Early retention may help struggling readers boost performance
I am about to listen to a tw0-hour webcast on the issue of promotion and retention by the Center on Children and Families at Brookings.
In the meantime, here is the official release on a new Brookings policy brief that suggests retaining struggling students in early grades pays off:
The policy brief by Harvard professor Martin R. West speaks to the ongoing debate over whether retaining students in early grades is self-defeating:
Recent evidence suggests that policies encouraging the retention and remediation of struggling readers in 3rd grade, as compared with similar students who are not retained, help boost their test scores in reading and math and reduce the likelihood of being held back later, according to a new policy brief released today by the Brookings Center on Children and Families at an event featuring policymakers, academics and practitioners. These findings are especially important because students from poor and low-income families are falling further and further behind more advantaged students, in large part because of their low reading skills.
In the brief “Is Retaining Students in the Early Grades Self-Defeating?,” Harvard professor Martin R. West reviews the research on social promotion and grade retention. Looking at high-quality, large-scale studies conducted in Florida, West notes that, as compared with similar students who were not retained, the retained children were 11 percentage points less likely to be retained one year after they were initially held back and roughly 4 percentage points less likely to be retained in each of the following three years. As a result, students retained in 3rd grade after five years are only 0.7 grade levels behind their peers who were immediately promoted to grade 4.
West also examines the long-term impacts of grade retention. He writes that, as is common in many educational interventions, the short-term improvements in reading and math achievement observed for retained students diminish over time and become statistically insignificant by the time the students reach the 7th grade. But he adds that “the retained students continue to perform markedly better than their promoted peers when tested at the same grade level and, assuming they are as likely to graduate high school, stand to benefit from an additional year of instruction. These factors may increase the likelihood of enduring benefits.”
“The keys to good policy to reduce the reading achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students are to have high-quality programs during the preschool and early elementary years featuring highly effective teachers, to provide intensive remedial instruction in reading for students who are not proficient readers by third grade, and to use retention judiciously for students who need additional compensatory instruction,” West said.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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82 comments Add your comment
tchr
August 16th, 2012
9:51 am
As a HS teacher how frequently works with students reading at a k-5 level, I think there may be something to this.
mrchtaylor
August 16th, 2012
10:15 am
Back in the late 60’s in was common practice to hold back children in the 1st grade who could not read. I graduated with many 19 year olds and they were not marred by the process. The earlier the better.
Mom of 3
August 16th, 2012
10:16 am
How about this…let’s start a program to get the parents of the disadvantaged kids to step up to the plate. Good grief. Throwing money at reading programs will help a few, but if the kids don’t go home and read with mom and dad it is not going to matter. The issues facing disadvantaged kids are much too big and complicated for schools to fix.
Reading is a critical skill required to excel in ALL subjects. But more programs are not the answer. Getting parents to invest in their children is, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Turn off the idiot box and go to the library! It’s free, people!!!!
Really amazed
August 16th, 2012
10:22 am
This is such a no-brainer! The problem is most parents will say no way little Johnny is going to be held back! I am so sick of these type of studies. It is called common sense!
Hillbilly D
August 16th, 2012
10:28 am
This seems like a no-brainer to me. Don’t promote somebody until they make the cut. You’re doing them no favors by sending them on unprepared.
irisheyes
August 16th, 2012
11:23 am
I definitely think that retaining kids in K and 1st is a good idea. Kids all mature at different rates, and sometimes a 5 year old just isn’t ready for kindergarten. It’s not because they’re stupid; they just need more time to mature and develop. Some systems have a Transition 1st, where the kids who aren’t ready for regular first go. They review kindergarten and preview first, and then at the end of the year, they’re ready to go into a regular first grade classroom. Seems to be a good idea to me. Let’s give these kids the support they need now, so they don’t go to high school reading at a 3rd grade level.
Entitlement Society
August 16th, 2012
11:24 am
What a complete waste of time, money, and resources. Mom of 3 has it right! Get the “disadvantaged” parents to use an existing FREE resource (the library) and read to their children. That’s what we so called “advantaged” parents do. It’s not rocket science. Children are like sponges. If you read to them at an early age and then continue to read with them, it just happens naturally. No need for expensive research and special programs!
Mountain Man
August 16th, 2012
11:34 am
Oh My God, are schools actually looking at the problem of social promotion? I am going to faint! Next thing you will tell me that they are going to address truancy. I can’t believe it.
