School Streaming

This article really did make me rethink the way our schools are streamed. I do agree with notion that students learn better when they are with others who are at the same level, but who determines what that is? If parents and students are not well informed, they rely on the teacher to make that decision. But how well does the teacher really know the student?

I entered high school the year the new curriculum was introduced in Ontario. The terms academic, applied, open, college, university and workplace as types of course were new to us, our parents, and our teachers. We were told at the time that ‘academic’ was more theoretical and ‘applied’ was more hands on, but that both courses learned the same material and is was possible to switch from one to the other. Since none of the courses had actually been taught before, I think those notions were based on government descriptions not real teacher experience. Still, most of the kids I went to elementary school chose the academic stream (this choice might also be related to the fact that I went to a French immersion school) and it was only in grade 11 and 12 that my friends who were interested in arts considered the college stream for the math and science they had to take. I don’t remember there being very many applied sections in my school.

Having gone back and looked at the courses again as a teacher, I now see that the curriculum between streams is not the same at all. I have only worked in high school as a student teacher, but what I saw was a large gap between grade 9 applied math and grade 10 academic math. Perhaps we are helping students who struggle by allowing them to take a grade 9 course that moves at a slower pace, but they would have to work twice as hard and twice as fast to learn what they missed if they ever wanted to switch to the academic stream. In my opinion, grade 9 is far too young an age to have students choose their career paths, but it seems though that is what we are making them do by choosing between academic and applied.

At the college where I work, we make students take a math placement test before they start our program. Our programs are all heavily chemistry and biology based, so they need a firm basis in math. This test does not affect whether or not they get admission to the program, but it tells us which courses they need to take. When I first started teaching two years ago, students would take the test and those who placed high would enter math173, those who placed low would take math148. These two courses were meant to have the same curriculum but the lower lever course met for 1 extra hour per week in order to give students more time to learn. The two courses had different tests and different exams, but at the end students were suppose to have the same level of mathematical proficiency. Of course, this did not happen. The lower level course moved at a slower pace, and though they still covered the same topic as the higher course, they were not able to do so in as much depth or ask questions that were at the same level of difficulty. The expectations were much lower. Students came out of that course not having learned the more complicated material within each topic, but still receiving an equivalent credit for their work. In some ways, doing poorly on the placement test was advantageous, because you were put in an easier course. Of course you were at a disadvantage when you needed that math in an upper year course. Streaming did not work in this case.

The courses are much different now. When students do well on the placement test, they take math173. When students do poorly on the placement test they take math148 and then math173. This system works well because it gives students who need it the opportunity to learns the basics, but also recognizes students who do well on the test. The students who score low on the placement test do end up taking an extra course, but it is to their advantage since it brings them up to the level where they need to be to be successful in the next course. It allows everyone, regardless of their math proficiency coming into the college, to reach the high expectations we have for them in math. I don’t know if this type of system can transferred to the secondary system, but it works very well for us.