It's a common manifestation of the dissonance in American politics. TFA is advocating for a fundamentally progressive stance, but he's arguing against ostensibl

It's a common manifestation of the dissonance in American politics. TFA is advocating for a fundamentally progressive stance, but he's arguing against ostensible Boston lefties. What's unspoken is that the people making these decisions for public schools in Cambridge are elites who send their own kids to private schools, often prep; this is just another way to bleed a public institution so that they're not on the hook. Bonus points: their darling children have less competition for the local universities. IME, tracking is only a portion of the issue, anyway. A confluence of factors stymied my growth; having to take Algebra 2 and Trig separately and Precalc as a standalone course didn't help, but poor instruction from "sink or swim" advocates was probably more consequential, and having parents distracted by a messy divorce and economic stresses from the 07/08 crash even more so. Between those, I went from starting middle school on track to take college-level Differential Equations or Calc 2, and ended up almost flunking AP Calc. Never really recovered.