Jerry Eads
August 16th, 2012
11:40 am
Decades of research, the early work assembled as a meta-analysis by Lorrie Shepard and Mary Smith, showed rather conclusively that retaining kids pretty much guarantees they’ll not finish high school. Retention in grade generally is like Einstein’s definition of insanity- doing the same thing over again expecting different results. IF the results of long-term followup have changed – which would have to mean that schools no longer practice the insanity of simple retention and actually do something different to help the student AND the chances of high school completion don’t drop to virtually zero, THEN we’ll see.
catlady
August 16th, 2012
11:49 am
No mastery, no promotion! It should be as easy as that. And to those who claim that then the kids drop out, honey, they were not going to finish anyway if they are 2-4 years behind in their skills! Keep them back (give them a year) while they are young, when there is a CHANCE of catching them up!
Maureen Downey
August 16th, 2012
11:51 am
@Jerry, That position was well represented on the panel with researcher Shane Jimerson of UCSB, who said:
catlady
August 16th, 2012
11:56 am
Jerry, let’s retain and put them in smaller, targeted classes with the best teachers. I think the study you cite was not able to take into account that the kids who were retained would never have graduated anyway. And, with many, as they see what they cannot do (with the other kids moving on) they become behavior problems.
When I taught kindergarten, I requested, perhaps one child a year, to be given some additional time to grow. It was almost always summer birthday boys. The ones that had faith in me, and did it, came back and told me how glad they were that they gave that gift to their sons. The ones that would not do it had to live with the wreck their sons’ lives became as they struggled year after year. Two of them came back and told me they wished they had listened to me.
Now, a child of low IQ won’t be helped in keeping them back. They need special services. But the ones of average or higher ability, THOSE are the ones you can save!
One other thing we could do is jetison this RTI nonsense, IMHO. It succeeds in denying testing to kids year after year who need their problems identified.
Lee
August 16th, 2012
12:26 pm
One problem with the current process is that schools retain students for an entire year. Looks to me it would make more sense to evaluate the students during the normal grading period intervals and if they are lagging, let them loop back.
For example, after the first nine week period, if a student is behind, there is no sense if forcing them to go forward and essentially wasting the entire year.
But hey, I’m a non-teacher so what do I know….
Ole Guy
August 16th, 2012
12:30 pm
As a military bratt, I attended a number of schools…from 3rd grade to graduation…northern schools; southern schools. The largest “hold-back” rate appeared to be in the mid-hs grades…L.A. (Lower Alabama) where kids would “play stupid” so as to play football an extra year. Of course, there were always a few who, after learning of their ages as being a year beyond grade level, appeared to accept the situation…with grace (if “grace” would be the appropriate descriptive for hs kids).
Bottom line: It’s not the kid who would necessarily mind…in fact, at the earlier ages/grades, they could probably accept the situation with…aplomb. IT’S THE GD PARENTS WHO WOULD PROBABLY PRESENT THE BIGGEST HURDLE.
One of the best lessons in life is the realization that 1) failure to meet minimum standards does not spell the end of the world; 2) recovering from failure and proceeding down life’s pothole-strewn roads is the true mark of maturity. Maybe, just maybe the sad fact that too many parents seem too damn intent on pushing their kid(s), rather than allowing some rain to fall onto their lives has some influence on college dropout and teen suicide rates. Failure to attain life’s high roads, after all, IS a fact of life.
Hillbilly D
August 16th, 2012
12:42 pm
Lee @ 12:26
Good idea. The sooner a problem is dealt with, the better.
Ole Guy
August 16th, 2012
12:50 pm
Lee, oftentimes, the best advice comes from those those who view the issue with the “clean slate of ignorance”. A major problem, often reflected through the words of (apparent) teachers, is one of “imagined uniqueness”. While many of the problems, unique to the education community, can only be truly understood by those who “have been there”, all-too-many times, the answers are so simple as to escape simple unencumbered logic.
