Tag: alternatives

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Pass or Fail: Strategies for Managing Poor Academic Performance

pass or fail

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

When a child is struggling academically, the course of appropriate remediation is often as varied as the child himself. There is no one way bring a child up to speed – which is why blanket policies of retention and social promotion are so ineffective. Alternative strategies aren’t just preferable; they are necessary.

Alternative strategies for managing poor academic performance include various instructional plans and student management plans. Although clear categorization of alternatives is difficult to establish and maintain, the alternatives include proactive and reactive supports – academic, social, and blended supports.

A book by Glasser discusses the potential for increased enthusiasm and academic performance based on the modeling and relating of schoolwork directly to student interests and needs. For instance, a student interested in science but struggling in reading might be enticed to work harder at reading if directed toward specific scientific literature. A slightly older alternative, involves merit promotion and the use of a specific test or tests as the sole criteria for retention. A student who does better in a specific area moves to the next grade based on their performance on a single test (the tests that have the best results).

Incentive models tend to work quite well. Academic incentive programs tend to stress viable alternative strategies and emphasize service provisions to struggling students. Intense remediation in basic subject areas can help potential retainees, especially in grades five through to eight. Siegel and Hanson also discuss the potential for students to receive supplemental instruction in the areas where they are struggling. However, the proposed remedial aid has to be designed, so there are minimal absences from regular classroom activities. The general goal is to avoid slowing down a student’s general academic progress. Other school-based supports include stress counseling and study skill programs.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) reported on the effectiveness of stress counseling and study skill programs for students in sixth and seventh grade who are failing in two or more subjects. Their results showed that enrollment in summer counseling and study skills programs, as well as makeup courses, can be useful. Although this report is 1985, it sheds some light on the evolution of educational interventions.

Siegel and Hanson also recommend high-quality extended day programs for students as retention alternatives.

The PDE also proposed learning resource programs for students identified by counselors, teachers, or administrators as being potentially in need of academic supports. Problems with academic performance, absenteeism, referrals, or recommendations emerged as criteria for inclusion in such a program. However, this alternative option needs to be there before students can use it. The decision to use the program must fall, in the end, on the students and their parents, because such programs depend entirely on the individual’s willingness to accept help.

The curriculum also should combine cognitive- and affective-based strategies, including reading, mathematics, and English, with other efforts to work on life skills, goal-setting, and critical thinking, sometimes with students getting practical experience by working with the sick and elderly. This alternative should, the PDE suggests, involve evaluation and reward for students who successfully follow the program and manage to graduate from high school.

The PDE also suggests that students should be in self-contained classrooms for basic subjects taught by volunteer teachers, with an emphasis on competence. Individualized instruction is also important, as it has been shown to help students to maintain a minimum required average grade for a given period. For struggling students, such minimum grade requirements may be daunting without targeted backups and supports.

For some struggling students, of course, the program described above will not work at all. Sometimes a rebound program or even a formal reading program may be more suited to their needs. For such cases, the PDE offers the Rebound Program, which focuses on seventh- and eighth-grade students and offers targeted interventions for reading challenges.

The target population for the Rebound Program is those students who have academic difficulties in the regular classroom. However, with this particular alternative strategy, the objective is for students to work within the Rebound Program for at least nine weeks so that they can receive individual instruction in a self-contained classroom with a single teacher and a maximum of fifteen students.

A formal reading program placement may work for children five years of age or older who are struggling to achieve the required level for reading. Another alternative for younger children is the abolition of the practice of delaying entrance into kindergarten classrooms. Siegel and Hanson suggest such placements depend on students’ developmental, not chronological, age.

Click here to read all my suggestions for alternatives to social promotion and retention.

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Pass or Fail: Revising Academic Standards and Accountability

pass or fail

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

Are teacher accountability standards completely out of control? More specifically, does teacher accountability fuel the social promotion and retention motivation?

The notion of accountability has historically applied primarily to school boards and school governance systems. By 1927, the complexity of accountability had grown to the point that Yale Professor George S. Counts wrote in 1927 that the role of school boards, the principle accountability body, had “the basic purpose of education and the relation of the school to the social order.”

The problem, though, was the severe undermining of the goal-setting aspect. The more favored economic and social classes, including small-business owners, professionals, and business executives, tended to make up about 76 percent of urban school board members. In other words, the appointment of school board members was based upon social status, having little to do with actual investment and qualification for the position.

