Do we put students first when we promote them when they aren’t ready?
A retired APS teacher sent me this note in response to my entry a few ago on Michelle Rhee’s state report cards. I thought it was worth sharing as it addresses a problem that I hear about all the time — the promotion of kids who are not ready or prepared for the next grade:
I am a retired teacher from an APS middle school. I have tried to get someone to listen to what I consider a big problem in APS schools.
The article “Students first? really touched me. So many students in APS will never graduate from high school because they can’t read, write, or pass the CRT. It’s not their fault or their parents’ fault.
In the last 10 years of my teaching career, I saw so many students struggle because they were always put up to the next grade level even when they could not pass the grade they were in.
My last two years of teaching were in the sixth grade, and I had students who read on the third, fourth and fifth grade level but were “passed on.”
What does that mean? They did not pass their classes or the CRT but went on into the next grade. We are not putting these students first but putting the numbers that look great for passing first.
Of course, this keeps parents happy to see that their child went into the next grade. This makes the dropout rate in the ninth grade rise higher and higher because now students can be put out of school.
Two years ago, I emailed the state superintendent, the APS superintendent, the governor, the mayor and board members. I never heard from any of them. I told them that I wanted to talk to them about our students and reading.
I am white and my school was about 99.8 percent African American. I loved my students and still do even though I’m retired. I still hear from some of them, and they are doing great.
I won’t take up anymore of your time and I thank you for reading this e-mail.
I wish that someone would just listen to a teacher who echoes what many teachers want to say also. I know that in my heart we “must” change education in our country and it won’t be done by people who have not been in a school in 20 or 30 years.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
123 comments Add your comment
Home-tutoring parent
January 29th, 2013
2:41 am
Home-tutored boy married a convei mea ntionally (private)educated girl. She finagled him into buying a 21 ft sailboat. Her plan is to steal her parents’ 45 and circumnavigate the globe. Reality check, her parents are going to say, “You and Chris can handle things, go for it
Our second son married a black girl. First time croissants really meh. Second time, giving them more time to rise, top of the charts. I mean, the best I ever ate.
We did “home-schooling”. And our kids went to the Ivy League and got to meet and marry off-the-charts girls. That wasn’t our intention , but it was an “I’ll take this ” result.
fjeremey
January 29th, 2013
5:30 am
It seems we have come to consider a HS diploma a human right that one is entitled to whether qualified or not. The diploma is a credential. Would you want a doctor or a lawyer who didn’t quite pass their first year but got promoted because they needed to be with their peer group? Or a teacher?
If you can’t do the work on the level then you won’t be able to do the work on the next level. But intervention is time-consuming and expensive so school systems and taxpayers don’t like it. Teachers are begging to be able to take more time with the struggling kids, but we need more time to do so, and they need more time to master the material. Maybe someone does need to do each grade twice. We have to ask ourselves what the goal is.
Right now we have too many different goals that often act against eachother and we have lost sight of what we are working for. If the goal is that a HS diploma has value and is indicative of a level of achievement, then more people will take longer to achieve it. If it is to make sure that everyone has one by age 18 or 19, then it will lack value. Of course the diploma is the gateway to other things; college, med school, but if you can’t/won’t/don’t perform you shouldn’t get the credential.
In the so-called “real world” you get fired if you don’t do the job. Not so in public school. Perhaps a student who doesn’t do the job gets “fired” to a different pathway until they decide what they want out of their education. I will drive myself to exhaustion to help a student who wants to do better. But I can’t teach the unwilling. And without real consequences the unwilling will remain so.
But maybe high school, and college, isn’t for everybody. Why can’t we offer alternative pathways to those who would select it? Why can’t a student who only wants to be an auto mechanic, or a welder, and doesn’t see the value of another term of history, be allowed to apprentice? The student could graduate with a license to a well paying job, or even career. We keep saying we need skilled workers. Well, let’s teach those who are willing. For those who would like to go to college, I can help with that. But it is self-defeating to force students who would prefer to train and work in good jobs to go to college. It really isn’t for everyone. Let’s do better by those with different goals.
fjeremey
January 29th, 2013
5:32 am
“Perhaps a student who doesn’t do the job gets “fired” to a different pathway until they decide what they want out of their education”
Should read: Perhaps a student who doesn’t do the job should get “fired” to a different pathway…
Jarod Apperson
January 29th, 2013
6:15 am
I couldn’t agree with the former teacher more. We are passing all of the kids until 9th grade, then failing hundreds. It isn’t working, and it only seems reasonable that this would serve to discourage 9th graders.
lahopital
January 29th, 2013
6:22 am
When you hold a kid back you’re just punishing the poor children in the lower grades who will then have to deal daily with mentally weaker but more physically mature kids in their grades. If a school system wanted to use a Darwinian process to set up gangs by furnishing leadership, then holding back kids would be the perfect way to proceed.
crankee-yankee
January 29th, 2013
6:29 am
Social promotion is one of the biggest failings of the education system. I know the studies that point to retention leading to higher dropout rates but those studies are flawed. The lack of support, alternate methodology for those kids who were retained, was the reason for their eventual failure. The studies do not address that elephant.
When something isn’t working, just repeating it isn’t going to change the result. Retain the kids but place them in an alternate setting where they get instruction targeted to their needs. Yes, it will be more expensive than traditional instruction for those kids but having them drop out is even more expensive in the long run. It currently is a question of being penny-wise but pound-foolish.
hssped
January 29th, 2013
6:33 am
And high school is the dumping ground…..age limits of 19/20 for reg ed and up to 22 for special ed. Most high schools don’t teach reading. Why would they? Shouldn’t one be able to read before being “promoted” to high school? Oh, that’s right, not all are promoted. It is a mess.
mountain man
January 29th, 2013
6:38 am
“Do we put students first when we promote them when they aren’t ready?”
Hallelujah! Does someone else FINALLY see a problem here (not Maureen, of course). And WHO promotes the students? ADMINISTRATORS (helped by Georgia law requiring them to be promoted). Parents everywhere should be writing Deal and their State lawmakers to demand that this Georgia law be eliminated. Whoever thought up that law should be forced to attend 9th grade in APS for ten years.
mountain man
January 29th, 2013
6:41 am
“First time croissants really meh”
God help your kids, Home-tutoring parent.
Obsolete
January 29th, 2013
6:43 am
The article makes a good point when mentioning conflicting goals. Traditional public education is no longer the great eqaulizer. Traditional public education has run its course, its time for system based on parental choice.
HS Math Teacher
January 29th, 2013
6:45 am
Social promotion in lower grades has ALWAYS been the problem, and yes, probably the “stickiest wicket” to fix. Students need to demonstrate some sort of competency before advancing to upper-level subjects/grades, or have proof of some extraordinary life-changing circumstance that can explain away the poor performance in school. If a kid can’t pass 8th grade math, and fails the 8th grade math CRCT, then he/she should not be able to take a 9th grade math course. Sure, promote the kid to the 9th grade, but set aside a math class for repeaters (pay that Teacher extra). Allowing kids to roam up to high school without proper preparation is just setting them up for failure….WHEN THE ADULTS SHOULD KNOW BETTER!!!!
This social experiment of putting all kids into a college prep program of study needs to end. In spite of allowances made such as beefing up the curriculum down to grade six (doesn’t work – social promotion will see them to the 9th grade), support classes (filled by prankstas, gangstas, jokestas, and others who simply don’t want to do the work), and workshops (what a waste of taxpayer money and instructional time), this venture is futile. However, I’m sure our leaders are determined to see this to the end…with all the stubborness of LBJ, when he was chest-deep in the Vietnam morass.
