public education Archives - Page 3 of 3

June 3, 2017

Pass or Fail: Retention Has Long-Term Effects on Students

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 has been said that one single choice or event can alter the course of a person’s entire life. How would you feel if this decision was made for you based on completely misguided principles?

The long-term impact of retention has been studied extensively. Students overwhelming state that they consider retention to be a life-changing experience. Students often indicate that they experience a dramatic increase in stress and an even more pronounced dislike of school. Supporting an overwhelming amount of research, this signifies that the education system sometimes uses student retention as an intervention strategy for identification of a learning disability.

An assessment was made to identify low self-esteem signals for students in a research study conducted by Jessica Fanguy and Richard D. Mathis. Five of eight student participants and five of the eight parents commented that low self-esteem was an issue following the retention. One student’s father specifically indicated that they felt their child had low self-esteem and another parent indicated that their child clearly “felt bad about herself,” largely as a result of their retention experience. Two parents also reported that their children were giving up too easily and not believing in themselves, especially at school, in academic areas. One of the parents described how their child had called herself “stupid,” and one of the students indicated that they were aware that they did not set goals too high because they felt they could not achieve them. The student did not believe there was any point in setting challenging goals.

The researchers came to the conclusion that the students might well have had fewer self-esteem issues (and a greater inclination to set challenging goals) if they had not experienced retention and if it had not proved such a negative experience. Other students stated that the teachers had mistreated them, adding to the feelings of failure, but also making the students angry. They expressed their frustration at having to repeat a year. One student described dropping out of school to escape the resentment and sense of failure, as well as the victimization by teachers. According to Fanguy and Mathis, only two of the students interviewed demonstrated any signs of positive self-concepts; describing themselves in a positive light and feeling optimistic about their abilities.

Indicative of other studies that have assessed retention among students, Fanguy and Mathis clearly demonstrated that retention is destructive to a student’s development on many fronts. Although not all retained students are likely to experience such debilitating self-esteem issues, anger at retention, or oppression as the students in the study, the findings suggest that a range of problems apply, and often leave students with a sense of failure.

Socially promoted students experienced similar problems, including poor self-esteem, poor sense of self-worth, issues with peers, anger, and resentment toward teachers and school administrators, and general apathy toward school. In fact, some studies suggest that peer isolation or bullying is sometimes even more extreme for socially promoted students than for those who are retained. Without reasonable self-esteem, adolescents can prove unable to resolve the crisis of the identity during development. Thus, any experience debilitating to self-esteem is likely to leave students at a serious disadvantage.

In a relevant study, it was concluded that academic ability was one of the many factors used by adolescents to evaluate themselves. Failure at school can certainly compromise self-esteem and many students identify failure to pass a grade, the experience of retention, or even social promotion, as distinct evidence of academic failure.

Issues in the home can also factor into retention and social promotion problems, too, and several of the students featured in the study by Fanguy and Mathis cited lack of parental support as problematic. Two students even went so far as to say that they might have done better in school and potentially avoided retention completely, had they received more help from parents. The perceptions belong to students; whose own identity and conception of schoolwork undoubtedly play some role in the outcome of their academic efforts. There was, at least, a perceived need for students to have better, more extensive supports. The students believed their failing grades were at least partly due to inadequate support in school or at home. The discrepancy of perceived versus actual need is worth further investigation, particularly with regard to students’ lack of accomplishment.

Fanguy and Mathis also conclude that many of the students in the study lacked the skills to advocate for themselves. This potentially identifies another non-academic cost of retention, that affected students may already be reluctant to ask for help from school representatives or family when they need it.

If the decision to retain a student has been made, how much do you personally feel this choice will impact them both in the short and long term?

May 31, 2017

Pass or Fail: The Psychological Effects of Social Promotion and Retention

How impressionable were you growing up? Do you think what your teachers and peers thought of you mattered? As an adult, you likely don’t feel the weight of other peoples’ opinions the way you did as a child. Children have yet to establish their own identity, though, so outside factors easily influence their sense of self.

Often, studies concentrate on the obvious issues regarding grade retention, yet researchers Jessica Fanguy and Richard D. Mathis consider these effects to only be the tip of the psychosocial iceberg. Although grade retention has significantly reduced student numbers in schools, consideration of the cause of this is perhaps more relevant and indicative of the true underlying cost. Furthermore, the psychosocial delays that lead to the dropping out of retained students are more likely to be long-lasting, and often time permanent.

Erik Erikson stages of identity development and his research, which has ready application to retention and social promotion policies, sheds considerable light on these issues. Erikson specifically noted that having a high level of self-esteem was critical to identity development for adolescents. When young adults feel good about themselves, they develop a positive identity. Those who do not possess a pleasant self-image, tend to struggle with their identity and can acquire maladaptive or dysfunctional behaviors.

