Stop ‘streaming’ students in Grade 9
TheStar.com – Opinion/Editorials – There’s more evidence that teens should not be “streamed” until their later years of high school.
Oct 09 2015. Editorial
It may sound counter-intuitive, but encouraging struggling Grade 9 students to take tougher academic courses over lower-level applied ones can raise pass rates.
That’s the startling discovery of a research project conducted last year at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute in North York.
And it only adds to a mounting body of provincial — and even international — evidence that suggests kids should not be asked to choose between academic or applied course streams until they are in at least Grade 10, if not Grade 11.
In the Jefferys study, students who would normally have chosen the applied streams in geography and English were encouraged to take academic courses instead. The surprising result? About 86 per cent of those who had wanted to take applied English passed the academic level. That’s higher than the 77-per-cent pass rate that students in the applied stream have had in the past.
Importantly, the research also found there are not just academic reasons for putting a halt to streaming kids in Grade 9. The Jefferys research found that streaming students hits low-income and certain racial groups the hardest.
That reinforces research done in 2014 by the education advocacy group People for Education. It, too, found that those from low-income homes in Ontario were disproportionately enrolled in applied courses. In Toronto it also found that black and Aboriginal students were over-represented in the applied stream.
People for Education also found that taking applied courses disadvantaged students who might later want to go on to university. Even taking one applied course, for example math in Grade 9, reduced kids’ chances of going on to university.
Those findings, in turn, echo a 2012 study that showed only 59 per cent of students who took Grade 9 applied math went on to graduate, compared to 88 per cent of those in the academic program.
The outcomes of the Jefferys project, then, shouldn’t be surprising. In fact, research has been pointing out the problems with streaming for decades. Indeed, changes to the system were supposed to put an end to the practice as far back as 1999, but as the Star’s Kristin Rushowy reported this past week, streaming still takes place in all school boards in Ontario.
It’s not just experts in Ontario education who are sounding the alarm over streaming kids at such a young age. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which includes developed nations, recommends a “common curriculum” until the senior years of high school so that kids won’t see their post-secondary options limited.
In the end, it’s a no-brainer to stop streaming students in Grade 9. Keeping them in the academic stream for their first year, at least, can lead to higher pass rates, give more teens a chance to go onto university if they choose to, and stop the practice of seeing vulnerable poor and racialized groups over-represented in the applied courses.
It also recognizes the obvious. Kids in Grade 8 are too young and inexperienced to be asked to make a choice about where there future lies after high school. But that’s what streaming does by demanding they choose their Grade 9 options in Grade 8 when they haven’t even experienced the difference between academic and applied courses in high school.
Education Minister Liz Sandals should look closely at the growing body of evidence and stop this practice.
< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2015/10/09/stop-streaming-students-in-grade-9-editorial.html >
Tags: featured, ideology, immigration, Indigenous, mental Health, multiculturalism, participation, youth
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