Here come the Common Core Cheerleaders! Yipee, Horay!!!! All kids can learn!!!!!!
catlady
January 29th, 2013
6:53 am
I agree. We have way too many kids placed in the next grade. I think if the student doesn’t make the grades, they stay back. If they don’t make them the second year (and maybe before) they are excellent candidates for some kind of sped. At my school, that would be quite a few. Of course, our leaders say we have “too many” sped kids. Well, we have what the parents produced!
On social promotion: Ever notice how most folks are against it if it is someone else’s child? But raise holy h3ll if THEIR child should be held back?
teacher&mom
January 29th, 2013
6:57 am
The problem with retention is we hold them back, make them repeat the grade, but never address their learning deficits.
But…
If you address their learning deficits and teach them on their instructional level, you are still expected to have them ready to pass a standardized test in April that is not on their instructional level.
Old timer
January 29th, 2013
7:03 am
I think common core will not be an improvement. But, on topic, students are being placed grade to grade, never having passed the CRCT, and with good grades. How do we expect them to become adults, accountable for their actions, when they never have been exposed to that idea.
At the same time, I don’t know what would happen with 15 year olds in 6th grade.
HS Math Teacher
January 29th, 2013
7:09 am
Old Timer: Bring back a good, vocational diploma pathway for the Jethro Bodines.
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
7:22 am
This old timer says: bring back the “summer school” approach. If a child fails a class in regular session, they must attend “summer school”. If they fail at the end of summer school, then they are held back.
The second thing that needs to be addressed (as part of the social promotion problem) is attendance. It is hard to teach an empty seat. Now, whose responsibility is that? PARENTS!!!!!
Might
January 29th, 2013
7:23 am
This article really poses a false choice. If a school had proper support and intervention, almost all students would move from one level to another. There is no excuse from the perspective of the school and parents for a normal student not being able to read in high school.
TeacherMom
January 29th, 2013
7:24 am
IF we can get struggling kids in the primary grades – K-2 – and identify the area(s) of difficulty in reading, AND if we then retain those who are not reading on grade level, THEN there is hope. Before the 3rd grade, we are teaching kids to “learn to read”. From 3rd grade on, it’s “reading to learn.” We cannot, in good conscience, continue to pass kids to the 3rd grade who cannot read! Reading is a developmental process, and teachers in the primary grades are ready, willing, and able to help those struggling readers reach those developmental milestones. Teachers beyond 3rd grade don’t have the time, unfortunately, to remediate a roomful of non-readers while still addressing all of the state curriculum. I think that Common Core, which has very rigorous elements, makes the point that students must be able to read and write about what they are learning, and this starts in the primary grades. As a primary grade teacher, my discussion with parents centers on their ability to not only read well but also communicate in writing what they have learned. Discussions about retention take on a whole new urgency when parents actually see what is required. Is it painful to have those discussions? Sure it is. But I’ve also been a 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teacher and had those conversations. I would much rather stop someone by 2nd grade and get them caught up then try to stop the runaway train at 5th grade. By then, the poor kid is so far behind he/she has lost hope.
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
7:25 am
The focus on social promotion as a tool to reduce drop-outs and resulting grade inflation, has made the high school diploma a worthless rag. Why do you think businesses insist on at least a Bachelor’s degree for even the lowest management job? Because the Bachelor’s degreee in 2013 is the equivalent to the high school diploma of the sixties. The ONLY way you can be sure that a person can read, write and do basic arithmetic is to have a college diploma. A high school diploma does not guarantee these things.
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
7:28 am
“If a school had proper support and intervention”
Such as PARENTS that care enough to get their children to school every day, on time, and insist that they behave and do their work. Yes, with parents like that, EVERY child could succeed. Too bad…
Sk8ing Momma
January 29th, 2013
7:28 am
“It’s not their fault or their parents’ fault.”
WHAT?!??? Whose fault is it? Parents are responsible for seeing to it that their children are educated. Parents have choices by which to accomplish this task – public school, private school or homeschool. Although one attends public school, it is NOT the government’s primary responsibility to educate one’s child. It is simply an agent that a parent uses.
To the question at hand, it really doesn’t even bare asking. Of course, the interest of children is not first when one is passed to the next grade when he is not academically prepared. Rather, doing so is a disservice to ill prepared students. Sadly, they suffer individually and society suffers as a whole because it is left holding the bag.
Sk8ing Momma
January 29th, 2013
7:32 am
One more thought…With regard to the author’s opinion that it is not a parent’s fault that his child can’t read, write or pass the CRT, personal responsibility and engagement are required. IMO, all parents, regardless of income or educational attainment, can take an interest in their child’s education. If one doesn’t have the time or wherewithal to provide what a child needs, be resourceful/creative…ask for help.
Might
January 29th, 2013
7:33 am
@Mountain man. You have a lot of opinions but little facts. When I read this blog, I can’t help to think how there are so many with strong but uninformed decisions about educating students. Most of this state has classrooms with professional, very skilled, caring educators. Those of you out there who think you know, ask a teacher. Get educated about the issues.
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
7:35 am
“Of course, our leaders say we have “too many” sped kids.”
EVERYONE is SPED these days. LOTS of kids with ADD, ADHD, ODD, LSD, USA, LBJ, IRA – you name it. It is just a way to saddle the school with extra work so their “precious sunflower” can learn in an artificial environment that they won’t have in the real world. Then combine the SPED student in the 9th grade who has a mental age of six with serious physical problems and have the advanced algebra teacher deal with it while trying to teach her regular class. And of course pay a “special tutor” to give that student one-on one attention during the class. All for the illusion of “inclusion”.
cris
January 29th, 2013
7:39 am
I’m sorry, I can’t get past the first comment…will someone please “home tutor” that parent on how to proofread before submitting comments?
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
7:40 am
@Might – “You have a lot of opinions but little facts. When I read this blog, I can’t help to think how there are so many with strong but uninformed decisions about educating students. Most of this state has classrooms with professional, very skilled, caring educators.”
So you need to show me where my lack of “facts” is a problem. Have I complained once about TEACHERS. No, I have been complaining about Georgia Law and ADMINISTRATORS. You must be the expert, so p[lease enlighten me as to the error of my “opinions”. YOU give me the facts: how many high school graduates possess a high school diploma but have failed the GHSGT (repeatedly)? What percentage of high schoolers require more than two tries to pass this test? Is the test hard or is it so easy that most of us would pass it first time with no problem? Give me the FACTS!
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
7:43 am
ris – I agree with you. “Her plan is to steal her parents’ 45 and circumnavigate the globe.”
I am still trying to figure out if they will steal a 45 record or her parents’ .45-caliber pistol, or maybe some other type of 45 (maybe a 45-foot long boat?). Effective writing is evidenced by the comprehension of the readers.
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
7:47 am
“You have a lot of opinions but little facts.”
Opinions are like [noses], everyone has one and yours doesn’t smell one bit better than mine.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 29th, 2013
7:49 am
The problem is sorting students into birthday-based cohorts, which makes it “easier” for the adults in charge to manage them. This restriction keeps slower students from being accorded the time they need to meet standards. It also prevents advanced students from being able to move on when they are ready. What it DOES do is allow districts to gauge with reasonable accuracy the number of adults needed to manage the students.
If we move to a mastery-learning model, it becomes “messier” in terms of how to manage the herds of kids. This jeopardizes job security for the adults involved, because if we have lots of high schoolers graduating in fewer than four years, do we really need X number of teachers? Staffing has to become more fluid and flexible. The adults would have to cope with this uncertainty; one solution would be for teachers to become certified in multiple areas so that they would have the skills needed to teach WHAT IS NEEDED at the time rather than what they want to teach regardless of the student numbers.
Until public education moves into a mastery learning model that focuses on what is truly best for children, the public schools will continue to function as a jobs program for adults who manage birthday-based herds of students.
bootney farnsworth
January 29th, 2013
8:04 am
of course we promote them when not ready.
its not like this is breaking news.
ever tried to hold a kid back? some of the myriad of challenges and charges will be…..
