Talking Point #8 "Finn and Oakes"

Argument:

             Jeannie Oakes is basically talking about tracking, and why she disagrees with this theory completely. I was never really introduced to tracking, but now after reading this article I am aware what it was, and further more reading Oakes lead me to complelely agree with her on tracking. They are doing it I feel like she said for no reason. As she said "The rich gets richer, and the poor gets poorer". I just feel as if it is not helping out at all. She tries to fight for the fact that tracking is not good in stating different alternatives to tracking. She also says that "Academic ability is not unchangable, but developmental". The only way a student will learn is to be around others that learn like and different from him. He can take the advantages and disadvantages of each. Just to show she is not the only one on this, I found another article that talks about this problem to, and some things to do to take advantage of it. The article shows different techniques or practices in tracking and how it takes place in school.
       Literacy is major for everyone no matter if you are in the upper class, or working class states Finn. There should be a place where it should all meet and come together is her argument. She is basically saying that if people want to be successful everyone needs to help out eachother in school. Whether you are rich, or poor, you need to help out eachother in order to be successful in both literacy and school.
           Both of these authors make their arguments clearly stated. They say what it is like, and what they beleive it should eventually be like. It may and may not change. But, I do agree with what both of these authors are saying. To be able to exceed and survive in the schooling environment everyone needs eachother, and should not be sepearated into different groups. I would like to discuss in class a little more about tracking, and would like to find out just how much tracking takes place in different school settings?