"A welldocumented treatise designed to support the Procrustean contention that the school must be the great equalizer, not the predeterminer of individual differences."

--Library Journal

"Jeannie Oakes's new book arrives just in time to let us know what tracking has actually accomplished in American education and what its impact has been on students and society. Oakes demonstrates, with substantial evidence, that students have radically different and unequal schooling experiences depending on their race and social class. . . . Much of the difference in school outcomes, she argues, can be explained by what happens to students IN schools, and much of that difference rests on tracking. This is not a new argument, but Keeping Track is the most thorough effort I've yet seen to document it. One new feature of Oakes's argument is that she has directed her attention to tracking in high schools. . . . At the heart of Oakes's work is a careful documentation of the way in which students are sorted and what goes on at each level."

--Deborah Meier, Nation

"Oakes has an important message for secondary education and comes across as sincere and convincing in arguing her main thesis--that tracking is one of the great unintentional malpractices of American education. This book is recommended for all secondary educators, graduate students, and socialscience researchers. It is appropriate reading for upperdivision undergraduates."

--Choice

"[A] wellwritten book. . . . A model of the use of triangulation. . . . Both critics and supporters if tracking will find Keeping Track a stimulating book. Finally, this book will force those who have no position on tracking to adopt a position."

--Mark Oromaner, Contemporary Sociology

"Jeannie Oakes has written an important book, one that's sure to create controversy. And Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality--even if you appreciate its message--will disturb you. . . . Keeping Track isn't a comfortable book to read. Nevertheless, it's one that should be read by anyone who wishes to improve schools. It's a fine companion to the effective schools movement, and its contents are especially important during a time when so many reforms are being examined."

--M. Donald Thomas, American School Board Journal (Selected as one of the ten "MUST READ" books of 1985)

"Oakes's book surpasses previous work on tracking by looking not simply at where and how students are assigned to tracks but at what happens to them once they reach their classrooms. . . . I found Oakes's work to be illuminating and well worth reading. By peering inside tracked classrooms, Oakes goes beyond previous research in the field, and her findings about classroom life are most revealing."

--Adam Gamoran, American Journal of Education

Submitted By Publisher, April, 2005

Selected by the American School Board Journal as a "Must Read" book when it was first published and named one of 60 "Books of the Century" by the University of South Carolina Museum of Education for its influence on American education, this provocative, carefully documented work shows how tracking--the system of grouping students for instruction on the basis of ability--reflects the class and racial inequalities of American society and helps to perpetuate them. For this new edition, Jeannie Oakes has added a new Preface and two new chapters in which she discusses the "tracking wars" of the last twenty years, wars in which Keeping Track has played a central role.