-racism accusation
-gender bias accusation
-disability accusation
-orientation accusation
-emotional distress accusation
-don’t like me because I’m a football player/cheerleader/smarter than you/look like someone you hated in HS, fill in the blank
-you didn’t teach Jr correctly
-religious accusation
get the idea? and all these come with a side of threatened lawsuit.
then our lovely administrators get involved and force the issue
-don’t want to be sued
-likes the kid or the kids family is useful
-holding kids back messes with their record
-looking to fill quotas
-looking to impress their superiors/get promoted
-kid plays football
-scared of the kid or kids family
and my personal favorite – really just don’t give a damn if the kid learned, that’s not whats important here.
bootney farnsworth
January 29th, 2013
8:05 am
@ might
pot, meet kettle
bootney farnsworth
January 29th, 2013
8:08 am
@ obsolete
you have multiple choices already. how about we just mail a diploma to each house when the kid turns 18?
Current Teacher
January 29th, 2013
8:11 am
I currently teach High School US History and the only real difference between my “regular” classes and my “honors” classes is the ability to read and comprehend. My regular class is full of students who despite being in their 3rd year of High School have only 5 or 6 credits. They simply can’t read and understand the questions. We can only move so slow, and can only “dumb down” the curriculum so much.
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
8:11 am
For all you supporters of Social Promotion – What is your ultimate goal – to get the kid out of high school with a worthless sheet of paper but no education? Or to actually have them learn basic skills that will mean something?
OF COURSE, with unlimited resources and funds we can give every child who is behind their own private tutor (assuming they actually come to school, that is). We could even provide them with dedicated gold-plated limosine ride to school. We could endure their temper tantrums because they have never been asked to behave. We can endure their profanity and their apathy and keep trying to “make that horse drink”. Or we could do the most effective thing, REMOVE THEM FROM THEIR “PARENT” AND PUT THEM IN A BOARDING HOME. But all that costs money we don’t have.
If they don’t want to lear, let them fail, and then let them dig ditches or put them in prison when they turn to crime.
Catlady
January 29th, 2013
8:15 am
Folks, here in Georgia there is no money for summer school. Hasn’t been for quite some time.
What's Best for Kids?
January 29th, 2013
8:16 am
We fail the students when we promote them or give them a grade. What happens is that eventually they are so far behind that we they are unable to catch up. Then they drop out. I’ve seen it over and over and over again.
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
8:16 am
“how about we just mail a diploma to each house when the kid turns 18?”
Bootney – might as well. That is about how much it is worth anyway.
bootney farnsworth
January 29th, 2013
8:18 am
@ catlady
summer school in the metro area is thriving. and in the doughnut counties its primarly a venue for kids who want to get ahead, not get caught up.
bootney farnsworth
January 29th, 2013
8:21 am
@ mountain
what’s really frustrating is the crappy state of education here hamstrings the really hard working achievers. about 1/4 of the public school kids work hard and want to excel. but they end up with the
stigma of a Georgia HS diploma.
bootney farnsworth
January 29th, 2013
8:26 am
back in the dark ages when I went to DCSS – and it was considered the gold standard (yes, I’m that old) – I had a civics teacher in HS who firmly held in post King America the single most important goal of public ed was to teach the races to get along by means of lowering white standards til everybody was on the same level
ergo: social promotion
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
8:27 am
“Folks, here in Georgia there is no money for summer school. Hasn’t been for quite some time.”
Yet, we spend FOUR TIMES the amount per student that we spent in the sixties (ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION) and send students to classes in TRAILERS! What changed? Lots more ADMINISTRATORS and PAPERWORK. Lots more SPED.
indigo
January 29th, 2013
8:28 am
When I was in school, many years ago, there were no social promotions. You simply stayed in the grade untill you could do the work.
So, comparing schools then to schools now, it’s obvious social promotions are just another failed social experiment.
10:10 am
January 29th, 2013
8:35 am
This is yet another problem that would be solved if parents were allowed to send their kids to schools that better fit each child’s needs.
The way rich folks like the Obamas do.
Mother of 2
January 29th, 2013
8:48 am
The public high schools in Fulton County have summer programs for students who failed a class. There is a fee (about $250 per class) that parents are required to pay. Classes offered are CORE classes, including foreign language, and GA required classes, like PE. Students can also move ahead by taking classes online during the school year and over the summer. While Fulton County Public Schools aren’t perfect, they are certainly trying to provide an education to all students. Students who excell can get a jump on college through dual enrollment; some students start their first year of college with as many credits as 2nd year college students. Students who failed classes can retake the class during the summer and still graduate on time.
skipper
January 29th, 2013
8:51 am
So many people….so many opinions. Here is fact: THERE MAY NOT BE A PROPER WAY YET TO ADDRESS DEFICIENCIES, BUT PROMOTION TO THE NEXT GRADE IS IDIOCY GONE TO SEED! We have dumbed down enough. We now see what the so-called “experts” have done in the education arena. It has gone from a learning experience to a politically-correct social experiment. What a crock.
Old timer
January 29th, 2013
9:04 am
Cat lady….you are correct….county I worked in stopped summer school years ago. It actually was only helpful when parents paid a fee. The free concept never worked. Now kids are pulled out of some classes….those that do not count for AYP.
@Mountain Man….a vocational track would be excellent. Business English and math would be a requirement and consumer economics a big bonus.
Mary Elizabeth
January 29th, 2013
9:20 am
The retired teacher’s impacting letter to Maureen Downey, above, underscores the fact that students will not learn unless they are taught on their instructional, not frustration, levels – whatever their grade assignment.
One thought about relying too much on retention to address correct instructional level: Students are more than their instructional levels; they are developing young people – physically, emotionally, socially, as well as academically. Some children begin puberty as early as 11 – the age of the typical 6th grade student. If a student has been retained twice before age 11, he or she will be sitting in a 4th grade class at age 11 and, as a result, he/she may grow, that year, to tower above his/her classmates or he/she may develop other signs of puberty in the 4th grade. A better systematic plan would be the “case for continuous progress” of addressing each student’s correction instructional level throughout his/her school tenure until he or she masters the curriculum requirements for a high school diploma – even if that were to take certain students 13 or 14 years instead of the typical 12 years. See the link below for greater detail about this. One thing is for certain: Students will not learn unless they are taught on their correct instructional levels.
https://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/the-case-for-continuous-progress-for-students-in-grades-k-12/
oneofeach4me
January 29th, 2013
9:33 am
I keep seeing people talking about “dumbing down”. Really?? I graduated high school about 17 years ago, and what I learned in Math my freshman year of high school, my now 11 year old daughter learned it when she was in 4th grade. We are talking a 5 year difference here in maturity level and also experience in a school setting as well as learned study habits.
So did anyone every consider that maybe, just maybe, we have more SPED or “social promotion” due to the fact that current school curriculum is trying to push EVERY child towards graduate school??
living in an outdated ed system
January 29th, 2013
9:39 am
I feel for this former APS teacher. There is a fundamental problem with repeated social promotion in school. We need to move towards competency based schooling.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I tutored an 11th grader who was reading at a 3RD GRADE LEVEL. His math level was 5TH GRADE at best. There are countless students who are moving through the system in this way. That is why even trying to boost the graduation rate isn’t enough. Are they graduating with the requisite skills? Some are, but many are not.
That is why the system, in many respects, does not work and is outdated. In the factory-driven world, maybe a mass-standardization, churn-them-out model works. But not today. We need to fix the system so that these kids do not get pushed forward when they’re not ready to do so. Part of this is effective teaching, but it is again a symptom of the systemic problems which go far beyond this one point. But I bet if the great teachers could be multiplied exponentially, then perhaps we’d see less of this problem.
I find it hard to believe that anyone would disagree on the POV of this former APS teacher.
