller classes. There's little debate among teachers that class size matters. One survey found that nine in 10 teachers said that smaller classes would strongly boost student learning.” Not only would smaller class sizes benefit students of all abilities, but tracking and class size go hand in hand because when students are grouped together by ability or academic achievements, teachers can instruct directly to their level of skill. For example if two identical classes of 30 students were both split in half, one was split at random, the other class was split by ability. I can guarantee that the second class that was grouped by ability will be easier to teach, because the class's ability would be the same, on top of the smaller class sizes.

A change is needed in our schools, gifted kids enter high school and finish highschool below average. A change is needed for the students that need more one on one time with the teacher. A change is needed for the teachers that struggle to teach one topic to 30 students with completely different learning styles and abilities. The change needs to start within society, society needs to realize that this system has been broken and will stay broken until something changes. The real world isn't consecutive slide shows shared in a classroom with perfect students. The real world and workplace won’t teach you off of a powerpoint, no skill can be taught the same way to everyone.

It's not fair to a student that can produce completely unique thoughts to get boxed in with other students and get slowed down and forced to learn of a powerpoint. And it's equally unfair to the student that can't produce unique thoughts yet, why are they being taught to learn off a power point before being able to create unique thoughts,