As Fanguy and Mathis point out, Erikson’s theory regarding identity development focuses on individual psychological growth, including how it pertains to adolescent life, and isolates social components of development that include family, school, and peers. In their study, Fanguy and Mathis specifically apply this theory to demonstrate the damaging psychosocial fallout for grade-retained students.

In student and parent interviews, Fanguy and Mathis noted that the most common cause for retention was environmental stress, apathy towards school, insufficient preparation for the following grade level and poor behavior patterns. These were the causes the interview subjects, both students and parents, identified as ultimately leading to retention. Whether these were the actual root, and whether or not they might have been something more abstract (such as the quality of teaching or the nature of the testing), could not be easily gauged from the student or parent perspective.

Fanguy and Mathis performed an in-depth study using eight students who had been retained in eighth grade, five white and three black students of five boys and three girls. All except one were middle class, with the remaining student in a lower income bracket. In a series of interviews with the students and their parents, Fanguy and Mathis discovered several factors that led to their retention.

Three of the students cited environmental factors. These encompassed being sick for a portion of the year, one’s mother had been sick, and one lived in a “bad” neighborhood with ongoing struggles due to drug transactions and the accompanying violence. Other issues included poor behavior patterns and lack of preparedness. Three of the students noted that severe apathy set in after they were retained. For two of these students, their apathy was directly related to the inability to perform their schoolwork.

Hopelessness in the face of difficult assignments led them to give up, both inside and outside of the classroom. Several children expressed extreme distress once they discovered they had been retained, with others noting they became angry and withdrawn. Two female students, reported a heartbreaking sense of loss after their friends had moved on and that friendships were completely severed.

An enormous issue experienced by five of the eight students was relentless bullying by peers. Names such as “stupid” and “dumb,” were used to tease the retained students. Two male study participants got into fights with other students as a result of the harassment. Interestingly, most of the parents were unaware their children were being bullied. The prominence of psychosocial issues tracing back to retention were profound. The overwhelmingly negative reaction from retained students suggests there’s both strong and detrimental impact on their self-esteem.

Think back on your childhood. How would you have responded if you were retained in school? What lasting impact would retention have had on your relationships, motivation level and identity development as a child?

May 28, 2017

Pass or Fail: The Real Cost to the Individual

What do you see as the main positives of retention and social promotion in American schools? How about the drawbacks? Are these practices actually helping students or do they only work in theory?

Edmond Shoat, a nineteen-year-old Chicago dropout who had been held back a year, left high school just two weeks before graduation. By any estimate, he has had a hard life. He grew up in the Cabrini-Green project, notorious for its gang violence. His uncle, who wasn’t much older than he, was murdered near their apartment – Edmond heard the shots, and rushed out to find his uncle dead.

Following that experience, the family tried to get themselves into a better situation. “I’d say about a month later, my whole family moved out of the projects,” says Edmond. “My mom, she worked at a nursing home. And you know, sometimes she’d either quit the job, or we’d have to move. We couldn’t pay the rent. Or we’d find another job and move somewhere else. We did a lot of moving around.”

Edmond wound up at Senn High School, one of the worst-performing schools in an area known for particularly terrible schools. He didn’t do badly, however, and got on the football team. But one day he got into a fight, which escalated and eventually landed him in jail for a week, on a charge of illegally possessing a weapon (a pocketknife he’d forgotten about, which wasn’t used in the fight). Around the same time, he became a father: his three-year-old son, Rajan, now lives with the child’s mother in Atlanta.

A chemistry teacher at Senn, Antonio San Agustin, tried to help Edmond stay on track with his studies while the teen was in jail and working his way through the court system. “He was a good kid,” Agustin remembers. “And he came to class, always looking to make up his assignments because he was absent quite a bit. I didn’t have problems with him making up the assignments.”

But even the intervention of concerned teachers couldn’t keep Edmond in school. He flunked his first attempt at the GED and now has a low-paying job. He dreams of being able to move to live closer to his son, and of eventually becoming an actor. Yet, the statistics are not on his side.

Do the pros of social promotion and retention outweigh the cons? Assessing the costs of retention on an individual is difficult, but attempts have been made. A study by Thompson and Cunningham concluded that retention basically discourages students whose motivation and confidence are already shaky. Findings indicate that promoted students gain an opportunity to advance through next year’s curriculum, while retained students go over the same ground and thus fall further behind their advancing peers.

Several other studies identify a high correlation between student retention and student dropout rates. Goldschmidt and Wang, for instance, applied the National Longitudinal Study (NELS) to examine student and school factors associated with students dropping out in different grades. Their findings showed that consistent with previous research, being held back is the single strongest predictor of dropping out and that its effect is consistent for both early and late dropouts. Retention can destroy self-esteem and otherwise undermine social and personal adjustments. With retention typically occurring during the most formative and impressionable years, the impact can be overwhelming.