Comparing the American system to international models, Rothstein emphasizes that other nations use inspections for school accountability and manage to overcome the most serious impediments experienced in the United States. In particular, Rothstein emphasizes that the English system employs professional inspectors rather than volunteers and that their inspection system subsequently undergoes revisions on a fairly regular basis.

The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory also discusses five strategies to help students succeed that are worth considering. Emphasizing the high-stakes testing and accountability movement as key in the promotion of retention and social promotion policies, the report outlines the intensification of learning, the provision of professional development to ensure skilled teachers, expanded learning options, access to informed teachers, and early and frequent interventions to support students, including ongoing diagnostic assessments to help schools develop intervention strategies for failure and accelerated learning.

Citing the hallmarks of successful intervention, the report establishes that early intervention offered regularly and frequently—and tied to the work students are doing as a part of their normal school routine—provides the best support for students. The material used in the early intervention should supplement classroom instruction, be paced to accelerate learning, and be offered in a multifaceted form.

So how can accountability standards be changed to positively impact students?

Click here to read all my suggestions for alternatives to social promotion and retention.

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Pass or Fail: Effective Education Policies to Respond to Social Promotion and Retention

pass or fail

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

Are the very policies put in place to “help” students actually hurting them?

If a student experiences retention or social promotion, the policies themselves do not help to reverse poor academic performance. Retention prevents a student from having to take on more of an educational challenge. In that respect, it is reactionary. It does nothing to address the student’s initial failings at his or her current grade level. The same is true of social promotion.

An effective alternative strategy must be able to provide comprehensive support for academic, social, emotional, and psychological needs of students, along with clear and measurable goals and objectives for students, teachers, administrators, and parents.

In a brief on the issues raised by the No Child Left Behind Act, Garcia considers the factors that might if effectively implemented, have assisted with the success of states’ educational reforms. He looks closely at addressing the need for a coherent testing program and managing trade-offs between the high expectations of students and the high numbers of low-performing schools.

Garcia outlined the need to lead educational policy with standards rather than tests, and to have a system in place to ensure the quality of all tests, particularly with respect to alignment with state standards. He also outlined the need to establish an anchor for proficiency at the end of high school that would help students to be prepared for college and high-growth careers. He considered the creation of college-ready and high-growth career-ready students to be the point at which school policies should aim, with standards and expectations mapped backward to set expectations for earlier grades.

Targeting responses was another strategy that Garcia thought would be helpful to low-performing schools. He also recommended establishing categories for poor performance and distinguishing the most academically needy schools, targeting the most substantial assistance or interventions to those schools with the lowest performance rates.

Sustaining public support amid expanded testing and accountability will inevitably help to make schools more successful. Making state testing and accountability systems as transparent as possible and fostering a third-party organization to mount a sustained public engagement campaign, as Garcia suggests, would prove useful in addressing some of the main challenges to the application of effective academic standards and the supporting of all students to achieve exceptional academic results.

There are, however, at least two distinct types of strategies when it comes to educational reform. First are the strategies designed to bring about improvement by improving the education and standards in a broad way. Most of the strategies outlined by Garcia fall into this first category, and they apply to a range of aspects of the education system.

The second category targets the grading system. The grading system, after all, is the basis for retention and social promotion. Alternatives include a system allowing for varied academic assessments, or one offering a different system for academic progression, one that does not rely on graded knowledge and skills testing like our current system.

Click here to read all my suggestions for alternatives to social promotion and retention.

 

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Pass or Fail: What Are the Alternatives to Retention and Social Promotion?

pass or fail

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

It’s clear that the social promotion and retention strategies and the pass-or-fail focus of our current school system, have high price tags and return very little on investment. The long-term problems are very real and very costly. Although there are inevitable differences of opinion, most educators agree that the high costs associated with retention and social promotion policies warrant a very careful review.

The ineffectiveness of these strategies indicates that we need to develop an entirely new way of helping students with academic problems. Indeed, the fact that these actions are so frequently counterproductive to the individual student is a warning signal that they need much more than a mere review. Retention and social promotion are symptoms of a serious societal dysfunction that can only be cured by the development of a new, qualitatively different education system. The starting point for this new system must be the individual girl or boy and their ability to develop intellectually and psychologically in a variety of learning contexts.

But what type of alternative system are we proposing?

