six points Archives

July 1, 2018

Pass or Fail: The Final Word

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 is the contention of this blog series that ending retention, and social promotion are justified by both practical and theoretical considerations. Doing so does, however, also entail ending graded education and standardization. Collectively, these changes require a substantial overhaul of the entire system of public education in the United States as well as the re-education of the vast majority of its stakeholders.

The 6-pronged approach described above provides insight into the most promising plan for replacing retention, social promotion, graded classrooms and standardized tests with a fundamentally more effective educational system. If the stakeholders in the public education system are to be brought on board in support of this plan, the campaign to re-educate them must begin as soon as possible. This plan must emphasize how we have got to the point we are now at in our education system, so that it will be clearer where we might go if we make the changes the plan suggests.

It is time for the public education system to take an honest look at itself. The benefits of our current strategies are negligible. The United States is losing the knowledge and innovation battle and will ultimately lose the war unless reform begins soon. The tragedy of handicapping our children with a clearly second-rate education is all the worse because it is so unnecessary. As a nation, we have the information that justifies the changes outlined in this blog series. As citizens and parents, we also have the duty to provide our children the high-quality education envisaged by our Founding Fathers, and education that stimulates creativity and a love of learning.

Returning to the issues of retention and social promotion, the evidence is overwhelming that both of these strategies damage the children they are supposed to help. They are damaging not only to individual students but also society as a whole. The large-scale, long-term effects of retention are that individuals lose educational opportunities, job opportunities, and opportunities to make cultural and economic contributions to their communities.

Retention and social promotion also represent a tremendous burden on the state. The likelihood of an individual requiring welfare or being unemployed is greatly increased when they are affected by retention or social promotion. And as grave as these consequences are for an individual, they are dwarfed by the crippling effect of a personality stunted by a pernicious educational environment. Because a child who has been held back or socially retained is likely to be inhibited and stunted intellectually and creatively, the public school system really should be considered a clear and present danger to the nation’s future.

Only by acknowledging the harm done by grade retention, graded classrooms, and standardized tests can the American public education system can rise to the challenge of the modern world and provide a world-class education that is free, effective, and fair to all segments of society. Even if the American public education system is not completely transformed, there should at least be a shift in the approach to assessment. American schools should at least put an end to the use of restrictive, standardized testing and the use of retention and social promotion policies.

June 28, 2018

Pass or Fail: Mixing Ages in a Single Classroom to Accommodate Developmental Differences

When it comes to getting rid of our current pass-fail system, I have developed six strategies (click to see them all). One change that I think will make substantial improvements is a shift to multi-age classroom arrangements.

All of the strategies for ending retention and social promotion presuppose a substantial and systemic change to the American educational system. Indeed, the strategies discussed in this series are not exclusively or even primarily focused on retention and social promotion, which are seen merely as symptoms of a greater disease. The true focus is upon putting an end to the graded education model and the related problems of standardized assessments and a graded curriculum. These are the factors that undermine our educational system most insidiously, often leaving the most vulnerable and the most talented of our students without a place in the educational system.

Multi-age classrooms can promote developmentally appropriate, innovative, and engaging educational opportunities. The multi-age classroom has tremendous potential as an educational approach if supported by skilled, qualified, and dedicated professionals in various capacities. However, it bears repeating that many different elements must be successfully integrated if a multi-age classroom is to attain its full potential.

Human development entails an interrelated sequence of changes in socialization, behavior, communication, and physical development. Students need the opportunity to work on these other areas of development as much as they need the opportunity to develop intellectually and academically. Students need to be able to interact appropriately with their peers and with adults. Behavioral considerations are related to both emotional and social development. In light of the evidence that multi-age classrooms provide benefits in these specific areas, graduates from multi-age programs can be expected show social and emotional maturity as well as academic achievement. Behavioral problems can be more effectively addressed in a multi-age classroom because of the regular exposure of younger students to their more mature peers.

Rather than basing the minimum acceptable grade on a child’s age, mixed age classrooms would take developmental differences into account. Mixed age classrooms would group children in developmentally equivalent groups spanning two or more years to optimize the learning potential of each child.

June 24, 2018

Pass or Fail: Rethinking School Design for Better Learning Outcomes

When it comes to getting rid of our current pass-fail system, I have developed six strategies (click to see them all). A rehaul of design in our K-12 schools is a big component in making this shift a reality.

Redesigning America’s schools involves many levels of change and would take a considerable amount of time. Nonetheless, there is immense potential in the effort, including the opportunity to identify and learn from those aspects of the American education system that have been successful in the past, as well as those that continue to be successful today. There is also the opportunity to learn from systems used in other parts of the world, and to look at alternative assessment models, such as those found in various European countries. The multi-age classroom approach has a great deal to offer as a model that would reduce some of the most negative elements in the current system, especially the anxiety many students experience in the school setting and their lack of excitement regarding the experience of learning.