Thanks
January 29th, 2013
9:46 am
No. Not doing anyone but administrators and school system #’s any favors by social promotion. The kids learn very quickly to quit and the parents don’t complain because they can save face when their kid does not fail a grade.
AngryRedMarsWoman
January 29th, 2013
9:59 am
“This is yet another problem that would be solved if parents were allowed to send their kids to schools that better fit each child’s needs.”
Is there really a law on the books that prohibits parents from sending their children to the school of their choice? Are parents not allowed to move to a home near a public school they prefer? Are parents not allowed to enroll their children in any one of the incredibly high number of private schools in metro Atlanta (assuming the child scores well enough on the entrance exams, etc)? Better lock me up then because I did both things – moved to an area with good public elementary and middle schools and currently sending my child to an excellent private college-prep high school. Of course that has meant sacrifices on my part, but I never knew it was against the law too. snark
Reading Teacher
January 29th, 2013
10:14 am
I could really get started on this topic, but i’ll try to keep it short. I teach Reading Intervention in a school of high poverty and limited english. I have tried to fight tooth and nail to get these kids who don’t know their alphabets in K/first retained with very little positive results. I get stuck in a catch22…if they are too low, we push them on and test them for special ed…if they are showing ’some’ progress we push them on since they show potential. REALLY?!?! I’m sorry, but social promotion is a horrible trend, even if statistics do show retention doesn’t work. Someone mentioned in a previous comment that retention doesn’t work because we don’t remediate properly when they are retained, and that person was so accurate. If the instruction didn’t work for them for the first year, what makes ANYONE think it is going to work the second year. What we need to do is have strategic, intensive interventions in place, in a smaller class size, for those students we retain. We can’t fix parent involvement, but we can fix what we do in the schools to meet the needs of these struggling learners. It’s about time someone in this state does something.
Another Retired Teacher
January 29th, 2013
10:18 am
It is terribly frustrating to have a student in class who cannot read or do math on grade level:
–It is frustrating to the teacher who is being told to “catch them up” while simultaneously teaching everyone else (also on different levels)
–it is frustrating to parents who see it as the schools responsibility to educate. They think of their school experience (where students were grouped according to ability) and don’t understand that we aren’t allowed to do that any more
–it is frustrating to other students because they are often being made to “help” or “tutor” that student
–it is frustrating to that student because they are being made to not only catch up, but try to do what everyone else is doing.
The easy and inexpensive fix to all of this is to group students by ability. It works. Parents know it works. Teachers know it works. But until some lily livered administrator type actually grows a pair, it will never happen. Not all students can or should go to college. The world also needs ditch diggers, chefs, and plumbers.
Don't Tread
January 29th, 2013
10:29 am
“We are not putting these students first but putting the numbers that look great for passing first.”
She hit the nail on the head. It’s all about making themselves look good, and has been since the 90s. Now we have “adults” with “college degrees” in the workforce that can’t spell, use the correct word in a sentence, or calculate a percentage of something. This is the end result of “social promotion”.
Maude
January 29th, 2013
10:31 am
Placing a child in a grade when they are not prepared is so crazy!! However, this happens to thousand of children yearly. The way I see it is like if someone plalced me in a new job in August. Suppose they told me I had to be a nurse, doctor, lawyer, airplane pilot?? I would be completely lost and have on confidence in my ability. Children placed in grades when they are not prepared feel this way.
Patrick Edmondson
January 29th, 2013
10:34 am
30 yr. teaching vet here. From 1st to 12th the whole education system is now built on a factory business model which assumes all “product” (i.e. students) arrive standardized and move at a standard rate. Any slow down costs the system funds and efficiency. Teachers are not heeded when they feel a student is unprepared and threatened that saying so is an admission of teacher failure and noted as a deficiency on observations. About 10th it starts to back up with kids in “remedial” classes. I once had 45 students in a class. The administration listed it as two courses, both under 25. Warehousing was what happened and it breeds frustration and drop-outs, the relief valve of the overcrowded system.
Why do people think MBA training applies to human beings who are anything but standardized packages.
Looking for the truth
January 29th, 2013
10:43 am
Seems to me like it’s not the teacher, but the parents fault. Some parents do not accept that their child didn’t do the work necessary to be promoted to the next grade and browbeat teachers and administrators into promoting them before they are ready. It’s not always about sports, etc. When teachers try to conference with parents whose kids won’t be ready, the parents don’t show or argue with the teacher about things not related to learning.
Right or wrong – social promotion exists because parents want it!
Lee
January 29th, 2013
10:49 am
“Do we put students first when we promote them when they aren’t ready?”
In a word, no.
I would futher expand on that and say we do not put students first when we wait until the end of the school year to make a determination whether or not that student is ready for the next level of work. Ideally, at the end of the first grading period, the student should be evaluated and if they are failing, they should be looped back to the beginning of the semester. Keep doing that every grading period and at some point, the achievement level and curriculum level will sync up.
Sorta like college – you don’t get to sign up for Calc II if you haven’t passed Calc I.
proud Teacher
January 29th, 2013
10:58 am
Teachers are pushed to keep the numbers right for the high school report card. An administrator can change a grade, demand extra work, assign a computer class which can earn the student credit in a few hours—-all without really learning the material of the class. This is after the years of social promotion in elementary school and the years of passing no classes at all in middle school. Somewhere the high school diploma has become known as an American right, no effort involved. No, they canno read or comput simple math and they’ve been told they don’t really need to learn because someone like a curriculum director and school board will make it all batter for them. We’re all equal here, aren’t we?
Jameson
January 29th, 2013
11:00 am
If a child fails due to a lack of involvement by their parents, the government should withhold a substantial proportion of any tax refund they’re due. If the parents are being subsidized by government (welfare,) they should withhold that too. That will motivate them to get involved.
Truth in Moderation
January 29th, 2013
11:01 am
Human beings are not produced in a factory (yet), nor should they be educated in one. The public school system is based on a 19th century factory design. The kids enter in K and move along the production line at a uniform pace until they exit at 12th grade. Those who don’t “make the grade” are discarded along the way. The factories set a middle of the road standard, so children in that small category might exit at 12th grade with a fitting education. For the rest? Not so much.
It is up to the parents to give their child a fitting “dynamic” education- one that changes and grows with them and is fitted to their natural talents. This can be accomplished through home schooling, private AND public school–ALL TOGETHER. There might be a time where the local public school suits your child. When it no longer does, it’s time to move on to home schooling and hiring private tutors and/or using online courses. PARENTS MUST SHED THE 19TH CENTURY FACTORY EDUCATION MINDSET. With technology and a huge array of options now available through the home schooling movement, THERE IS NO EXCUSE!
Ronald Reagan
January 29th, 2013
11:04 am
It’s a Liberal training program! Keep them dumb & train them how to vote!
Just Sayin
January 29th, 2013
11:06 am
Although I don’t totally agree with the writer, I do believe that part of the problem is the administration. EVERYONE is afraid of being sued.Instead of backing the teachers when they try to retain a kid, they let fear of what the parent will do guide them. I taught in Texas and let me tell you. The parents reguarly threatended to sue if their child was retained. They would scream and shout and go as high as the state board of education to get their child promoted. Social promotion is a parental construct. They are more worried about how it will make their child feel to get retained. I have had kids tell me that their parents won’t let them get retained. Heck I have had parents say that they won’t ever let their kid be retained. These are usually the same parents that don’t respond the whole school year when the teacher is sending home notes and calling to say there is a problem. Yet they blame the teachers and schools when their kid doesn’t know anything.
Jake
January 29th, 2013
11:11 am
It’s a lose lose situation. Retention does nothing, social promotion does nothing. Everyone is missing the key component: PARENTING. Educated people have 1-2 kids at most. Welfare uneducated people have 4 or more. No one is trying to educate the uneducated parents to do better by their kids. No one is talking about what this means for society with the balance. 1-2 highly educated people will have to make more money to pay more taxes to support the large numbers of people on welfare.