Your suggestion makes lot of sense…as you indicate, “You’re a non-teacher…so what do you know…”? Plenty! Probably a whole lot more than those who allow the profession to become encumbered by rules and…yes, fears (You will all remember the Twetty Bird incident, a few years back, when plain ole gd common frequin sense was all but ignored so that some gd mis-guided rules could prevail. Also, recall the “ceremonial knives” incident. Those of you relatively new to the enclave of Cobb may not be aware of these two incidents which pretty much typify the idiotic mindsets within County “leadership”…be that as it may)…once the kid’s shortcomings have been identified and shown to be resolved, by all means, send em on to bigger an’better things. If they have to play catch-up ball for a while, so be it. Throw em’ a challenging pitch and see what they can do.
Good idea, Lee…it would be interesting to see if the leadership has enough confidence in these kids to see if they have the capability; the desire to run with the ball on this one.
long time educator
August 16th, 2012
12:53 pm
@ Entitlement Society and Mom of 3,” What a complete waste of time, money, and resources. Mom of 3 has it right! Get the “disadvantaged” parents to use an existing FREE resource (the library) and read to their children. That’s what we so called “advantaged” parents do.”
This is a fine idea if the “disadvantaged parents” are willing to pitch in and do their part. How do you “Get” them to do it? This is at the very heart of student performance. If the parents don’t care, it is almost impossible for the school to make a difference. If they do care, then economic disadvantages can be overcome and the school and parents can form an alliance.
I also agree with catlady, does retaining “cause” the student to drop out, or is there just a correlation between the recommendation to retain at an early age and later inability to do the work in high school and thus dropping out? You should study kids who were recommended to be retained, but were not and those who were. Did they drop out later in similiar numbers?
One other suggestion: I have always wanted to designate Pre-K through third to be Primary 1-4 and have a more fluid movement through mastering certain essential reading and math skills. Allow students more time, if necessary, to accomplish mastery, and allow them to move on, if they have mastered. So, a Primary 3A Reading class might have children of different ages all reading at the same level. The Primary 3A Math class might have a very different assortment of kids. In order to leave Primary, students would have to master essential skills necessary for being successful in 4th grade. Use all the resources available in order to give some students more practice; afterschool, summer school, and breaks in year round school schedules. Throw everything you have at them during this young period when they are still giving you their best effort. Most kids with real special needs can also be identified during this period.
williebkind
August 16th, 2012
12:58 pm
I say more guvment/union regulations and another trillion dollars ought to fix it!
Momtoktb
August 16th, 2012
1:01 pm
“The problem is most parents will say no way little Johnny is going to be held back.”
There’s an opposite social trend I’ve noticed: parents starting their kids (especially boys) late, or holding them back voluntarily in the early grades (and not because they are struggling academically or emotionally). It strikes me as artificially propping up a child as they “compete” with peers a year younger. Usually, those parents (and kids) then look condescendingly at their classmates who might act less “mature” than they do, or who aren’t as developed as an athlete. Of course they do, but their behavior and skills are age-appropriate – your kid’s supposed to be a whole year ahead!
Mom of 3
August 16th, 2012
1:15 pm
@long time educator…….I am in complete agreement with you. The teachers cannot do their job, and the extra programs will not work, if the parents are not involved. Since many parents will never be involved, it is, as you say,”impossible for the school to make a difference”. All the fancy programs in the world will not make a difference if the parents are not involved. Teachers and parents must work together, but we all know many parents want the teachers to do all the work.
As a mom of 3, one in high school, one in middle, and one in elementary, it has taken much diligence on my part to teach and train my children in the importance of good study habits. My high schooler, obviously, now works independently. My middle schooler needs some guidance now and then, and my elementary kid much more. It is hard work to set your kids up for success. But parents must rise up and do it!
I recognize this is easier said than done, but isn’t everything?
Beverly Fraud
August 16th, 2012
1:16 pm
Early retention may help struggling readers boost performance
In other shocking news, children who wear jackets in the dead of winter report feeling warmer than their peers who only wear T-Shirts.
Entitlement Society
August 16th, 2012
1:30 pm
@ Momtoktb – You’re absolutely correct in your assessment of the social trend of parents holding back their children by choice. For example, my son has a late August birthday (the day before the school cut off). Technically he was ready for school, academically he was ready for school, but I knew socially it would prove to be a bad move, so yes we had him go to Kindergarten at a public school for the first year and then a private school for a second year. When he started Kindergarten the first time (meeting the age requirement), there were a couple of children who were literally a year and a half older than he was. An 18 months age gap at age 5 makes a big difference, so I think this whole holding your child back thing so they can get-ahead is also becoming just as much of a problem as social promotion. Once again it must boil down to a socio-economic issue. Parents who care and are involved realize that their children need the extra time in school to master the subject matter before being promoted to the next level. It only does the child a dissservice to move him/her on before he/she is ready. Apparently, some think there are still parents out there who don’t want little Johnny held back… I’ve never seen it.