The ultimate goal of a redesigned system is the revival of the passion for learning within this nation. One of the qualities the founding fathers had was curiosity and a love for intellectual development and study. The talent that existed among those who founded this nation is something that could, even today, help rekindle a national passion for learning, innovation, and creativity. The need for such a rekindling is becoming ever more crucial because of the importance of knowledge and innovation in a global economy.

Inspiring students to be creative, analytical, and resourceful in their thinking will likely have many other effects. The cost of retention and social promotion policies includes high unemployment rates, reliance on public benefits, high dropout rates, and many social and emotional issues that manifest as problems of self-esteem. Creating a passion and a capacity for learning would help to teach American students to take care of themselves, boosting their self-esteem.

A characteristic of our times is that new ideas and new technologies are rapidly making old systems obsolete. Depending on the quality of his or her education, this can either be depressing or an inspirational challenge to the American worker. An individual who has enjoyed a high-quality and inspiring education that fosters critical thinking and an appreciation of knowledge will be able to overcome the challenges of a global marketplace instead of being left behind by change.

An interesting application of this notion is offered in a report on the knowledge economy itself. Powell and Snellman suggest that the modern automobile is becoming less of a dumb collection of nuts and bolts and more of a smart machine that applies computer technology to improve safety, economy, and environmental friendliness at the same time as it provides more entertainment and better automotive performance. Although the technology that supported the initial development of the car, the innovations of Henry Ford and the pioneers of the assembly line, are now almost entirely obsolete, innovations are rapidly transforming a relatively limited piece of technology into a sophisticated product with multiple functions.

The innovators of the future will be those who can take existing products and transform them into something so new as to be almost unrecognizable. This is abundantly clear with the car and numerous other products, like cell phones or computers. Ultimately, the American education system should be focused on preparing Americans to be capable of this order of innovation. Even within the education system itself, we should be striving to do more with the resources that are already available, becoming more efficient and aiming for a higher purpose.

June 20, 2018

Pass or Fail: Multiple Assessments to Determine True Learning

When it comes to getting rid of our current pass-fail system, I have developed six strategies (click to see them all). Developing a system with varied assessments is one of those points.

Many educators view standardized testing as a necessary evil, and some see it as a completely useless process that never reflects what students know. Proponents of K-12 assessments, on the other hand, contend that there is no adequate way to enforce educator accountability without them.

The majority of states and school districts rely on large-scale assessments when it comes to student grade progression, but this should only be a small piece of a larger analysis of individual students. Multiple sources of information about a student should be used in determining his or her readiness for the next grade, and teachers should make use of them.

Compared to the first two stages of change, the idea of creating multiple assessment measures is very easy. To some extent, public schools already make use of multiple assessment measures. For instance, multiple assessment measures are standard for students with IEPs, and IEPs are not usually changed without making reference to multiple assessment measures. The real key to implementing this stage is not so much the employment of multiple measures as it is the actual selection of those measures and the way they should be administered and interpreted.

The use of multiple assessments including some that do not entail tests makes allowance for that considerable proportion of the student body that does not perform well on tests. Multiple assessments also allow for the possibility that a student simply had a bad day on the day of the test. Finally, the inclusion of some assessment elements that do not consist of a rigid, multiple-choice tests reduces the likelihood of students “overthinking” higher-level questions, and inadvertently providing the right answer to the wrong question.

A combination of assessments is best both for simple assessment of learning and for making decisions about retention. The decision to hold a student back, if made at all, should be made on the basis of multiple measures of performance, and never strictly by a standardized test.

June 12, 2018

Pass or Fail: Rewriting Standards to Eradicate Pass-Fail Strategies

When it comes to getting rid of our current pass-fail system, I have developed six strategies (click to see them all). The first is new standards that pull away from pass-fail initiatives to a better outcome for students.

Clear standards must guide the actions of all stakeholders in the education process. Administrators need clear standards to support policy decisions, just as teachers require a clear description of what they must teach, how they must teach it, and how they must assess their students’ learning. Students also need to know what they must learn and do to demonstrate their learning in an assessment process that does not entail the rigid standardization so characteristic of today’s tests. At some point in their K-12 career, students need to learn how to support themselves or seek out additional support from the school system when they encounter difficulties.

An emphasis on standards in the comprehensive sense advocated here can help to solve many of the existing problems in the K-12 system. As part of a broader strategy, an emphasis on standards can also help to ensure that all key players are on the same page. The ultimate vision is to provide a quality education that prepares students for college and high-level careers. Over the short term, the goal is to ensure students have ample opportunity to achieve success throughout their K-12 school career and to demonstrate their learning by making use of an assessment procedure that suits their temperament and accurately reflects their accomplishments. Clear and comprehensive standards provide a clear pathway to success as well as access to learning resources of proven efficacy.

These standards are needed before any shift away from the pass-fail mentality is possible and the time to start writing them is now.