Just Sayin
January 29th, 2013
11:13 am
Oh and for the the record, schools and teachers have to have parental consent for any type of extra tutoring and many times the parent will say no because the kid either had to come to school early or stay late. Sometimes they may have to miss and elective class. Everyone wants individualized lessons for their child. Do you people know how hard it is to see over 100 kids in a day and try to make a lesson to suit each one of them. Even in elemenatry school wiith 20-24 kids in a class it’s hard to idividualize beacause you end up not teaching everythng. It is time consuming. This is where mainstreaming has messed up the classroom. The gap between the children is so large that many of the regular ed kids miss out on proper instruction because the teacher has to spend so much time on the special ed kids…even with a co -teacher.
Sam
January 29th, 2013
11:23 am
I wish more advanced students would take advantage of the “Move On When Ready” option in high school and allow some more resources to be given to the remedial students.
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
11:26 am
“Now we have “adults” with “college degrees” in the workforce that can’t spell, use the correct word in a sentence, or calculate a percentage of something.”
And unfortunately, some of those are teachers. Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking all teachers, the vast majority of whom are great, caring, and talented professionals whose worth is decreased every day by ADMINISTRATORS. But there are some teachers out there who cannot read and speak proper English and do basic math and they do NOT need to be teaching. A mastery of the subject taught is a necessary requirement for teaching a subject.
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
11:29 am
So the question is: WHY do students not learn what they are supposed to during the year? I challenge Maureen to come up with data listing the days absent (and late) with classes failed. I believe you will see a strong correlation. Address absenteeism! Teachers cannot teach a student that is not present in class! Fine the parents! Send them to jail! Get their dang attention!
HS Public Teacher
January 29th, 2013
11:32 am
This, as most problems, are just a symptom of a bigger problem. This bigger problem is widespread, not just in APS. Is is a huge problem in DeKalb County, Fulton County (even North Fulton), Cobb County, and in every single other school system.
The bigger problem is the administration. By administration, I specifically refer to the Principals, the Area Superintendents, the Department Chairs, and other positions (not a classroom teacher). Their problem is that there is no oversight. None. Not a tad. Not a bit. They are free to make “bad” and/or “wrong” and/or “unethical” decisions without any consequences. Please allow me to give an example:
The Principal hires a “friend” to become a Department Chair. This “friend” is worthless. They cannot teach (20 year track record of issues and problems in the classroom). They cannot manage (no one really respects them). They cannot lead (they are late with everything and tries to get others to do their work). However, they are a “friend” of the Principal and will stand up for that Principal no matter what.
Who suffers for this “bad” decision? Well, first the teachers do. Now, these teachers have this Department Chair that leads them to total chaos. Most importantly, the students suffer. The entire department becomes chaos – good teachers leave (transfer and/or quit), no over sight of lessons, etc.
What can the parents do? Basically nothing. All the parents see is that one teacher (their child’s) in the department and then blame everything on her. So the parents do not even realize the core issue.
What can the teachers do? Basically nothing. There is no real teacher union. If they complain to the Principal, she gets made at them for saying bad things about her friend.
THIS is what is wrong with Georgia’s education. It is not lack of money. It is lack of a ‘checks and balance’ system that keeps educrates from doing crap like this!!!
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
11:41 am
“I challenge Maureen to come up with data listing the days absent (and late) with classes failed.”
Actually, I would like to hear from the teachers on here. I am sure most of them can tell us exactly what the main problem is with students not learning the required material. So let’s hear it, teachers!
Mountain Man
January 29th, 2013
11:44 am
“The Principal hires a “friend” to become a Department Chair. This “friend” is worthless.”
Sounds like the Dekalb County “Friends and Family” program. Wonder why they are in the shape they are in?
RCB
January 29th, 2013
11:49 am
The culture of children having children has done more to wreck our educational system than anything else, and it is rampant in some segments of society. If I were a local pastor in these neighborhoods, I would be screaming from the pulpit the value of family and education. Instead of trying to “save” one person, why not try to save a whole generation (or 3). Step up!!!!!
Educator1
January 29th, 2013
11:57 am
Great comments, unfortunately nothing will change. The educrates will come up with every excuse under the sun as to why they cant fund transitional classes, but that is exactly what is needed.
Mary Elizabeth
January 29th, 2013
12:02 pm
We must continously bear in mind that students will learn content at differenting rates. That does not change, just as IQ does not change considerably over time.
Thus, if we “catch up” a student by retaining him/her in 4th grade, he/she still willl not master new content at the same rate as the “norm” rate for most students in 5th grade, or 6th grade, or 7th grade, etc. A better solution would be continuously to address each student’s varied rate of learning as he/she advances in the curriculum for k -12+ grade levels.
Moreover, if we retain a student in 4th grade, he/she may have already mastered 40% of the content in 4th grade, but not 60% of the content. Why should this student be forced to sit through a whole year of 100% of the 4th grade content – again – when he/she had already mastered 40% of the content for 4th grader? A better solution would be continuously to address the precise instructional levels of each student as he/she advances through the curriculum content for k -12+ grade levels.
Mary Elizabeth
January 29th, 2013
12:04 pm
CORRECTION: Not “differenting rates,” but “differing rates.”
teacher/coach
January 29th, 2013
12:06 pm
Of course you aren’t putting the student first when this happens. Try being in high school and teaching kids who can’t read. Who haven’t passed a CRCT since early elementary school. It’s not possible. Administration wants to get in an uproar over graduation rates and AYP and the state wants to complain about it too. Uh, you try teaching a kid that reads and writes on a 3rd grade level in a 10th grade Lit class.
Heck, in my county the middle school teachers are told to “pass them”.
Mary Elizabeth
January 29th, 2013
12:09 pm
CORRECTION: Not “for 4th grader,” but “for 4th grade.”
My apologies. I have an appointment, and I was typing too rapidly in order to make my appointment. I wanted to get my thoughts on the blog before leaving, however.
teacher/coach
January 29th, 2013
12:13 pm
Mary Elizabeth- that is not possible. I cannot teach to the varyin levels of 38 kids in my class. That is simply not possible. If a kid has mastered 40% of the 4th grade curriculum he hasn’t mastered much. And yes, I absolutely think he should repeat the grade. The concepts he did not master should seem somewhat familiar to him/her a second time around.
This is exactly the problem. The 40% he mastered might be in math and science but the kid can’t read and write. Grade levels build on eachother and the concepts taught previously.
So yes, if the kid mastered only 40% of the concept then little Johnny should be in the 4th grade until he masters the minimum to be allowed to move on (70%).
And we wonder why there are problems in the education system in this state.
teacher/coach
January 29th, 2013
12:17 pm
Putting every kid on a college bound diploma doesn’t help either. Bring back sped and tech diplomas.
Ivan Cohen
January 29th, 2013
12:20 pm
@ Mountain Man
“But there are some teachers out there who cannot read and speak proper English and do basic math and they do not need to be teaching.” How could this happen? Did the colleges and universities where these type of teachers “graduated” from engage in “social promotions?” In essence the institutions where they matriculated said in essence that these teachers met all the requirements and were readily available to enter their field of study in all 159 counties of our public school system. If they don’t need to be teaching due to grammar and math issues, what would you have them do? Be a greeter at Wal-Mart? Even these positions have been phased out. But then there’s always Sam’s Club. Since the cash registers are automated they won’t need any basic math to work at: Chick-Fil-A, Burger King, KFC, McDonalds, Popeye’s or Checkers.
@Jake
In a perfect world it would be good if the educated parents could enlighten their uneducated comrades without coming across as patronizing and condescending. What it’s going to take is for former uneducated parents who have come to see the light to reach out to them. The former uneducated parents being he or she has as they say “been there, done that”. So they know how essential education has become.
