Bottle of white, a bottle of red, or One final question about tracking

I know you're all probably tired of the topic, but just in case, I'd like to throw it out there. What do you think of tracking as a whole? My opinion at the moment is that in a perfect world, we'd be able to give enough individual attention and individual responsibility to students that tracking wouldn't be necessary, but that as things are in most schools, tracking is better than the alternative.

So what do you think? Is it unfair but better than nothing? Fair? Are the problems with it intrinsic to the idea, or just to the execution? What would you do about it if you were in charge of a classroom or school or school system, particularly a large city school? Are the students who get into high-track classes all the highest-achieving, or only those of a particular "type"? What does that mean for the whole topic?

Opinions valued, as I'm really wrestling with this, and y'all are wicked smaht.

Pictures of You (GIP)

Aha! I've just got my picture count up over 15. This is significant particularly because I renewed my extra pictures subscription without really thinking about the fact that I didn't need to. So now I have 17 icons, and space for many many more.

Meet my mind-control cat.