Entitlement Society
August 16th, 2012
1:35 pm
@ long time educator & mom of 3 – …….I am in complete agreement with you. The teachers cannot do their job, and the extra programs will not work, if the parents are not involved. Since many parents will never be involved, it is, as you say,”impossible for the school to make a difference”. All the fancy programs in the world will not make a difference if the parents are not involved. Teachers and parents must work together, but we all know many parents want the teachers to do all the work.
________________________________________________________________________
Perhaps then we could just place those children in the “I have parents who don’t care track” so no further time, nor resources is wasted on them! If it’s impossible for schools to make a difference in these hopeless families determined to stay mired in a death spiral of underachievment and uninspired to grab hold of the many olive branches extended to them, let’s save our tax dollars and teachers’ sanity!
another comment
August 16th, 2012
1:52 pm
In the private and Catholic Schools that test for Kindergarten they will not take boys with late birthdays. You will not see boys after June Birthdays, ussually none with March or after birthday. You rarely see girls after March Birthdays. In fact my daughter with a March 10th birthday was refered to as a young kindergartner or a young first grader. Only because she scored a 99% on the ITBS was she allowed to go from K to first grade otherwise, she would have been held back to Prefirst. Ussually they take 3 K classes then they take one of those classes and put them in Pre First. Then they move the last Pre-Frist up to First along with the other 2 K classes. If your child has any date after a January Birthdate or does any lower than a certain amount on the admission test to Private school you are clearly told there is a very good chance your child will do the extra year in Pre-K.
My one Childs Birthday is Sept. 21, so she has always been one of the older kids. I am no shocked with how immature the kids are who are 10-11 months younger than her and seniors. She is immature but they are really immature. I graduated in 1978 at 17 1/2, these kids today are just too imature especially in public school. Public School should create a Pre 1st like the rest Private Schools do. It would help out with alot of the problems. I will tell you from experience that even in the world where people are going to pay $8K to 22K more for an extra year of tuition they don’t really complain because they know it is best for their child, to have this year of early intervention. It is better than being sent to the Schenk school or the Speech School those are the two alternates most are given.
Jerry Eads
August 16th, 2012
1:52 pm
Cat, wasn’t one study, but (as I remember) many dozens put together in a sort of meta-analysis. And they’ve been replicated over and over and over. See Maureen’s comment. All is not lost, it’s just that retention is ineffective and virtually guarantees IN AND OF ITSELF failure to complete high school. Granted, these are matched samples studies: Select kids just like each other, and have one repeat a grade and the other not. The not is FAR more likely to complete high school AND THEY PERFORM NO DIFFERENTLY. These are not random assignment studies like the High/Scope research, but the evidence is extremely convincing. The reference, still on my shelf, is Shepard, L.A. & Smith, M. L. (Eds.) (1989). Flunking grades: Research and policies on retention. London: The Falmer Press. As Maureen pointed out, the research has continued and very rarely finds differently.
Jerry Eads
August 16th, 2012
1:57 pm
Cat, I should likely add that research is never 0’s and 1’s (all or nothing). And of course a single teacher who doesn’t make a child feel like dirt may overcome some of the unintended consequences of retention. But, I’d caution, you might want to check and see how many of those kids you refer to finished high school. But even then, the research looks at many thousands of children, not a few.
long time educator
August 16th, 2012
2:01 pm
@Entitlement Society, “Perhaps then we could just place those children in the “I have parents who don’t care track” so no further time, nor resources is wasted on them!”
The trouble with this argument is that MANY further resources will be spent on them if we do not educate them and make them taxpayers and they end up in prison, which costs much more. As a society, even if the motivation has no altruism in it at all, we should be motivated by self-preservation. The solution seems to be taking the parent out of the equation if they refuse to take charge. We need alternative schools, that might even have to be boarding schools, to rescue these unparented orphans. Title I tries to coax parents to participate; the blog the other day told of systems who tried to coerce the parents to care about attendance by using law enforcement. Both of these approaches might work for some, but there are still others who are raising themselves. We are going to pay for them one way or another; I think I would rather take them out of their toxic environment, possibly give up on the parents’ generation, and try to save the youngest generation. We need to try something else; we keep trying the same strategies, which have not worked, and expecting different outcomes. Again, add up the price of welfare and incarceration, and education is a bargain!