Truth in Moderation
January 29th, 2013
12:21 pm
“If I were a local pastor in these neighborhoods, I would be screaming from the pulpit the value of family and education.”
The solution is for the churches to start Christian schools, or support home schooling parents. We already know what happens to children sitting in a godless environment six hours a day. The Book of Genesis is the foundation of Western Civilization. The public schools have thrown out this foundation and are amazed at the strange fruit they have produced.
teacher/coach
January 29th, 2013
12:22 pm
If you’ve taught long enough you understand that the apple does not fall far from the tree.
Home-tutoring parent
January 29th, 2013
12:38 pm
sat/Lots of upset/angry people here. We ditched incompetent schools and teachers.
You have boys? Make sure that their teachers have a 700 SAT/ 30 ACT Math score.
“I got a 590 SAT-M I can teach 5th graders mathematics.”
Observer
January 29th, 2013
1:03 pm
@ Home-tutoring parent. Still as incoherent and irrational as at 2:41 am, I see.
fer
January 29th, 2013
1:13 pm
I spent 30 years teaching elementary and middle school and never really found an answer to this question. (And I also found few politicians and administrators who were willing to listen to teachers’ views on the subject.) It certainly increases ninth-grade drop-outs to just push students along until they are old enough to drop out. But I know two adults who were ‘held back’ in elementary school, and they both say it did them no good at all. (Just for the record, they are both college graduates, and one holds an advanced degree.) This is a question that begs discussion over and over until someone finds a workable solution that is not just a band-aid.
Looking for the truth
January 29th, 2013
2:25 pm
I believe having standard promotion criteria may help. For example, I know of students who leave a district with tough promotion criteria for one where it is easier to get promoted, even without learning. You might be surprised at the number of parents who come to Gwinnett County because our schools are supposedly good but are shocked that the teachers cannot pass the students unless they perform well on the CRCT or have the grades to show they’re ready to move on.
If the state established the promotion criteria so that it was consistent from district to district, it might give the administrators and teachers the support to deny a parent’s request to promote when their kids aren’t ready. Let them go to a private school or charter school where performance standards are, sometimes, even tougher!
I Teach Writing
January 29th, 2013
2:30 pm
I’m half convinced that “Home-tutoring parent” is either a performance artist or some sort of experimental poet.
The alternative is too dreadful to contemplate.
Teachers Are Never Asked
January 29th, 2013
2:31 pm
Several points to make: 1) The Bell curve is and always will be valid, not everyone is going to make an A. 2) At one time in this country you did not leave the 1st grade unless you could read, I graduated with many 19 year olds and their self esteem was not destroyed by repeating the 1st grade. 3) Teachers, you know the ones who actually interact with the students, are never part of any discussion as to how to fix problems with education. (If they are they find the rah rah’s who don’t have any problems) 4) Tracking works.
Out the Door
January 29th, 2013
2:32 pm
It is difficult to provide a mandated summer school program when the state has cut/reduced summer school funding through continuous austerity cuts. Due to federal supplanting restrictions, a mandated program cannot be funded with federal (Title I) funds.
Matt321
January 29th, 2013
2:49 pm
Glad to see others taking up the fight against our mass-produced, factory model of education. Age based cohorts make no sense. As a state, we have tens of thousands of teachers available. With modern information technology, a high school (and probably even a middle school) student from Albany can effectively be taught a subject by a teacher in Atlanta. Thus, we have the resources and the capability to move toward a mastery-based model (a model, I should add, that should have a flexible, student-driven curriculum, and not a federally mandated cookie cutter curriculum).
I am a bit disappointed, however, that after calling out in the comments social promotion as a phantom problem just yesterday, today social promotion is highlighted as a terrible problem on the blog itself. Where is the research suggesting this is an overarching problem? More importantly, where is the research which shows why it is better to keep a child with his peers than to force him to repeat the same material and methods for another year, with a new group of kids and teachers who may consciously or unconsciously regard the held-back student as a failure?
I would also point out that, strictly speaking, this blog isn’t even about social promotion, per se, as it isn’t advocating a switch to fluid, merit based promotion. Instead, it’s much more limited, in that it is about punitive retention of students for perceived lack of merit, but retaining social promotion for everyone else.
bootney farnsworth
January 29th, 2013
3:13 pm
@ Home-tutoring parent
?????????
stooge
January 29th, 2013
3:24 pm
Home-tutoring parent -That might be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever read here. Congrats
Teacher, Too
January 29th, 2013
3:38 pm
Reading and basic math need to be addressed in early elementary school. Children need to be able to read and comprehend what they are reading. One of the biggest problems in middle school is that students are proficient at calling words. Many kids can read words beautifully, but they don’t have the first clue what any of it means.
Basic math– students need to be able to add and subtract fluently before they can learn how to multiply and divide. And some math facts just need to be memorized (multiplication table for one…)
If students haven’t mastered basic reading comprehension and math skills, they are not going to be successful in upper elementary school, and forget about middle and high school. Early intervention is key! Maybe elementary school should be run more on a Montesorri method in first and second grades– blended classes and students move at their own rate. When they have mastered the first and second grade material, move them to third grade blended class.
Regarding speaking and writing grammatically correctly…it is embarrassing when teachers do not speak, read, and/or write grammatically correct grammar. However, you hear and see glaring errors across all walks of life– even on the news, the anchors botch the grammar. Subject/verb agreement is often incorrect. Compound prepositional phrases with a pronoun: Between you and I??? NOOOO! Between you and me!
So many common errors that have been accepted as correct. Grammar must be taught, or the entire society’s writing and speaking skills will continue to deteriorate.
I’m definitely not perfect, and I make mistakes, but I definitely try to model correct writing and speaking skills to my students.
I apologize for the long post. I had quite a bit to say today.
Jerry Eads
January 29th, 2013
6:20 pm
Lots of research on this, not much help. We KNOW, repeat KNOW, that when we retain a kid in a grade – any grade – the chances of his or her graduating plummets. Retained twice, the chances of their graduating approach zero. That’s in, it will not happen. Why is that? Because the second year we almost always do the same thing to them that they didn’t get the first time. What’s that old adage? Doing the same thing again and expecting different results? That’s the definition of insanity.
We do sometimes pass kids through (with and without retention) without helping them. One of my starkest memories from my three years evaluating the state’s alternative schools program was the teacher who with naturally great frustration was telling me of a great kid just sent to her at a rural alternative school. “He’s sixteen years old and can’t read a word. DON’T YOU THINK SOMEBODY WOULD HAVE NOTICED?” Chances are they did, but rarely do we have adequate specialized staffing to find out why and “fix” the problem.
Many of those who read and post here find it very easy to either blame the kid and/or the teacher for not trying hard enouugh – they’re just lazy, you’d say; it’s their fault. Few of you would blame a Cessna 150 pilot for doing a lousy job flying an F-16.
Perhaps not the best analogy, but specialized reading problems require specially trained teachers, and there are a LOT more specialized reading problems in poor schools, both rural and urban. Add to that stealing $5.4 billion from the schools, and forcing them to operate as few as 143 days. Could we/should we do better? No doubt. Would it help to have the resources the state promised via forked tongue? Might.
Really amazed
January 29th, 2013
6:42 pm
As far as the lovely CRCT goes. My niece told my daughter the other day….when she was in 5th grade the teachers handed out green M&M’s if they had the correct answer and red ones if they had the wrong answer until it was correct. I hope my sister in law wasn’t aware of this. Of course, even if she was I am sure she would have just brushed it under the rug like just about every other parent in GA public school!
ScienceTeacher671
January 29th, 2013
7:36 pm
OF COURSE it’s not putting students first. It’s putting the needs of the administrators and school boards first. Shouldn’t we all know that by now?