Because of the chaos and dysfunction that is prevalent in the current system, we must first be clear on what we’re not aiming for regarding systemic improvements.

Many alternative strategies can reduce the incidence of retention and social promotion. There are plenty of these kinds of alternatives, and some of them go so far as to focus on preventing the failure cycle that sustains poor performance. Other proposals try to transform social promotion and retention into an effective intervention process. Unfortunately, none of these proposals stands out as a clear winner.

Because some alternatives to retention and social promotion are already available, one must ask oneself why so few of them are used. Why is it that we are forcing Common Core standards on our children in spite of overwhelming evidence that such standardized learning and over-testing is ineffective?

Numerous studies have explored alternative strategies to retention and social promotion. One such study, by McDonald and Bean, offers 25 alternatives to retention. In the course of their study, McDonald and Bean note that “retention has often been reviewed as a necessity in most school systems by faculty and administration,” but suggest that this is a misguided view.

Their key observation is that the research does not support retention or social promotion as the only options for students falling behind academically. Moreover, they contend that retention is decidedly unhelpful and largely unsuccessful as a strategy for academic recovery. In the end, they conclude it is little more than a “prevailing evil in public schools.”

So what are some of these actual alternatives? Click here to see the full list of alternatives I have suggested to social promotion and retention.

 

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Pass or Fail: Teacher Effectiveness as Prevention

pass or fail

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

Retaining or socially promoting a student takes a simplistic approach to education that is outdated and harmful. Finding alternatives to avoid both is imperative and entirely possible in today’s educational climate. Perhaps the most influential alternative to social promotion and retention is effective teaching and teachers who are willing to go the extra mile to make sure students are up to speed.

Some teachers may need professional development to help them diversify their approach to meet the instructional needs of lower performing students. Protheroe points to examples like the Metro Nashville Public Schools, who have established a comprehensive program for professional development, supporting veteran and, especially, new teachers who serve in high-poverty areas. The program includes work on the so-called Ruby Payne Framework to improve teacher understanding of poverty. There is also, according to Holt and Garcia, some important training with differentiated instruction and the Dignity with Discipline program.

Buena Vista Elementary, which is under the Metro Nashville umbrella, is a striking example of the success of these types of involvements. The school is just a few miles from downtown Nashville, in an area plagued by poverty and underdevelopment. A third of the students are homeless and live in one of the numerous shelters nearby. Violence is common, and almost all of the students receive free or reduced-fee lunches.

Despite the inherent difficulties of running a school in such a disadvantaged area, Buena Vista is a vibrant and thriving environment. Every student has a netbook, and there is an iPad for every two students. There are two teachers for every classroom (one is usually a student teacher on a paid placement), as well as a highly qualified phalanx of support staff on call.

The principal, Michelle McVicker, is focused on raising the students’ math and language arts skills. She ensures that each student has a goal and knows what he or she is working toward. “You should be able to ask any student what his or her math and reading goals are and get an answer,” she says and demonstrates that she means it by pulling a student out of a classroom and eliciting the answers.

In the “War Room,” every student’s goal, as well as their current data status, is captured and posted on a wall, with color charts indicating which ones are still in need of help, from blue (advanced), through green (proficient) and yellow (basic), to below basic (red). Two years ago, Buena Vista was considered a failing school. Nearly every card was in the red zone.

McVicker was hired and given free rein to acquire the tools she needed to get the school out of the red. Some of these were technological – as well as computers, classes use Smart Boards and projectors – but she also hired a fresh crew of teachers, commenting: “Because my teachers are all new, they have no bad habits to break.”

The majority of the cards in the War Room are now in the green and yellow zone. The turnaround is well under way.

Protheroe discusses changes to grouping practices and considers how some schools have moved toward increased use of multiage classrooms, with students of different ages grouped together in the classroom to enable continuous progress rather than have to worry about promotion year to year. Specific strategies include interventions to accelerate learning, such as strategies to help students “double-dose” in reading and math instruction to address the problem associated with providing remediation.

Protheroe suggests identifying struggling students and focusing attention on them early, doing whatever can be done to extend learning time, and taking a student’s socio-economic status into consideration when working with them. Beyond these measures, Protheroe also identifies extended learning time as an alternative to retention. Roderick, Engel, and Nagaoka reference the comprehensive evaluation conducted at Chicago Public Schools via the Summer Bridge program. This program found that test scores improved among third, sixth, and eighth graders.

