When I was in high school back in the 90s, we had Basic, General, and Advanced classes. To be honest, these made sense! Students who were strong in a given subject went into the advanced class, students who weren't so strong did general, and students who weren't ready even for general were placed in basic. Now, it didn't mean that if you were in placed in general for Math that you had to be in general for English. It depended on the individual class. You may be more advanced in some areas than others.
For a short period of time after I left school, classes were destreamed, then the government introduced a new streaming program in the form of Applied and Academic classes.
There are downsides to streaming of course. One is that if a student takes an applied Math course in grade 9 and does well, they may wish to take an academic course in grade 10. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way; to take grade 10 academic Math, you need grade 9 academic Math. However, if a person who has taken grade 9 applied wants to take grade 10 academic, they could take the grade 9 academic credit over the summer and be ready to go - it's not a closed door.
Some would say that it makes students feel bad to be streamed. But I don't believe this is a reason not to do it. We are supposed to be training students for life in the real world. The truth is, not everyone is treated equal in the working world! And employers don't generally take feelings into account when choosing who to hire. People who are better at certain jobs will absolutely be chosen over people who aren't. Furthermore, saying that everyone is at the same level as everyone else in every subject just doesn't jive with reality.
Destreaming I think would be a nightmare for teachers. Imagine having students in a Math class - some who are exceptionally good at the subject, and others who have barely squeaked by the grade before. How can you make all students happy? You're either going to overwhelm the students who are having trouble, or underwhelm the ones who are proficient. This happens in any course, yes, but the spectrum would be far shorter in a streamed class than a destreamed class.
Streaming is also a good way to individualize curriculum for students. If a student is very strong in Math, but not at all strong in English, put them in a more academic stream in Math and a less rigorous course for English - it makes total sense! High school is a perfect time to discover strengths and weaknesses to help students make post-secondary choices. Some may wish to go on to Math or Science in university, others may wish to go to culinary school for example.
Lastly, I think destreaming has the potential to result in a high amount of failure for students. Putting them in a higher academic level than they're ready for will likely result in them having to take the course over again. Now, in an ideal situation, students could take courses over and over again until they're proficient enough to move on to the next level (same with elementary grades), but in reality, people don't want to be in school for longer than they need to be and school boards just don't have the resources to make that happen.
Of course, I could be wrong. More data is needed. If Ontario decides to destream, then it would be interesting to see the outcome! Maybe it would turn out better than I think! We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
I'd love to hear input on this! If anyone has any comments, feel free to post!
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