We don't need consolidation to change anything that needs to be changed —Barbara Stratton

Received today on Tracking can help all distributions of students —new research" of the blog "On the LAKE Front. -jsq

I'm definitely against consolidation, but I don't like tracking either. When I was self employed breeding & training race horses in the 80's I worked part time as a substitute teacher. The county system used a form of tracking that grouped students into slow, medium & fast learners. My children were in the top group so it worked well for them. However, I did not like the system because I observed a lot of students who lost the desire to try because they were classified in the slow learner group.

I finished the last month for one 7th grade class & had to sit in on the end of year decisions to pass or fail. One student was

impossible to motivate in reading, but I found him to be highly intelligent. During the pass/fail record research it was discovered that he had come into the system that year as a local Sheriff's Boy's Ranch resident. His reading scores were accidently recorded as low, when they were actually high placing him into the slow learner group when he should have been in the fast learner group. I guess you could say he fell through the cracks because there was no parent to question his placement & his ranch house parent never checked on his records either. Regretably he had no incentive to try at all because he was totally bored & in my opinion victimized by the system.

There were other examples I observed that I felt were victims of the tracking system. I'm not a professional educator, but my observations made me distrust the value of tracking. Maybe I'm prejudiced against it because I'm always for the underdog, but I'd have to see a lot more research to favor it.

I just wanted to add that tracking systems were the result of state curriculum pushes & we don't need any part of consolidation to push back if needed. In fact we don't need consolidation to change anything that needs to be changed & their claims to consolidation being necessary for any improvements is part of their baseless propaganda. We need less government in our local school systems, not more, which is what we will get if the consolidation gateway is opened.

Vote No on Tuesday, November 8th!

-Barbara Stratton