The largest gains were among the sixth and eighth graders. A total of ninety hours of instruction were offered at summer school for third through sixth graders: three hours per day for six weeks. Eighth graders received 140 hours of instruction, attending four hours per day for seven weeks. Evaluations also identified several factors that were associated with larger gains, such as assigning students to teachers who had worked with them before. Teachers reported being more likely to adapt the curriculum to meet the needs of the individual student since they were better informed of those needs.

Researchers studying this and other similar afterschool programs have determined that such systems for additional instruction tend to be more successful when there is a careful assessment of the individual student needs and designing of instruction to address those needs. Afterschool and regular day teachers were better able to support students when they communicated with each other about progress and problems.

At the same time, it is also important that the staff at afterschool programs have the knowledge to apply instructional strategies that support the student’s work efforts. Poggi notes that special professional development may well be required to provide this level of knowledge and skill to staff.

Interventions to accelerate learning are catalyzed by efforts to increase the effectiveness of teachers and extend learning time. Ultimately, a combination of these efforts proves most successful as a retention or social promotion alternative.

Click here to read all my suggestions for alternatives to social promotion and retention.

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Pass or Fail: Transitional Classes and other Retention/Social Promotion Alternatives

pass or fail

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

In my previous post, I discussed some suggestions for alternatives to social promotion and retention that include material customized to students’ interests and I’d like to continue that conversation here.

Some really workable solutions to sidestepping retention and social promotion include a focus on transitional classes for students, allowing promotion or enrollment in the following grade even while students repeat specific subjects or courses they failed in a previous year, with a primary focus on unlearned skills. Bucko suggests that stressing student ability is helpful in encouraging students to lean that they can be successful.

Siegel and Hanson propose direct instruction in basic skills, including the intensive one-on-one teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic, as a strategy for helping four to six-year-olds with meeting basic academic standards.

Dawson suggests that schools should use instructional strategies or practices to alter retention, with cooperative learning and mastery learning strategies, direct instruction, adaptive education, individualized instruction, peer-tutoring, and curriculum-based assessments designed to initiate learning.

Some support options are more reactive, with Glasser proposing that students be encouraged to take responsibility for self-evaluation, beginning as early as the first grade. The emphasis on student self-grading emerges as a viable strategy for helping both students and teachers agree on the quality of work, with better grades being offered for improved performance.

Logically, it works to have a balance between applied supports and persuading students to take responsibility for their actions. The latter option theoretically supports a longer-term success rate. Encourage a child to be responsible, and you encourage them to take pride in and be attentive to the work they do.

Glasser also suggests the that courses with varying completion times and segregation points can be useful for struggling students. They suggest the need for an emphasis on quality rather than quantity in selecting courses. McDonald and Bean use an algebra course as an example, observing that if a student requires two years to achieve competence in algebra, they should be allowed that amount of time.

Glasser also proposes that students should receive accommodations in testing if required. In the Common Core era, this idea seems promising. In this proposal, students would be allowed to finish tests individually or cooperatively, with the amount of time allowed for a test being eliminated as a factor affecting the grade. Baku also suggests that classes be smaller and instruction more individualized.

For students who simply have trouble taking tests, or with the mastery of certain particular subjects, delayed testing also provides a good alternative to retention or social promotion. According to Newman, the practice of postponing testing may be beneficial for demonstrating accountability. Delayed testing may also be a workable option for those schools that administer minimum performance and achievement tests in March and April, leaving approximately two to three months the school with no clear objective.

Researchers have shown quite clearly that there is a correlation of between retention and the likelihood of dropping out. One of the strategies that these researchers have found to be effective in reducing dropout rates is having educators collaborate with other stakeholders on a regular basis to devise and implement more effective plans for student achievement.

Research consistently shows that community counselors work effectively at addressing issues like depression, substance abuse, aggression, and hopelessness; all potential barriers to an adolescent’s academic success. Lerner and others also emphasize in their research that educators should try to work collaboratively with community-based mental health agencies.

Another well-documented positive factor is parental involvement, which various researchers have noted is pivotal to student success. Hall and others, for instance, found that collaboration between school representatives and parents or guardians of students proved valuable in future education planning. Parental involvement to aid poorly performing children must, however, be carefully coordinated if it is to be effective. Counselors can help develop a plan or strategy for parents that will involve them in their child’s education.