They tell us that we should teach students to mastery, no matter how long it takes, but some students aren’t given the time they need, and other students have to suffer through the same skills for far too long when they could be moving on.
ScienceTeacher671
January 29th, 2013
7:46 pm
@Jerry Eads: Chances are they did, but rarely do we have adequate specialized staffing to find out why and “fix” the problem.
Doesn’t it seem odd that when kids are struggling with learning, we will do EVERYTHING for YEARS except test them for dyslexia and other learning disabilities?
Shouldn’t it be just as important to check for neurological problems as for vision and hearing problems?
Jerry Eads
January 29th, 2013
9:49 pm
ST671: Yep.
Mary Elizabeth
January 30th, 2013
5:47 am
@ teacher/coach, 12:13 pm
“Mary Elizabeth- that is not possible. I cannot teach to the varyin levels of 38 kids in my class. That is simply not possible. If a kid has mastered 40% of the 4th grade curriculum he hasn’t mastered much. And yes, I absolutely think he should repeat the grade.”
==================================================
Teacher/coach, what I am proposing is a paradigm shift in thinking about grade levels, which were created to place students in twelve lock-step curriculum requirement sets, with all the students advancing at the same rate. I am proposing, instead, a redesign of our public educational system to more realistically accommodate the naturally occurring variances in students in terms of their varied instructional levels within grades and their varied rates of learning new content/concepts.
From 1975 until 1984, I was fortunate to be the Instructional Lead Teacher in a model school that practiced a form of this innovation design. The school had multiaged groupings of students according to their correct instructional levels in reading and mathematics, instead of simply by their grade level demarcations. See the excerpt below, which was taken from a previously written post that I had written on this blog, and has now been made into an entry on “Mary Elizabeth Sings” (Link, below)
————————————————————————————-
“From the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, I was an Instructional Lead Teacher for a principal (former Superintendent of Instruction) who had formed a continuous progress model school, without walls. It was based on mastery learning. Students advanced as rapidly as possible through 21 to 24 levels in reading and mathematics for grades 1 – 7, at their own rates to achieve mastery. We had to administer pre and post tests on each level in order to know if each child was properly placed. Monitoring all the children in the school in reading and math levels was a vital part of my job. Some children might advance only 2 levels in a year, and have spurt of growth the next year. Another student might advance 4 or 5 levels in a year. Children were neither bored or frustrated because our goal was to keep them all moving at their optimum levels of advancement according to their individual abilities to advance. All students were correctly placed at all times. Grade demarcations were not rigidly adherred to. On a given level – say level 8 – a 2nd and 3rd grade student might be in the same reading group on that Level 8, in reading.”
Excerpt, above, from the following link: http://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2013/01/19/educational-essay-9-my-thoughts-for-improving-public-education/
————————————————————————————
Teacher/coach, I was not trying to suggest that you might form 38 different levels of instruction for the 38 students in your class, but instead that you might want to subgroup the 38 students into perhaps three or four different groups on certain days of the week so that your instructional plans might better accommodate where your students are actually functioning in your class. You had previously suggested that you had a student in your 10th grade literature class who reads on 3rd grade level. If you chart the reading scores of all of your 10th grade students in your 10th grade literature class, you might find that the range of reading levels is from grade level 3 to grade level 14. On certain days of the week, you might subgroup those students who read in the range of 3rd – 5th grade-level together; those students who read from 6th – 8th grade-level together; those who read from 9th – 11th grade-level together (probably the largest group); and those who read from grades 12 – 14 in reading together.
Moreover, If you were able to team with another teacher of 10th grade literature, you could combine groups of the same instructional demarcations, and therefore each of you would only have two grade-level reading levels of students to be responsible for, instead of four each. For example, you might work with the students from both classes in the reading grade-level range from 3rd – 5th grade (severely below grade level), as well as the group in the reading range from 6th – 8th grade level (below grade level), and your peer teacher might work with those students functioning on reading grade levels 9th – 11th (on grade level essentially) and 12th – 14th (above grade level).
If it is not possible to team teach with a peer teacher, perhaps you could work with an Assistant Principal to establish a Parent or Senior Volunteer Program in your school, members of which would receive training in minimal instructional/discipline techniques. These volunteers could function as aides to accommodate you with this subgrouping design on certain days of the week. Subgroupings with this precision takes more planning, but this additional planning and implementation is preferable to trying to fit especially those students who read from grade levels 3 – 6 into your large group of 38 students for instruction daily. In that case, those severely behind students will certainly not master the material you are teaching to your whole class, unless they can have more individualized help. By subgrouping, you would also better accommodate those students who are far above grade level and may need enrichment activities so that they do not stagnate in their instructional development, or become bored.
HS Math Teacher
January 30th, 2013
6:50 am
Science Teacher: That is a very good point you made about checking for learning impairment. I remember years ago watching a boy squinting his eyes almost shut reading what I wrote on the board, and he sat front & center. I don’t want to get into the details of why his folks hadn’t had this seen about, but I saw to it that he got some glasses. The boy performed much better in my class afterward. How many other kids are out there who have conditions like you mentioned?
teacher&mom
January 30th, 2013
9:42 am
@ST671: It is a shame we don’t utilize more “screening” type exams to look for processing skill delays.
I had may own child privately tested and he is LD has difficulty with processing skills. His IQ is well above average, he just takes a little longer to process info. Once we realized what the problem was, we were able to address the issue. His remaining years in school were much better (not perfect…but better).
I wish we had pursued the testing earlier in elementary school. Instead, we took away privileges, lost recess, and spent many a night in tears over homework. Countless teacher conferences and emails that basically labeled him as “unmotivated”. Heck…even I thought his problem was simple motivation…or lack thereof.
It was humbling to realize this bright kid actually had a legitimate issue in processing information.
Prof
January 30th, 2013
12:12 pm
@ HS Math Teacher, January 30th, 6:50 am.
I remember well that I was failing 3rd grade arithmetic until my teacher noticed that I was lseaning forward and sq
GT Alumna
January 30th, 2013
12:16 pm
@ Mary Elizabeth,
Totally agree with everything you said. My elementary school was run similarly. We had pre-tests at the beginning of every quarter for each subject. Your score on the pre-test determined which of the 4 groups you were put in. Each grade had 6-7 teachers. So, some quarters a group received more than one teacher, depending upon number of students in that cohort. At the end of each quarter, we took a post-test and then the pre-test for the next quarter. This didn’t take all day and it was administered by your current teacher. The net effect was that the number of learning cohorts was reduced and the placement of students was fluid and solely dependent upon need. My ES even allowed for subject-matter and full-grade acceleration without having the child’s parent threaten to sue or fill out mounds of paperwork. And yes, some kids were retained, but their placement wasn’t fixed, provided they could catch up.
What bugs me most about the current practice of differentiation within age-based groupings is that no one benefits: not the slower students; certainly not the advanced students; and definitely not the teachers.
As a final consideration, I saw somebody commented earlier on Deal’s “Move On When Ready.” From my perspective, it is nothing but PR. My son’s high school is working hard to dissuade him from pursuing dual enrollment. I’m thinking it is more about money retention.
Prof
January 30th, 2013
12:16 pm
(Cont.) …I was leaning forward and squinting to see the board. The 3’s looked like 5’s and the 8’s looked like 6’s. She told my parents I needed glasses…they at once tested me… and I’ve done fine in school ever since.
Mary Elizabeth
January 30th, 2013
12:53 pm
@ GT Alumna, 12:16 pm
Thank you for sharing your personal experiences in elementary school in which “. . .placement of students was fluid and solely dependent upon need.” In the school in which I had functioned as ILT(grades 1 – 7), the students were continuously placed so that they could move in and through their individually determined levels at their optimum rates, in reading and math curriculum, as rapidly as they could, with mastery.
