Family Connections: Why We Don't Ability Group

Message to Parents:

Why We Don’t Ability Group in Our Class

1.            It doesn’t work.  A huge body of research shows that it's actually harmful to many students.  We don't use the technique if it's proven to be ineffective.

2.            It has a negative effect on students’ self-esteem.  It can change a kid from thinking, “I think I can,” to “I know I can’t.”   Despite claims by teachers that students don’t know who’s in the low group — kids know. 

3.            It reduces a teacher’s ability to use thematic teaching.  Thematic teaching has proven to be an effective teaching tool, yet putting kids into different groups often fragments learning so there's no whole class vocabulary or shared experiences.  Instead of a class, there's just a bunch of people in the same room.

4.            Between-class grouping results in lost instructional time.  All that transition time is not instructional time.   In addition, there is less accountability when students have different teachers for different subjects.  The younger a student is, the more harm this practice causes.  Locking three or four teachers into a schedule reduces flexibility and a teacher’s ability to take advantage of serendipitous moments.

5.            Within class grouping has flaws that render it marginally useful.   When students are grouped within a class, the students not meeting with the teacher often do low-value “busy work” in workbooks.  Teachers then must spend precious instructional time teaching students how to do these activities instead of teaching reading. In addition, when a teacher is stuck behind a table with a group, it’s more difficult to monitor the other students.  Whole-class teaching has more kids on task for more time.

6.            The practice results in low kids reading fewer words each day and focusing on skills they may or may not be developmentally ready to learn.  Midlevel students have the class spark plugs removed when the highest students are sent to, what is typically, the most experienced teacher.  To cap it all, the bulk of studies show that high students do not benefit from ability grouping.

7.            Ability grouping causes more parental concerns.  As soon as a child receives a “low book” and is told she is in the bluebirds, that parent is rightly concerned about the social stigma.

8.            Often ability grouping places students of similar economic backgrounds in the same group.  This can rightly be viewed as discrimination. 

9.            It’s not fun.  It’s work.  In a whole class lesson, a teacher can build joy, excitement and enchantment into lessons involving good literature.  The writing lessons can be connected to the reading of fantastic stories, poems and plays.  No matter how skillfully it’s done, grouping kids removes the heady feeling of joy and belonging a whole class lesson can achieve.

10.            Ability grouping prevents or limits a teacher’s capability to run long, complex language arts lessons that involve speaking, writing, singing, acting, researching and plain reading.  Everything must be done in a week.