Separation and inclusion

Unfortunately, regardless of its contribution to the promotion of the american dream in public schooling, keeping students of widely varying ability and/or aptitude together does indeed affect the education received by those with higher aptitude or abilities. The fact remains that a responsive teacher cannot teach any faster than the pace that the class will move. This affects not just the pace but the quality of education. We are facing similar issue in curricula at the career/design school where I teach. There are two degree tracks that share certain technical courses. when one program curriculum was altered and the students in that program became more advanced, we realized that they were coming back together in their final courses in that track with distinctly different skill sets. Teaching these courses is very hard, and there is simply no win-win situation without dividing up the students based on their ability and giving them instruction accordingly. I think there are circumstances under which ability grouping simply cannot be done away with, it is the only fair and accurate way to deliver instruction to all students under these circumstances.