Rock View Elementary has posted enormous gains in student achievement using a much more flexible form of grouping students by ability called performance-based grouping:
The technique, called performance-based grouping, is uncommon in the region. Some educators believe it too closely resembles tracking, the outmoded practice of assigning students to inflexible academic tracks by ability.
Educators say Rock View, however, is using the same basic concept to opposite effect, and the results have been positive. While some other Montgomery County schools serving low-income populations have posted higher test scores, few have shown such improvement or consistency across socioeconomic and racial lines. . . .
In spring 2006, 113 black and Hispanic children at the school were rated basic, the lowest of three performance levels, on the Maryland School Assessment. Last spring, the number shrank to 51.
Ability grouping, the generic term for what Rock View is doing, is a controversial practice in public education. Nonetheless, most elementary schools in the region group students by ability within classrooms for reading instruction, and a growing number place students in performance-based classes for math.
The technique is most effective, and most palatable, when teachers are "genuinely, constantly reevaluating the students' performance and particularly moving them forward when they show positive growth," said Robert Slavin, a Johns Hopkins University researcher who has studied the practice.
Congratulations to students and teachers at Rock View.
