Carol, here's an interesting article in tommorrow's IBD. The conservative tide sweeping the country is bringing common sense back into vogue once again. It's about darn time!
Michael
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NATIONAL ISSUE
WHY POOR PUPILS GET PROMOTED Rules, Parents Stop Teachers From Retaining Them
Date: 3/4/98
Author: Carl Horowitz
In Washington state, eighth-graders who can't multiply or read at grade level go on to the next grade, where they fall even further behind.
''This fraudulent progression from eighth to 12th grade is antithetical to my purpose as an educator,'' wrote Cody Walke in ''Teacher'' magazine.
Walke, a teacher at Washington's White Swan Middle High School, penned the critical piece in '95. She left the school shortly after.
Apparently, she's not the only educator objecting to a common practice in U.S. schools known as ''social promotion.'' Under it, schools bump pupils up to the next grade whether or not they've mastered skills required in the current one.
Conservative groups for years have railed against social promotion. Now, seemingly overnight, liberals have become critics.
''When we promote a child from grade to grade who hasn't mastered the work, we do that child no favors,'' President Clinton said in his recent State of the Union speech. ''It is time to end social promotion in America's schools.''
His concern comes on the heels of a survey released in September by the nation's second-largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers. It asked 85 school districts across the country how they promote kids.
Social promotion is ''rampant across the country,'' the report concluded. Forty of the districts were the nation's largest.
How much social promotion goes on was hard to pin down, since schools don't keep numbers on the practice. In fact, the report noted that no school district explicitly advocated it.
That raises a paradox: Educators frown on social promotion, yet engage in it anyway. The irony isn't lost on AFT officials.
''Schools never preach social promotion. They simply practice it,'' said AFT spokeswoman Janet Bass. ''At least now the problem is out in the open.''
How did the problem stay hidden for so long?
For one thing, it's never been blatant.
Many districts allow retention but limit the number of times schools can hold back a slow or problem student. So they have to promote such students at some point.
Pupils in Houston, for example, can't be retained more than once during kindergarten through fourth grade, or more than once during grades 5 through 8. New York City pupils can't repeat a grade more than once from kindergarten through eighth grade.
Age can be a factor, too. Milwaukee requires schools to advance students from the sixth grade if they've reached age 14. In Norfolk, Va., students must be admitted to the ninth grade if they've reached 16.
Teachers don't have much say in the practice.
Of the 85 districts in the AFT survey, only three give teachers final approval over promotions.
In most cases where authority was specified, the principal made the call, after consulting with teachers, parents or school associations.
Parents don't want their kids or themselves to be branded as failures.
In a '94 nationwide survey by Peter D. Hart Research Associates Inc., 46% of AFT-affiliated teachers said they'd been pressured to promote students who weren't ready for the next grade. Much of the pressure came from moms and dads.
''Many parents see their child failing as an embarrassment,'' Bass said. ''The younger the child is, the worse the stigma. Try to imagine parents having to tell a friend their kid has to repeat kindergarten.''
Professional image. Districts have an incentive to promote as many pupils as they can to avoid looking bad.
Principals worry the most about image.
''No principal wants a reputation as heading a 'failing' school,'' Bass said. ''A consistently high retention rate might even cost them a job, especially with today's record-high enrollments.''
Principals insist they think of student interests in deciding whether or not to promote.
''Our members agree with Clinton that social promotion is harmful. But so is keeping kids back a grade,'' said June Million, spokeswoman for the 27,000-member National Association of Elementary School Principals. ''Having a 12-year old in the third grade isn't good for anyone.''
Some argue that teachers and principals often don't inform parents of their children's poor performance until late in the school year. By then, it's too late for them to catch up.
''That doesn't say much for the way most schools are run,'' remarked Dave DeSchryver, policy analyst for the Washington-based Center for Education Reform.
Proposed solutions often come with a price tag.
Many educators want to end social promotion, but add they need new tools - and funds. The AFT proposes national standards for all grades, better teacher training and more remedial education and early-childhood intervention programs.
The White House's proposed Education Opportunity Zones would cost $1.5 billion over five years to help 50 low-income school districts adopt reforms, one of which is ending social promotion.
Yet some localities haven't waited for such help. Examples:
Chicago. Touted by Clinton, the city's school system two years ago repealed social promotion. Children in certain grades now must pass a standardized test or attend summer school to advance.
Initially covering only eighth- graders, the program is now mandated for pupils in the third and sixth grades, and soon will be voluntary for kids in the first and second grades.
''We were getting complaints from our high school teachers that some of the students coming out of the eighth grade could barely read,'' said Cozette Buckney, chief education officer for Chicago public schools.
Any eighth-grader not reading at grade level, not getting at least a ''D'' average, or having 20 or more unexcused absences, now has to take summer classes and be retested before moving on to the ninth grade. Students not passing the second time must go back to elementary school.
Buckney noted the school system has started after-class tutoring, expanded involvement with parents and opened nine ''transition'' schools for intensive learning. About a third of the failing eighth-graders since have improved to the point they can enter high school.
Gwinnett County, Ga. The fast-growing suburban Atlanta county also is moving away from social promotion.
Until a few years ago, parents could veto a teacher's recommendation to hold a student back. Failing students could be placed in the next higher grade anyway. The school board now requires all students to earn their promotion.
''We're against social promotion, but we don't think it's productive to make a student go over the same material a second time,'' said district spokeswoman Berney Kirkland. ''The key to success is to teach differently.''
Students failing to make the cut go through ''intervention'' programs, such as before-school classes, summer school or tutoring.
But Donna Hearne, a St. Louis- based consultant and education policy adviser to both the Reagan and Bush administrations, says there's a low-cost way to avoid social promotion or the opposite problem of ''warehousing'' flunking students - train teachers in the basics, the way teachers colleges used to do.
''Teachers come out of education school viewing their mission as needing to shape pupil attitudes,'' she said. ''They avoid focusing on helping children accumulate knowledge.'' |