Click here to read all my suggestions for alternatives to social promotion and retention.

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Pass or Fail: How to Choose an Alternative Strategy to Social Promotion and Retention

pass or fail

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

Research shows us that social promotion isn’t effective and ultimately hurts the student long-term. We know retention can do a lot of damage, too. So what, then, is the answer? The answer is nuanced and based on individual factors.

Factors for choosing an alternative strategy to retention or social promotion include all of the resources available to students and other stakeholders in their education. These stakeholders include teachers, school administrators, school counselors, parents or guardians. The social factors impacting students include emotional challenges, the strength and stability of the student’s family dynamic, and the level of the individual student’s motivation towards academic success.

Each of these factors plays an important role in determining the type of strategy that may help a student improve his or her academic performance. A child with specific learning abilities may benefit from having access to specific learning resources. Similarly, parents may benefit from having information on resources made available to them, as may children who struggle academically due to social or economic disadvantages.

In some respects, the need for alternative support strategies is as much about establishing a better process for identifying and analyzing the needs of struggling students as it is about finding alternative strategies to facilitate academic success. The Education Trust, for example, has identified key differences in the ways in which schools with “high” and “average” impact on the progress of struggling students used assessment data. The research demonstrated the advantage of using analytical data.

It showed that high-impact schools had “early warning systems” to identify struggling students or at-risk students. Some schools even went so far as to create “intervention teams,” groups of teachers and administrators specifically charged with developing learning plans for individual students. These individual learning plans, in fact, resemble individualized education plans, or IEPs, used for students with exceptionalities and GIEPs – the gifted individualized education plans used for students with above-average academic ability and performance.

Because of the necessary focus on educational strategies, teachers and administrators will likely remain key players, along with administrators in the development of alternative education strategies. There can be no progress in the education system unless key professionals agree on the target objectives and the best way to use available resources.

Finally, we must also consider ways to reestablish trust between educators, parents, and students. As most system stakeholders know, students who excel or even just perform adequately in school are likely to be relatively neutral in how they perceive the whole public school experience. Not so for those on the other end of the spectrum. Inevitably, it is the struggling, their families and sometimes even their teachers, who have the hardest time trusting the system as it presently exists.

The current system of public education is clearly undermining students who struggle the most. Efforts like Common Core and No Child Left Behind have only worsened an already bad situation, doing little but widen the achievement gaps between those students who struggle and those who excel. The approach to managing academic challenges and poor academic performance is also, at the end of the day, about reinforcing retention or social promotion, with the minimal functional application of resources to support the growth of students’ academic potential.

Click here to read all my suggestions for alternatives to social promotion and retention.

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Pass or Fail: Mentoring To End Social Promotion and Retention

pass or fail

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

When parents aren’t able to bridge the gap at home when it comes to education, strong mentors can make a difference in how much students learn.

Emma came from a low-income background and struggled with family issues. She joined a mentoring program and was partnered with Sarah. They have now been friends for more than 12 years. Though the inequality inherent in mentoring has been mentioned by some as problematic, in many cases mentoring can be life-changing. In the case of Emma and Sarah, the relationship was mutually beneficial. They would often go to the local Barnes & Noble, where they would sit under a brightly painted artificial tree and read to each other for hours.

Though the relationship was certainly effective in boosting Emma’s reading skills, it had other benefits as well. At one point, when Emma was six years old, she had to call 911 after her mother’s former boyfriend broke into the house. Sarah helped Emma deal with the call and the repercussions. Later, Emma chose to leave her father’s home, where she’d lived for twelve years, and move to her mother’s home two hours away. Sarah helped her in that decision and supported her in the move.

Sarah and Emma also have a lot of fun together, eating out and visiting amusement parks. These fun times do not, however, keep Sarah, the Director of Admissions at Vermont Commons School, from maintaining a focus on Emma’s schoolwork. Emma says, “Yeah, Sarah is always asking me about school and my homework. She always tells me that doing well in school and working toward my future are the most important things. She motivates me to do my best in school.” And this focus has worked: Emma is on the honor roll and has started looking at colleges.

The benefits go both ways. Sarah says, “I don’t have kids of my own, so I have been able to be a sort of second mom to Emma in a lot of ways. And she is just so amazing and fun to be with; I can’t imagine my life without her. My parents instilled in me the importance of giving back. And although I have been on many organizations’ boards over the years, being a mentor to Emma is without question the best thing I have ever done in my life.”

