In this report, we examine New Zealand based and international evidence on the effects of streaming on students’ learning. The main findings were:
Read a two-page summary of our report here.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne.
Benjamin Macintyre is a Research Assistant at The New Zealand Initiative.
This article was first published HERE
- Greater gaps between higher and lower achieving students are commonly found in schools that stream than in schools that don’t.
- Increased educational inequality in streamed environments may be attributable to differences in teaching and curriculum rather than to streaming directly.
- Destreaming has its challenges. Unless appropriate changes to teaching practice accompany it, it can do more harm than good.
- The effects of streaming on students’ learning vary across subject areas.
Read a two-page summary of our report here.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne.
Benjamin Macintyre is a Research Assistant at The New Zealand Initiative.
This article was first published HERE
3 comments:
I met French guy on a hike last year whose parents set education policy in France.
He was telling me 20 years ago the removed streaming in the name of "egalite".
The idea was the kids that learn easier would help up those that didn't.
It ended up being a disaster. The most measurable result was the capitulation of tertiary enrollments. They lost a generation of engineers, scientists ,etc.
My son is at yr 12 math level in year 9. He went to a very popular boys state school in ChCh, which decided to put him in an un-streamed class but give him separate work. Being the "different" kid he was bullied to the point of tears.
He went from loving school to dreading it.
We moved him to Burnside where they streamed him (math only) into a top class. The love of education is back.
He loves his form class with all levels in it, but is with "like" minds and has been really able to challenge himself in math.
Be very careful we don't try another experiment with our kids that ends in failure only realise there is ample overseas research on this. Open plan classrooms anyone....
Let's use our noggin here. If you put kids in classes labelled A-E (or whatever) and tell them that the A's are the smarties and the E's are the dummies and teach the lower streams a watered-down version of the A curriculum, of course you'll get resentment, stereotyping, and all the negative concomitants of streaming. So that's what you don't do. The clever thing to do is to cobble together different programmes for the various streams with differing emphases on different aspects of the subject matter. At upper secondary level, students stream themselves through their subject choices - the best will tend to take 3 sciences plus maths aiming at competitive-entry programmes at varsity. Others may take programmes that emphasise technical subjects and applications, aiming for tertiary programmes leading to technical careers. Streaming at lower secondary level should be devised so as to mesh with upper secondary options. At primary school level, we are talking about remedial basic skills programmes rather than streaming per se.
in the 1920s when results vastly superior to today were acheived, streaming was effectively acheived by failing. Teachers then had relatively uniform classes and were not required to teach umpteen levels in parllel simultaneously. The failed students were not perpetually out of their depth and not so daunted that they stayed away.
Persons have very varying ability. It becomes very apparent in later life. It is ridicuous to pretend that the differnce does not exist in youth.in the distant past students were prpared fro the reality of life, whereas to many it now seems to come as a shock leading to rebellious attitudes.
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