Parent and Teacher
August 16th, 2012
2:01 pm
Lee – completely agree! Kids do literally waste an entire year when going back a semester or even nine weeks would be more appropriate. There is no excuse. Many educators/all administrators are overly optimistic that a child will somehow magically catch up. It rarely happens. While it is nice to hope for the best, more realism is what we need.
Entitlement Society
August 16th, 2012
2:19 pm
@ Long Time Educator – I agree that these fledging young children should be removed from the homes of unhelpful, unmotivated parents who in many cases only seem to care about the children for their welfare benefits. The alternative boarding schools you bring up sound like a great model and would help shield these children from all of the negative influences. Without a doubt, we need to just write off the parents’ generation and move on. No amount of mentoring, hand holding, and guidance will help people who don’t want to be helped and involved in their children’s education.
Marney
August 16th, 2012
2:21 pm
As with all generalizations, there are sometimes special circumstances.
The whole age/grade level obsession doesn’t apply well to the refugee experience and so I think that there is a different set of forces that make very early retention (K or 1st grade) a good strategy to allow non-English speaking kids a better opportunity to succeed in the long run.
There are many cultures where the family has many kids and the parents don’t know the calendar date of a given child’s birth. But a specific one must be given to the immigration officials…and it must be repeated consistently over a series of interviews or the family will be suspected of lying and denied asylum. So the parents give January 1 for everyone, and then make a guess at the correct year. Any then we hit the rigid date expectations of the American school system with families that consider their children, and their children’s education their brightest hope for the future.
Some of these children are far more mature socially when they are presented for kindergarten, and you don’t know if it is the culture of if the child is really 7 despite what the paperwork says. Some really are 5, but because neither child nor parent knows that there is a “stigma of failure” attached to it, an extra year of kindergarten in which to play and absorb English from classmates can be far more effective than retaining in 3rd grade–by which time the child feels the moving on of her peer group and the failure label far more acutely.
Digger
August 16th, 2012
2:28 pm
In many cases, a low IQ is a low IQ. Nothing will ever work.
catlady
August 16th, 2012
2:40 pm
Jerry, I respect you greatly, but I disagree based on my experiences. Did those studies control for other variables, such as ability? Kids who are identified as needing retention are of two types: those with ability problems, and those with maturing problems. I am thinking of those with maturity lags. A child with an 80 IQ will not be helped much by retaining–school is always going to be a struggle. A child with an IQ of 110, however, who is unable to show the kinds of behaviors we expect of school children would be helped by more time.
I recall going to an in-service at Cherokee High in about 1974. This was before they changed the entry cut-off to January 1, and we had 4 1/2 year olds in kindergarten. I recall quite vividly that they cited state data that found that something like 90% of the kids held back in first (back when we did that) were those late-birthday kids, and, even more damning, something like 70% of those who dropped out of high school were those fall birthday babies. Their youthfulness in relation to what was expected of them caught up with them somewhere down the line.
A lot of how well the student “took” being held back was how his/her parents reacted. If they said, “My kid is so dumb he failed kindergarten!” then you could be pretty sure the child would be unhappy. If, instead, parents spoke of it as “giving” an extra year, the child was not devastated. In addition, since I would teach the child again the next year, I would give them lots of leadership opportunities.
As I said, over first 15 years of my teaching career, I did not suggest it moree than a dozen times, with about 7 parents agreeing. Every one of those finished high school (remember, I live in a small town) and went on to various post-secondary education. One owns his own electrical firm, for example. Of the ones that went on, the news is not so good. And, as I said before, a couple of their parents have come back to me and said, “I wish I had gone with your suggestion. He has had such a hard time!”