As the story of Emma and Sarah indicates, mentoring can have an enormous impact on the lives of disadvantaged students and those who mentor them. Karcher identifies mentoring as a process based on concepts of attachment theory – how individuals relate to one another and what sense of connection they have based on their relationship. The related concepts also provide evidence to demonstrate the extent to which mentoring can help reengage adolescents who have detached or disengaged from the educational process. Although counseling and mentoring need not be limited to adolescent students, we can assume this is the group most at risk.

Encouraging mentoring on school campuses is one strategy for reengaging adolescent students who have become disconnected from school due to a variety of experiences. The use of mentors should be given considerable weight among the supports that can help preclude the need for retention or social promotion.

A collaborative team within the school context can also help identify students who are not performing at grade level. The collaboration of a variety of stakeholders concerned about the welfare of individual students can identify struggling students sooner and trigger remedial interventions that can prevent damage from compounding itself. Wells et al. found that counselors accurately identified those students on a school campus who were at risk, and were able to determine those who might benefit from interventions. They emphasized, however, that the mere identification of struggling students was of little use in the absence of an intervention plan.

Click here to read all my suggestions for alternatives to social promotion and retention.

 

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Pass or Fail: Alternative Strategy Factors to the Pass/Fail System

pass or fail

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

If previous efforts and employing one or another of the existing alternative strategies have not been effective, we’re left with this question: what can educators do to develop alternatives to retention and social promotion that will actually work?

Several key points emerge from the existing body of research. First and foremost, research shows that alternatives to grading, retention, and social promotion must represent a multi-stage process that has been carefully planned and tested. While this might seem obvious, especially the requirement that a strategy is carefully planned, we should remember the context in which retention and social promotion occurs, a context that includes significant historical dimensions.

Indeed, one need look no further than the Common Core Standards and one of the major complaints about them: that they are woefully under-tested and embody goals and that have little to do with the real educational needs of individual students.

A second key to developing an effective alternative is the identification of those factors that are most crucial to a successful education policy. What do we need to consider when choosing among alternative strategies? What does the research tell us about the most important elements to a strategy that would replace grading, retention, and social promotion?

Most studies of the effects of grade retention and social promotion are limited in one way or another. The statistical power of many such studies is limited by a small sample size. Even the larger studies are often hampered by inconsistencies in education policy or implementation that make it difficult to interpret the results.

Logic also plays a role in showing the problems with grade retention and social promotion, as well as in determining the basic elements of alternative education strategies for failing students. One of the first points to be addressed from the perspective of logic and common sense is the basis for assigning specific grades to student assignments. We should not only consider the grading process itself but, to gain a wider perspective, we should also consider the ultimate objective of the education system, as well as how we can determine whether that objective is being achieved.

Consider the individual that America’s public education system should be producing. What should that individual be prepared for? Why are they getting an education in the first place? And, as we have suggested already, the “why” should play a big part in determining the “how.”

Whatever we decide regarding the ultimate goals of the public education system, it is clear that students must be examined to determine the knowledge and skills that they have learned in school. We do need to test their readiness for college and employment. But the other side of this coin is that the education process must be capable of transferring knowledge and skills in targeted areas.

A successful educational system must not only address student weaknesses, ensuring at least a rudimentary understanding of mathematics, science, languages, literature, writing, and reading comprehension; it must also nurture individual strengths, giving students an opportunity to develop their unique interests and gifts in preparation for a productive career.

We must also consider the non-academic costs of retention and social promotion on students and the education system as a whole. Although they are inherently difficult to gauge, we know that grade retention and social promotion have impacts that are academic, social, economic, and even emotional in nature.

The American School Counseling Association (ASCA) has offered a model for managing grade retention and social promotion that concentrates on the psychosocial aspects of student learning.

The ASCA’s model for developing academic policies and is based on standards intended to be implemented by school counselors. The ASCA’s model assumes that educators would be more effective at bringing about educational reform if they were more aware of the psychosocial factors that impact students.

Recommendations for educators have included input and supports not only from school counselors but also from teachers, administrators, and parents. This is largely because of the recognized need for as many stakeholders as possible to collaborate in support of academically struggling students.