Retained students have increased risks in health-related areas such as stress, low social confidence, substance abuse, and violent behaviors. Several studies have demonstrated that students view retention as being more degrading and stressful than losing a parent or going blind, which is clearly indicative of a tremendous cost personally and socially. Highly negative development changes, including below average self-esteem, higher instances of social isolation from peers, shame regarding grade retention and being older than classmates, resentment of teachers and administrators and an overall diminished quality of life. Without feeling confident in their education setting and lacking meaningful, positive relationships with peers, teachers, and administrators, a student’s academic potential is undermined.

Could retention have played a primary role in Edmond dropping out of school? What could have gone differently to help him succeed? Would Edmond be living out his dreams as an involved father and working actor if retention hadn’t been in play?

May 12, 2017

Pass or Fail: Retention and its Roots in Early American Public Education

Today’s practice of retaining students is a far cry from what took place in America’s earliest public school classrooms.

Before assessing the American education system, it is necessary to understand where our roots lie. We must consider how public education became enshrined in the United States, what the objectives of public education were, how the public education system in the United States was developed, and what efforts have been made to reform the system since its inception.

The United States should be viewed from an educational standpoint as an essentially European-derived enterprise. In particular, because of the religious make-up of the first European settlers, we have a strong Protestant lineage. The goal of America’s public education system has been relatively consistent: to produce satisfying outcomes in eight broad categories:

Basic academic knowledge and skills, including reading, writing, math skills, and knowledge of science and history.
Critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, including the ability to analyze information and apply knowledge to new situations.
Appreciation of the arts and literature, including participation in and appreciation of musical, visual, and performing arts as well as cultivation of a love of literature.
Preparation for skilled employment, including appropriate workplace qualifications.
Social skills and a strong work ethic, including communication skills, a feeling of personal responsibility, and the ability to work with and interact with others from varied backgrounds.
Citizenship and community responsibility, including public ethics and knowledge of how government works.
Physical health, including lifelong exercise and healthy eating habits.
Emotional health, including self-confidence and respect for self and others.

In 1749 Benjamin Franklin pioneered American thinking on education by proposing that Pennsylvania establish a public academy of education for adolescents. Franklin suggested that such an institution should also emphasize physical fitness, as well as academics. A man of many ideas and insights, Franklin also spoke up on the importance of studying history, because it taught students temperance, order, frugality, and perseverance. Franklin thought schools should require competence in reading, arithmetic, and science, and that they should be accountable for teaching these skills. However, Franklin and his contemporaries did not envision assessments of the quality of educational institutions based on how well students acquired the skills and knowledge.

The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, held yet a slightly different view on education, suggesting that universal education would assist in socializing citizens, helping them to accept the values of their rulers, but also preparing young people for a “law-abiding” adulthood.

Falling somewhere between the aforementioned two perspectives was George Washington, who contended in his first State of the Union address that Congress should promote schools that taught citizens how “to value their own rights.” Washington recognized that public opinion makes policy in a democracy and, as a result, “it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” In none of these instances, though, does it appear that rigid standards for reading, writing, and arithmetic are the foundation for accountability. Schools were expected to go well beyond such basic provisions and, in effect, become responsible for the creation of productive, well-informed, and engaged citizens.

More than 70 years after Franklin’s comments on the components of an optimal public education, Jefferson clarified and elaborated. Jefferson believed a proper education should give all citizens the information they needed to undertake transactions at their businesses. He thought it should enable citizens to calculate for themselves, express their ideas, contracts, and accounts in writing; to improve their morals and faculties via reading, and to understand their duties to their neighbors and country.

The 1780 Massachusetts Constitution, drafted by John Adams, another of the founding fathers, laid out the first legal requirement for public education. This state constitution noted that the duty of the legislative and executive branches would be to maintain public schools. “Wisdom and knowledge,” the document declared, “as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, [is] necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties. In addition to teaching academic subjects, public schools should also be required to include lessons on the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality, sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments.”

There is clear evidence that the government took to heart much of what the founding fathers had to say on this topic. The 1787 Northwest Ordinance provided funds to new states that allowed them to establish public education systems, declaring that “religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

Even in the earliest days of America, the notion that public education was a necessity was accepted. Of course, at that time the nation lacked the infrastructure to provide effective access to public education, so such support was mostly theoretical. Still, there were many who came forward in support of a public education system that embraced most, if not all, of the ideas and principles that the founding fathers had set forth.

This basic support was founded on the fact that people believed in access to education as a right — a belief that would be dissected over time to bring us to the retention-social promotion context of today.