I am hoping that the public schools in Georgia will see the value in developing a similar model. Students will not learn unless they are properly placed – with great care given to individual students, at all times, to receive instruction based upon where they are actually functioning – regardless of grade level demarcations, which essentially establish a “one-size-fits-all” curriculum for students in each grade. That model may not be working for between a fourth and a third of Georgia’s students. See link below.
http://www.americashealthrankings.org/GA/Graduation/2011
What systems are in place?
January 30th, 2013
1:40 pm
As an elementary teacher, I often see students beginning on this path to failure. Students who begin to show challenges in early grades, perhaps even being retained, become immediately prone to further difficulties. The decision to retain a child in elementary school is to be taken very seriously. Involvement in the student support team is critical. Teams of professionals need to recommend research based interventions and individual instructional plans that can be monitored for data and fidelity. When a student is retained, it is one of the most significant interventions available. If it proves to be unsuccessful, and intervention is unsuccessful (including early intervention programs), evaluation for additional and/or special education services should be implemented. If counseling is needed, referrals can be made and school social workers can be utilized. The sooner the reason for failure is determined, the faster students can get help. Accountability for following these minimal protocols is sorely lacking.
HS Math Teacher
January 30th, 2013
2:07 pm
Prof: I read your post – good stuff. I’m glad your vision problem was diagnosed early. My Uncle (in the 50’s) experienced the same situation you did in Elementary School. He ended up being “Most Intellectual” as a Senior Superlative.
teacher/coach
January 30th, 2013
3:32 pm
Mary- this is still not possible. I am to teach novels on the approved list for 10th grade. I do not supply my 10th graders with “see johnny run” books. You can call it whatever you want but I’m not about to triple my work load while my benefits and pay continue to get cut.
What professional would? “You don’t teach for the money”, yeah I get that but i’m not about to go above and beyond while my pay goes down.
The groundwork has to be laid before they get here. You cannot teach these kids in 4 years what they’ve been missing over the past 8 and expect them to pass the GHSGT
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
January 30th, 2013
3:54 pm
@Really Amazed “My niece told my daughter the other day….when she was in 5th grade the teachers handed out green M&M’s if they had the correct answer and red ones if they had the wrong answer until it was correct.”
LOL! I am just trying to imagine how this would work, with so many questions in a timed situation… that would be a lot of M&Ms!
Mary Elizabeth
January 30th, 2013
4:35 pm
@ Teacher/coach, 3:32 pm
I can only respond that I never thought as you do, when I was a teacher.
For you, and for readers of this blog -
Here is the link to the true story of Cyndie and of her 5th grade science teacher, who did make special instructional accommodations for Cyndie and changed her life, as a result.
http://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/cyndies-story/
Really amazed
January 30th, 2013
7:33 pm
@ love teaching, hate what it is becoming. Thought the same thing but it did happen!!!
ScienceTeacher671
January 30th, 2013
10:26 pm
@What Systems – that’s how RTI is supposed to work – find & fix the problems early. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have the correct diagnosis & interventions in place, and instead RTI seems to have evolved into a “Socially promote them K-12 whether they’ve learned anything or not” program. Sad for the kids..
ScienceTeacher671
January 30th, 2013
10:34 pm
@Mary Elizabeth, I agree in principle with the teaching to mastery concept, but it does seem to be a scheduling nightmare. Makes a pretty good argument for ability grouping, though.
ScienceTeacher671
January 30th, 2013
10:42 pm
@teacher & mom – doesn’t it seem as though we jump through far too many hoops to avoid testing children for legitimate processing problems? Imagine if we ignored the need for glasses, hearing aids, crutches, insulin, etc….that would be unconscionable. BUT ignoring the need for assistance for problems like dyslexia is par for the course in today’s educational system.
Mountain Man
January 31st, 2013
7:59 am
“doesn’t it seem as though we jump through far too many hoops to avoid testing children for legitimate processing problems? Imagine if we ignored the need for glasses, hearing aids, crutches, insulin, etc….that would be unconscionable. BUT ignoring the need for assistance for problems like dyslexia is par for the course in today’s educational system.”
How about a different approach. Require the PARENTS to have their children tested! Why should the SCHOOLS be saddled with this additional duty. Require all parents to have their kids’ vision and hearing tested before beginning school and at the 5th grade. Require any failing grades not explained by obvious factors (attendance, for example) to trigger a mandate for the parents to have them tested.
Mountain Man
January 31st, 2013
8:01 am
So Mary Elizabeth argues for grouping kids according to their level of mastery, but does not accept the idea of a sixteen-year-old sitting next to a six year old? If they both are reading at a 2nd grade level, then that is what should take place. Sounds like talking out of both sides of her mouth. It also seems like her ideas would require individual instuction for every student. Not possible in today’s 45-student classrooms.
GT Alumna
January 31st, 2013
9:18 am
@ Mountain Man,
I believe you misunderstood. That is not what ME is saying at all. Ability Grouping can occur within the confines of each school/grade. You would never have a 16 yo sitting next to a 6 yo. Get real!
Mountain Man
January 31st, 2013
11:41 am
“I believe you misunderstood. That is not what ME is saying at all. Ability Grouping can occur within the confines of each school/grade. You would never have a 16 yo sitting next to a 6 yo. ”
So you are saying in your ninth grade class, you have 4 classrooms – one for readers reading on a 3rd grade (or less), one for 3-5th grade readers, one for 5-7th grade readers, one for 7-9th grade readers, and a final one for 9th and up? And what do you do with the 12 graders who are reading at a 5th grade level – what do you do with them the next year? Give them a diploma?
I guess I am just too dumb to understand. I went to UGA, after all.
GT Alumna
January 31st, 2013
1:35 pm
@ Mountain Man,
I never called you dumb, so I don’t appreciate your snarky comment.
I’m not even going to bother to explain what my idea would be b/c [1] you wouldn’t appreciate it and [2] GA is too backward to consider making the bold declaration that differentiation within each class room does not work. Ability Grouping has been successful in the past, but… then you’d have to admit that not everyone is the same and there will be unequal outcomes.
Pluto
January 31st, 2013
1:52 pm
I have never understood the idea that summer school would make any difference to a student learning the required material until I was “hoodwinked” into re-teaching chemistry to a group of shall we say amotivational students. I followed my directives and attempted to teach the high points of general inorganic chemistry in three weeks so they could re-take the same test that they failed. I think they should have been held back.
Mountain Man
January 31st, 2013
4:23 pm
“I never called you dumb, so I don’t appreciate your snarky comment.
I’m not even going to bother to explain what my idea would be b/c [1] you wouldn’t appreciate it ”
Where is the fun if I can’t be snarky? I do USUALLY try to look for reasonable, effective solutions for real problems. I just can’t see subdividing CLASSES into groups and the same teacher being responsible for teaching four levels of English (or reading, or math). And you refused to answer what would happen to the 12th-graders.
We refuse to look at WHY these kids are so far behind. Let me say it for the one-millionth time: ATTENDANCE, PARENTAL APATHY, LACK OF DISCIPLINE. Solve these problems and maybe you won’t HAVE to hold anyone back.
Signed, Georgia Alumnus
Mountain Man
January 31st, 2013
4:26 pm
The other issue with creating different classes of different levels in the same grade is it flies in the face of the philosphy of INCLUSION. Why else do we have SPED students with a mental age of six in a calculus class? INCLUSION. You cannot break out the readers at a 3rd grade level (in the ninth grade) into the “slow” class because it might hurt their fragile egos.
Pride and Joy
February 1st, 2013
5:35 pm
Good question. No, we don’t put students first when we socially promote them. The school just hides the problem until the problem causes another drop out.
Kids who aren’t ready to be promoted need to be kept in school with extra tutoring and summer school.
Social promotion is nothing but a school being too lazy and too incompetent to address the problem that kids aren’t being taught well by some teachers (not all) who simply cannot teach.