Title: SCHOOL TRACKING HARMS MILLIONS, SOCIOLOGIST FINDS
Headings: 
SCHOOL TRACKING HARMS MILLIONS, SOCIOLOGIST FINDS
Content: "This finding upsets me," Dornbusch said. " This set of data points to a  systemic pattern of ignorance, and African Americans and Hispanics are even  less aware of the extent to which the tracking system is short-changing them. These results help us to understand why so many talented and hard-working  minority students are ineligible for four-year colleges and universities. "And of course, the paucity of these minorities among scientists and  engineers is a necessary consequence." But, he added, "if one fifth of non-Hispanic whites and Asians are also  misinformed, we are discussing a major national problem that does not just  affect disadvantaged minorities." Some of the findings were foreshadowed in an earlier study by Dornbusch. In four Northern California high schools, he found that 55 percent of the  students could not correctly state even one admission requirement for the  University of California, and 76 percent could not identify a single  California State University requirement. Moreover, good students in  high-level math and science courses "were just as likely to be ignorant about  college requirements as students in the lower tracks." A second study with Jose Carrasco of San Jose State University found that  teachers of high school classes with mostly Latino and African American  students were less likely than others to know current college admission  requirements, Dornbusch said. The best students often overcome bad placements, Dornbusch said.