The ASCA identified many barriers to educational reform, including several that explain precisely why collaborative, comprehensive support strategies are needed to support struggling students. Barriers include family stressors, apathy towards school and potential personal success, academic deficiencies, disabilities, poor behavior to support educators’ efforts, and limited access to resources.

Awareness of barriers to academic success can translate into an awareness of strategies for providing support. For instance, educators are in a good position to be able to resolve academic problems in collaboration with students and parents; They can provide insight into learning strategies for the individual student that may help the to help themselves achieve academic success.

Research has shown that retention causes changes in the lives of adolescents who lack coping skills to recover from the experience itself. Indeed, pressures of certain life changes and life events can be the cause of academic struggles. The intertwining of problems inside and outside the schoolroom highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to supporting students. Bullying and teasing can impact retained or socially promoted students and create additional academic struggles. The development and implementation of a comprehensive guidance curriculum by school counselors can support struggling students and minimize the recourse to retention or social promotion.

The second standard of the ASCA model includes programs that address bullying and teasing of students. Such consideration should be an element of a viable strategy for reducing the need for retention or social promotion. Another suggestion from the ASCA is that educators become advocates for students at risk of retention. Effective educators can advocate for students by making other stakeholders in a school aware of particular struggles and the potential need for more significant supports in the classroom.

Click here to read all my suggestions for alternatives to social promotion and retention.

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Pass or Fail: The Need for Alternative Strategies

pass or fail

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

If we know that our current pass/fail system isn’t working well — for our students, teachers, families or communities — then what can we do to turn that tide?

Most of the alternatives to retention and social promotion are half measures that do not challenge the validity of the traditional concept of retention. Too many of the established alternatives merely try to mitigate impacts; retention and social promotion are retained as key elements of the educational system.

Difficult and changing ideas, including philosophies and opinions of educators and parents, have complicated the development of effective alternatives to retention and social promotion. Despite the available alternatives, retention, and social promotion remain among the most common strategies for managing academic performance in the current system.

One of the most significant problems with applying alternative strategies is that many are far from comprehensive or well thought out. Many existing alternatives do not show an awareness of the various stakeholders and their potential contributions to a student’s educational success. The fragmented nature of alternative strategies also tends makes it hard to understand the struggles of the individual student.

The so-called self-efficacy theory suggests that adolescents perceive their academic ability regarding their perception of their ability to accomplish tasks. The cognitive function of adolescents reflects the way individuals feel about themselves. Students who experience failure at school have a higher risk of self-efficacy, according to Bandura. There are various other theories, including the family systems theory, which can further explain the risks to adolescents regarding their families and their position in a system that can impact self-efficacy and academic performance.

Although counseling students can help to address problems of low self-esteem, related to poor academic performance, the best interventions do not typically involve parents because of the risk of disrupting the support system as a whole. Furthermore, supports targeting academic and even social needs tend to be limited in scope, largely because there are so many pieces to the puzzle. Most alternative supports are fragmented and limited in their availability because of the degree of specialization (for instance, the availability of resources for specialized instruction in certain areas, or for individualized counseling for students).

Identifying the problems of social promotion specifically, Labaree notes that social promotion lowers the promotional standards in schools. The National Commission on Excellence in Education suggests that this both reflects and encourages the general decline of standards in American society. Labaree also notes that within the school system, a policy of social promotion symbolizes a more general lack of commitment to student achievement.

Establishing low minimum achievement levels for promotion is also, Richard Ebel suggests, a factor that fosters lower achievement expectations. Lowering the “floor” for achievement tends to lower the “ceiling” as well. Perhaps inevitably, there are some who consider social promotion a form of academic dishonesty. It can lead to accusations that schools are rewarding students for lack of accomplishment, instilling an inflated sense of their capabilities and a poor appreciation of the importance of hard work.

Ebel suggests that more rigorous promotional standards are effective at motivating stakeholders to sustain efforts toward higher levels of achievement. Using different standards for promotion can, however, create its problems. For instance, promoting students based on age rather than demonstrated achievement creates significant differences in ability and application of students in different grades.

Disruption becomes more likely when a student perceives a risk of retention. This disruption can affect both the classroom and the student’s family. Academic problems can create severe familial tensions, and these tensions tend to be more pronounced for low-income single parent and minority families, thus becoming entwined with socioeconomic factors.

Click here to read all my suggestions for alternatives to social promotion and retention.