This is merely my experience. I think we need to be much more active in identifying children who are having trouble because they have an ability deficit, rather than a maturity deficit.
long time educator
August 16th, 2012
2:42 pm
All this emphasis on birthdays and chronological age so clearly shows what the school’s main priority is; moving the kids the same age through the system together. We tie ourselves in knots trying to make this feasible; we hire co-teachers, remedial teachers, and train for differentiation so that age mates can all be in the same classroom, but taught at multiple levels by the same poor overworked teacher. Let’s question this practice! What if we sort kids into classes by skill levels? Notice I did not say ability (IQ). Give a reading and math skill test to imcoming students, all ages. Those who have Level I reading skills go to a Level I reading class, regardless of age. Like I said above, I would sort using kids 4-8 years old. Place them in subject classes by skill level, not age level homerooms. Obviously a child who is making extremely slow progress would qualify for special education support and would not remain in Primary past 8 or 9 years old. My grandson is about to start public kindergarten. He reads at a second grade skill level and it would be nice if he could be taught at that level, but I don’t expect his homeroom kindergarten teacher to be able to do that. He may not score at that level in math, so he would be placed in the appropriate math class for his skill level. Kids could still have PE, Music, lunch and thematic unit classes with age mates, but everyone would benefit if we grouped by skill level and not age. It would be remarkable how much more productive teachers would be if they were not saddled with this crazy chronological homeroom sorting system.
TheGoldenRam
August 16th, 2012
2:46 pm
Jacksonville, FL(Duval County Schools) has a huge problem with kids ‘aging out’ out of the system. There are literally THOUSANDS of students that have been retained at least twice and many that have been retained three or FOUR times!
There needs to be alternative schools for these kids. I despise social promotion, but do we want a system with 6th graders driving themselves to school? That’s not a myth. They’re out there. We have 21 yr-olds in Florida high schools. Like so many other posters said, this seems like a no-brainer. If you can’t read, you can’t learn about anything else. High school courses in any discipline while reading at a 3rd grade level? What a joke.
Hold them back early if they’re too far behind. If they need to be held back again(or again), they should be in alternative schools. Public education is destroying itself by trying to cater to/pander to/serve everyone within the same model. It’s failing the woefully lagging students by setting them up to eventually ‘hit the wall’ even harder down the road, failing the on-grade students by diminishing their academic environment with too many ‘remedial’ learners around them & it’s failing teachers by expecting them to teach a class full of kids with wildly varying ability.
Is public education primarily a profession centered on learning/academics or is it a giant social services agency that tries to accomplish some teaching along with all its other efforts? For me, that’s been the unsettled question that is wrecking the whole institution.
Ashley
August 16th, 2012
2:52 pm
Retaining someone in kindergarten or 1st grade makes alot more sense than trying to hold them back when they get beyond second grade. This social promotion theory is the reason public schools are in the shape there in. Parents should be reading and teaching their kids the basic before kindergarten……how about putting down the cell phone, remote control, logging off and read a book to your child. The library is free and Scholastic makes books and magazine subscriptions just for children……I use to love Highlights and Kangaroo Books when I was a kid, there is no reason why parents can’t afford to do this for the greater good of their child, after-all it’s in their best interest, the schools can’t do everything.
Jerry Eads
August 16th, 2012
3:04 pm
Yes, Cat, all of the above. While there are always exceptions, the evidence as a highly generalizable rule is overwhelming. Lorrie actually does a very nice job of explaining why principals and teachers find the evidence so hard to believe given their experience; it’s quite understandable, because you see some difference in the child you retained. The problem is, the child just like that one who you didn’t retain does just as well, and he/she is MUCH more likely to graduate.
And I’m ECSTATIC you were able to break that mold
Ashley, actually the research is just as convincing – if not more so – for the early grades. Retaining kids in grade guarantees that they’ll not finish high school. One retention is really bad, two retentions is almost an absolute guarantee. I know we do it in the kids’ interest. We only want to help them. The sad thing is it’s MUCH more likely to hurt them.
J
Dr. Monica Henson
August 16th, 2012
3:43 pm
Jerry Eads is correct that retention without offering retained kids something different than what didn’t work the first time is almost guarantee that they’ll become at risk.
I believe that primary “grades” need to become ungraded primaries, where students are placed at their skill level and not in their age cohort. Some students may be in elementary-school reading the day they report for kindergarten; why hold them into a K cohort simply because they are 5 years old?
(For those who naysay that kids need to be age-peers for socialization purposes and allowing them to skip grades somehow damages them, I dare you to show me the research that supports that old wives’ tale.)
Jessica
August 16th, 2012
3:46 pm
Wow, this policy brief is stunningly and breathtakingly…obvious. If students have not mastered the skills taught at one level, they are not ready to move up to the next level.
