Ontario may have officially done away with “streaming” in high schools well over a decade ago but in reality the controversial practice continues — and with the same troubling patterns: teens from low-income homes make up the bulk of those taking non-academic credits, a study by People for Education has found.

The numbers show the lower the average family income at a particular secondary school, the higher the percentage of students taking “applied” math.

In schools where the average family income is $60,000, more than half of students are enrolled in applied math. In schools where families earn an average of $110,000 a year, fewer than 10 per cent of students take that course.

“It is startling, and it is coupled with the fact that, according to lots of different reports, kids in applied have a much lower chance of graduating, of succeeding, of getting all their credits,” said Annie Kidder, executive director of the research and advocacy group. Nor are those students likely to go on to college or university.

“It’s doubly problematic. ... Are we further disadvantaging students who are already disadvantaged?” Kidder asked.

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Charles Ungerleider, an education professor at the University of British Columbia, said the government must pay attention to the findings.

“Mathematical ability, like other abilities, is normally distributed across the population …. Why are youngsters being slotted into applied courses in disproportionate numbers?” said Ungerleider.

In the late 1980s, debate raged in Ontario about streaming teens into basic (vocational), general (college-bound) and advanced (university-bound) levels upon entering high school.

At the time, the old Toronto school board estimated that teens from low-income homes were 23 times more likely to be in the basic and general levels. Streaming was seen as a huge contributor to high dropout rates.

Since 1999, the Ontario government has revamped the high school curriculum and today most students take academic or applied courses in Grades 9 and 10 for required credits such as math, science and English.

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In theory, the same material is to be covered, with the academic being more theoretical and the applied more hands-on. However, applied courses are perceived as easier, the report notes.

“When you have secondary schools with two kinds of required courses, two kinds of English and two kinds of math that are supposed to be equivalent but are different, then you have streaming,” said Ungerleider, who recommends a common curriculum until Grades 10 or 11.

According to the People for Education report, two-thirds of students who take Grade 9 applied math are taking three or more applied courses overall. To switch to academic courses, these students must take transfer credits — something that rarely, if ever, happens in some 91 per cent of high schools.

Both Kidder and Ungerleider praised the Ontario government for boosting high school graduation rates to the current 83 per cent, as well as introducing more co-op and specialized programming to keep teens interested in school.

But some students continue to struggle, and “while the patterns of inequality are complex and interconnected, those patterns can be exacerbated by students’ course choices in high school,” says the report.

The report is based on data from individual schools, obtained from the provincial body that runs standardized testing, and is matched with census data from Statistics Canada.

Kidder says the findings show that “it is time to look more closely at who is choosing applied courses, why they are being chosen, what advice parents and students are receiving in Grade 8 when the choices must be made” and whether the academic/applied system automatically handicaps already vulnerable youth.

Toronto principal Naeem Siddiq, whose high school is in a lower-income area of the city, said he has impressed upon his staff that they must ensure that students in applied courses truly belong there.

It’s more than grades, he said. Behaviour and attendance problems “get in the way of learning” and that if either or both of those can be improved, students can move on to academic credits.

The school also sends its guidance staff to elementary schools to help Grade 8 students choose appropriate credits when they enter high school.

“We are constantly monitoring to see if they are in the right place,” said Siddiq, who is principal of North Albion Collegiate and former president of the Ontario Principals’ Council.

“We should always be looking for kids who are in applied who shouldn’t be there,” he said, and move them to academic “sooner rather than later.”

Educators around the world have been sounding the alarm about streaming. A 2012 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said “early tracking” should be held off until the upper years of high school so as to keep students’ options open.

The People for Education report warns about the consequences otherwise: “Unless we assume that wealthier students are inherently more academically capable, this correlation (between family income and academic streaming) is disturbing, all the more so given the evidence that suggests that taking applied courses itself may not merely reproduce disadvantage but actively exacerbate the risk of problematic academic outcomes.”