I am less concerned with tracks and more concerned with pacing. The problem with lumping everybody together is that nobody learns at the same pace. So, the pace

I am less concerned with tracks and more concerned with pacing. The problem with lumping everybody together is that nobody learns at the same pace. So, the pace is slowed to the minimum required to keep everyone moving forward. That is the effect of wanting no child left behind. In effect, progress for all is slowed by all to allow for progress of a few. If we allowed for a system where all students could learn at their own pace, test scores would go up simply for the fact that everyone would be allowed and encouraged to go further, faster. Also, many students could potentially learn more before they graduate or even have bachelor's level knowledge before the age they "go off to college". I was an "honors kid" and it was a little depressing to spend months every year re-learning what we learned the previous year and slowly creeping forward on the material the rest of the year. So, I taught myself the things I cared about at home and in my free time - I would read books like "Teach Yourself C in 21 Days" for fun. At one point I wanted to build my own operating system, so I was teaching myself Assembly... for fun. Obviously I'm a computer nerd, but people are nerdy about all kinds of things. Let the music kids go as far as they can in music, let the athletes go as far as they can with athletics. Let the writers write and the business people learn business. If schools nurture and encourage individualized learning, students will learn to excel in the areas that they care about. I was nerdy enough to do it on my own, most people aren't. School as I experienced it is basically broken.