My kids are not in public school right now, so I’m curious — do schools/teachers provide parents with a detailed list of what their kids need to know to advance to the next grade? Also, do you provide parents with a list of free or inexpensive resources they can use to help their struggling kids (free online resources, list of local libraries, local tutoring programs, etc.)?
long time educator
August 16th, 2012
3:51 pm
Again, I think we need to examine, “What is the main purpose of school?” Is it to educate and acquire life skills? Is it to teach social skills of acceptance and tolerance? Is it to build self-esteem and confidence? Whatever the main purpose is will dictate the delivery mode. All of these are worthy goals, but the last two, social skills and confidence, have gotten ahead of what I see as the main purpose of school: academic achievement reading, writing and arithmetic. Unless a student has learned basic academic skills, what difference does it make if she “graduates”? The diploma is a worthless piece of paper if it does not represent a certain level of achievement. Retaining someone may hurt their feelings, but not being able to get a job is going to hurt them more. We need to quit lying to kids.
Progressive Humanist
August 16th, 2012
4:09 pm
Jerry,
All of the research I’ve seen on retention is correlational. Yes, the studies do reveal a relationship between retention and a variety of negative outcomes, but they often erroneously imply a causal chain and suggest that retention causes those negative outcomes instead of causality in the opposite direction- the negative traits emerging or already in existence causing retention. You are making it clear that the evidence you’ve seen suggests that retention causes negative effects such as the failure to finish high school. The only type of research that can identify causality such as that is an experimental design, and I honestly do not know how an experimental design could ethically be implemented with this issue. So my question to you is whether you are aware of experimental studies that could reveal the type of causal relationship that you’re suggesting? Or are you coming to that conclusion based on correlational studies? If there are experimental studies on the issue I would genuinely like to review them and possibly include them in my courses.
Beverly Fraud
August 16th, 2012
4:12 pm
What do the studies show of a child who failed the 3rd grade CRCT (and was promoted) the 4th grade (CRCT) and was promoted, the 5th grade CRCT (and was promoted), and the 6th grade (and was promoted)?
Are we saying those students are doing remarkably better than the k, 1 or 2 child who was retained?
TheGoldenRam
August 16th, 2012
4:14 pm
As a non-teacher, I have a question for the professionals in the field. When it comes to these studies & analyses that relate to graduation rates, do you share the concern that many of us have that ‘graduate’/'graduation’ is a very unreliable metric? I know it’s a popular anecdote to say “a high school diploma doesn’t count for much anymore’ because of the changing world in which we live. Changes in the global economy that put an emphasis on higher/advanced education, science/technology, etc..
However, as someone in his late-thirties, I’m seeing another anecdote taking root and growing in popularity. That being that a “high school diploma doesn’t count for much anymore” because it’s a result, measurement or disctinction that can no longer be trusted in many places. There are far too many stories coming out of large school systems that talk of a graduating class being as low as 1% or maybe 4% ‘college ready’. Some are literally 0% ‘college ready’. Stories about ‘graduates’ that can’t read. Interviews with ‘graduates’ that can’t understand why other kids couldn’t complete school when “all we had to do was show up”. Stories all over the country about the huge growth in remedial education for incoming college students, many of which can’t even make it through those courses.
How many ‘drop-outs’ of yesteryear would be the ‘graduates’ of today, only because so little is expected of so many students within contemporary public education.
Is a high school graduate that reads on a 3rd grade level more valuable than a drop-out that left while at a much higher ability level? I know the aforementioned are more valuable to the institutions being measured by their performance, but that’s a political motive.
long time educator
August 16th, 2012
4:21 pm
If I were hiring and wanted the applicant to have basic reading and math skills implied by a high school diploma, I would definitely invest in a basic skills test to assess whatever reading and math skills were necessary to do the job. The diploma is not standardized across the state and certainly not across the nation.
Progressive Humanist
August 16th, 2012
4:44 pm
GoldenRam,
I won’t try to address all of your questions, but I’ll take a couple of them and maybe others can fill in the rest.
Graduation rates are indeed unreliable metrics because it’s very difficult to track students once they leave high school. Some move and transfer to other schools; some move and never go back to school. The district has no way to trace whether students who leave actually go on to graduate.
