Nowadays, the United States, leader of the free world, is not in the lead. Our economic system is broken. Worse still, our education system falls short of that of other countries. As a result, our literacy rate and mathematical abilities lag far behind; and what is even more embarrassing is the fact that education is not distributed equally despite our rather fierce fight against inequality. When academic achievement is examined on the basis of race, class, and gender, academic gaps widen. *If this continues, there will be nowhere to go but decline, economically and educationally. In order to avoid this worrying future, we need to get rid of the practice behind it - tracking. Tracking, or homogenous grouping, is a process in which groups of students are assigned to different sets of classes, or tracks, based on factors such as academic performance, teacher recommendation, and learning potential more knowledge (Oakes 3; Gamoran and Mare 1152). ). Schools use tracking to determine classroom placement of students to ensure optimal instruction. The placement of these students is meant to meet their different needs. In some schools, tracking is done by subject, meaning a student may learn quickly in math, but slow in language, etc. (Lockwood 2; Oakes 3). While monitoring can be an effective means of organization within a school, it also has many harmful effects for students. This brings me to the point of this article, which is that tracking is not a practice worth continuing and should be discontinued? Monitoring must end. In this article, in order to understand why we need to track, I will first look at tracking in terms of race and class. Second, I will consider the effects of tracking as...... middle of paper ......Web. October 14, 2011. Page, Reba Neukom. Lower level classes: A curricular and cultural perspective. New York: Teachers College, 1991. PrintPetrilli, Michael. “All together now?” Educate high and low achievers in the same classroom. Education Next 11.1 (2011): 48-55. Internet. November 4, 2011. Pool, Harbison and Jane A. Page, eds. Beyond monitoring: succeeding in inclusive schools. Bloomington, Indiana: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, 1995. Print. Schofield, Janet Ward “International evidence on ability clustering with curriculum differentiation and the achievement gap in secondary schools.” » Teachers College File 112.5 (2010): 1492-1528. Wheelock, Anne. Alternatives to capacity tracking and bundling. Virginia: American Association of School Administrators, 1994. Print.