A Different Way to Group Students by Achievement

From the Marshall Memo #424

(Originally titled “Clustered for Success”)

In this Educational Leadership article, Arizona district administrator Dina Brulles and consultant Susan Winebrenner recommend a middle ground for class placement of students identified as gifted. They note the disadvantages of homogeneous grouping (which can be seen as elitist) and mainstreaming (these students can sometimes be unhelpful as role models for classmates since their thinking is more intuitive and they may resent being used as peer tutors). In addition, say the authors, “When teachers have only one or two students from a special population, they may overlook them, especially when the students appear to be doing well.”

Brulles and Winebrenner believe “cluster” grouping is a better approach, creating a critical mass of the highest-achieving students and not putting them in the same classroom as the lowest-achievers. The first step is dividing students into five tiers:

• Students identified as gifted – This includes students not fluent in English, some who are academically nonproductive, and those who are “twice exceptional” – they have gifted traits and also special needs;
• High average students – Highly competent and productive students who achieve well;
• Average – Students in the middle range of grade-level expectations
• Low average – Students who can achieve at grade level with some support;
• Far below average – Students who struggle in most areas and are well below proficiency.

To create three classes of 26 students at a single grade level, the following cluster grouping would then be used:

The Classroom A teacher at each grade level would be one with training in gifted education, and instruction in those classes would use pre-assessments to check for what students already know, use curriculum compacting where appropriate, and be highly differentiated. “For an approach like this to be successful,” say Brulles and Winebrenner, “students must recognize that they are not doing more work than others, just different work. Students must also understand that their recorded grade will not be lower than it would have been had they completed the regular class work instead of the more challenging work they tackled. 

“Clustered for Success” by Dina Brulles and Susan Winebrenner in Educational Leadership, February 2012 (Vol. 69, #5, p. 41-45), www.ascd.org; the authors can be reached at dbrulles@pvschools.net and susan@susanwinebrenner.com.