I would say that high school diplomas mean less now not because graduation metrics are unreliable, but because a high school diploma is only one step towards the degree that really does matter for employment- a 4-year college diploma. The associates degree has lost relevance for the same reason.
With the issue of low standards for high school graduates, this is why graduation tests were implemented. Graduation tests are minimum competency tests and are administered precisely to identify whether students have the most basic content area skills. For instance, a student can pass the Georgia graduation test with about 8th grade level skills. That’s certainly not a high bar, but illiterate students or those reading on a 3rd grade level cannot pass it and students at that level are not graduating from high school. As a matter of fact, there are few adult students at those levels anymore outside of special education programs, and students in special ed programs who are at that level do not receive diplomas. They receive certificates of attendance when they leave school. When we look at the general population, literacy rates are higher now than they’ve ever been, although 50% of adults still read at an 8th grade level or below. But in the past there were more people who were fully illiterate than there are now. The next question is whether the majority of students are reaching adequate skill levels (higher than 8th grade), and I would agree with you that that is a problem.
As far as college readiness, high graduation and college readiness are not necessarily the same thing. Not every student is going to be able to handle college, and just because a student cannot make it in college is not a legitimate reason to deny that student a high school diploma if he or she has met the high school criteria. And I don’t think that high school graduation criteria should be set so that it is meant to determine or predict college success. They are two different levels that serve two different purposes.
I think you bring up some valid issues, but they are complicated ones that have different answers and can’t be rolled into one simple solution because it’s not one simple problem.
Hillbilly D
August 16th, 2012
5:33 pm
Graduation rates are indeed unreliable metrics because it’s very difficult to track students once they leave high school.
I’ve always wondered how they calculate that. According to one site I saw, high school completion in Georgia was 67.8% for the 2008-2009 year. To my understanding, this is people who graduate on time. Do they account for those who graduate later, move to another system, move out of state, etc? If so, how do they do that.
Beverly Fraud
August 16th, 2012
5:53 pm
I believe that primary “grades” need to become ungraded primaries, where students are placed at their skill level and not in their age cohort.
It never hurt Jethro Bodine none. He was studying brain surgery by 6th grade!
Seriously, this is the type of common sense proposal we need to be discussing; NOT yet another way to “fix the teacher”
After all, we don’t put Betty White in the same tennis class as Venus and Serena Williams and tell the tennis instructor to “differentiate” do we?
ScienceTeacher671
August 16th, 2012
6:09 pm
I think one of the things we’re missing here is that the study called for retention and intensive remediation.
Retention by itself is probably much less effective.
cris
August 16th, 2012
6:58 pm
@long time educator – you make a great point – the term I heard for it this summer was “A cage for every age”. There is no reason why children – ESPECIALLY children in primay school should be grouped by age – if a late-year Kindergartner can read on a mid-year 1st grade level, why hold him or her in Kindergarten? Likewise, if a 2nd grader is still unable to perform at a second-grade level, why continue to frustrate them by grouping with other 2nd graders? Much easier to have fluid learning groups at this early age where maturity differences – physical and emotional – are less glaring than when children are older. Of course, there are probably some parents who would scream bloody murder and sue, so most systems wouldn’t even try so the cycle continues….
Hillbilly D
August 16th, 2012
7:11 pm
cris
Way back in my day, we were grouped by age but there were exceptions. Some would be held back but some would occasionally be allowed to skip a grade, too.
And on that note, if you’re going to group by ability, a child who falls behind their age group in one thing, might be able to keep up in something else. Maybe they read well but they are slower at math, or vice versa. Seems like it might be a good idea to hold them back, where they need help and let them move on where they don’t.
long time educator
August 16th, 2012
7:40 pm
@cris, ” Of course, there are probably some parents who would scream bloody murder and sue”
Don’t use grade level designations at all. It’s hard for a parent to argue with clear evidence that the child has not mastered a skill. In Reading have 16 Reading Levels over 4 Primary “grades”, ages 4-8. A child could be in the Blue Reading class (Level 12) and the Orange Math Class (Level 10) and the report to the parent would indicate progress moving through the levels with the goal being Level 16 in both Reading and Math before the student progresses out of Primary. Students would stay in Primary until they accomplish Level 16, which parents would know varies from 4-6 years. Some kids might be able to catch up levels in summer school, afterschool or with tutors. Kids who really do not progress would get extra support and probably Special Ed. help..