Tracking proves a volatile issue in New Haven's schools

"It's two separate schools," Steven Gilbert, PC '04, said. "It is the honors track and everyone else."

NICHOLAS ZAMISKA/YH New Haven's Wilbur Cross High School is a prime example of the public school practice of tracking.

Gilbert, who graduated last year from New Haven's Wilbur Cross High School, was referring to a phenomenon familiar to many students educated in the country's public schools. Tracking—the practice of separating students of varying academic abilities into different classes—is often an accepted reality of the system. However, particularly in cities like New Haven, it often results in the division of students according to their ethnicity, and thus remains a constant source of controversy and unease for students and faculty alike.

At Wilbur Cross, for example, white students make up 13 percent of the student body, but represent a majority of the students enrolled in the honors track. But underneath the split along racial lines lie other factors. "Student success is largely a function of socioeconomic class," said Michelle Sherbenfine, a teacher at the high school.

Data compiled by the United States Census Bureau for 1999 corroborates Sherbenfine's statement. Two white parents working full-time earned an average of $52,641 per year in 1999, with white couples earning on average 38 percent more than black couples and 67 percent more than Hispanic couples. If family income can accurately "predict" academic achievement, and race correlates with family income, the result is many non-white students performing at a sub-par level scholastically.

Harold Dozier, BK '04, a graduate of local Hillhouse High School, considered other determining factors. "I'm a firm believer that it's parents, first and foremost," Dozier said. But he was quick to point to the correlation between parent involvement and financial situation. "I know a guy whose single-mother worked the late shift. She was just never home when he got home from school even though she left dinner on the table," Harold recalled. By contrast, Harold remembered his parents peppering him with questions concerning school such as "Have you finished your homework? What happened in school today? and "How did you do on your history test?"

Judith Falaro, principal of Cross, identified the problems in her high school as symptoms of larger social ills that afflict the nation's family structure. "We have to look at how well we prepare people to become parents, and we have to look at how well we support families whether they are single-parent or not, and traditional or not," she said.

Falaro also pointed to the deterioration of the "neighborhood schooling system" as a potential source for Cross's difficulties. Instead of automatically sending children to the district school, many families now request waivers to go outside their district in search of a better school.

"One girl I knew," Dozier recalled, "her parents didn't want her to go to Hillhouse because she would have been one of the five white children there out of 800 students. So they got a waiver. But it is this kind of thinking that worsens the situation." What's more, Dozier said, "a lot of the qualified black students who would otherwise be on the honor roll at Cross choose to go to Hillhouse...Because it's a black school, it tends to make things easier for us."

Stephanie Connel, a white honor student at Cross, cited another reason for her opinion that the tracking system can be "terrible." "All the kids who came from good schools like West Hills were immediately put into honors programs, whereas kids from other schools who are just as smart are put into lower programs. If you're a smart kid, but forced to hang out with the other kids who want to slack off, things get really messed up," she said.

But many defend the tracking system at Cross based on the fact that racial disparity has slowly diminished over the years. Polly Russel, the head of the school's Parents' Association, said, "I would take my kids out of Cross if the tracks weren't there. If you abolished tracking, you would end up driving out all the middle-class kids whether they be white, black, or Hispanic. To take the tracks away would do such an immense disservice to both ends of the spectrum."

Although the tracks undeniably benefit honor students, Dozier believes that the lowered expectations placed on the "underachievers" by the tracking system erects a ceiling that limits those students' potential to excel. Dozier recalls a homework project in seventh grade that he hastily assembled. After apologizing to his teacher for his lackluster product and insufficient effort, he remembers her saying, "Oh no, this is good enough. You don't need to worry about it. I can understand if you're having a hard time."

As the one black student among a sea of white faces, Dozier appreciates the obstacles that many non-white students face. "Students who don't have that extra push, or don't have the highest of expectations placed on them because of their color or other things, often fail to succeed," he said.

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