June 8, 2018

Pass or Fail: A New Plan for K-12 Success

The practice of passing students to the next grade or holding them back is nothing new. In the often cut-and-dry world of K-12 academics, the fate of a student is based on a shockingly unsophisticated system. The K-12 system seems to be oblivious or indifferent to the impact this pass/fail system has on the lives of the children it affects. Even though all available indices show they are the worse for it, students continue to be promoted by age with no concern for subject mastery or held back regardless of age when metrics are not met. Such irrationality demands an explanation. 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?

Although this series is about the evolution of pass-fail systems in our schools, it does more than summarize the evolution of retention and social promotion in the American public education system. It’s more important message is a description of the benefits of individualized learning and an explanation of why so many Americans are oblivious to them. The sad truth is that neither retention nor social promotion have been thought out. They were both simply allowed to happen, paths of least resistance on the journey from the one-room schoolhouse of the historical past to the high pressure, the age-grade system of today.

After critiquing the current pass-fail system, this series goes on to describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively. Modified standards, better teacher training, multiple approaches to assessment and a whole new outlook on K-12 classroom design are just a few of the points emphasized and encouraged in the latter half of the series. Replacing the pass-fail system with something equally rigid and simplistic will not improve the public education system in any meaningful way. What is needed is an entirely new approach that is thoughtfully assembled, piece by piece, from the ground up.

The American education system started with the iconic one-room schoolhouse, where students of all ages learned together in a common room. While quaint by today’s sophisticated standards, those rooms did, in fact, represent great educational equalizers. In this light, it is once again important to remind ourselves why they were replaced by a more rigorous, age-based system.

The statistics show a steeply rising trend in both social promotion and retention over time. Clearly, these facts show that the underlying causes of poor academic performance have simply been papered over with reflexive pass-fail standards. Pass-fail systems have been in place for decades without ever being subjected to serious review. What would the K-12 system look like if these policies were eliminated? If retention and social promotion are truly designed to help the individual student, why are students doing so poorly?

This series attempts to answer these questions by examining the actual impact of pass-fail strategies and the harm they do to individual students, their communities, and the U.S. workforce. Unemployment and public assistance is especially prevalent among high school dropouts, who are disproportionately comprised of students who were socially promoted or held back.

This series starts with the admission of failure for the existing K-12 system and moves on to describe and promote concrete alternatives to retention and social promotion. Many of these alternatives consist of various types of targeted intervention for struggling students. Special attention has been given to realistic, cost-effective interventions that can be implemented in public schools with minimal disruption to other students.

To transform the U.S. K-12 system from its current reliance on a pass-fail system will require the integrated implementation of all of the strategies I advocate in this blog series. The solution must be as multi-faceted as the problem.

In light of the multiple problems affecting the K-12 system, I encourage the reader to consider a six-point strategy for eliminating the pass-fail system and for qualitatively improving the efficacy of the U.S. public education system. Click here to see those points.

May 25, 2018

Pass or Fail: Hiring Qualified Teachers to Reduce the Need for Pass-Fail Systems

When it comes to getting rid of our current pass-fail system, I have developed six strategies (click to see them all). Hiring qualified teachers who know how to reduce the retention and social promotion rates through pedagogy is one of those points.

Research continues to show that good teachers are the single most effective factor in student success. Unfortunately, not all teachers are adequately prepared to address the rising standards of education in the modern world. The problem lies not so much with the teachers themselves as it does with their lack of training and their lack of access to teaching resources. To avoid both retention and social promotion, teachers must be better prepared. Moreover, they must expect to continue to prepare themselves throughout their careers.

Because the hiring of quality teachers is the second step outlined in our program for change, it is particularly important that the time frame for educational transition be a prominent element of the reform process. On the surface, the hiring of “qualified” and “competent” teachers seems easy enough and should be something that schools are already doing. The problem is that the hiring – and retention – of teachers reflects the standards of a dysfunctional system. While it is probably too harsh to say that schools have no-one to blame but themselves for the teachers they now have, it is certainly true that the effectiveness of teachers in the U.S. public school system is unlikely to improve until hiring standards are revised to reflect the requirements of multiage classrooms, individual interventions, alternative assessment procedures, and other elements of individual-based education. Moreover, schools must be prepared to implement retraining programs for teachers who were selected on the basis of existing pass-fail, age-graded standards. It is not enough, or even fair, simply round up anyone suspected of incompetence.

It stands to reason that if students are changing, teachers need to change too. More specifically, the education that teachers receive needs to be modified to meet the needs of modern K–12 classrooms. There are policy and practice changes taking place all over the world – many driven by teachers – that address the cultural shifts in the classroom. Some of the more promising recent developments in the educational world include the following items:

Subject-specific recruiting by colleges and universities. The book Teaching 2030, written by 13 experts in K-12 classroom pedagogy, calls for education schools to stop admitting anyone so long as they have some education major. Instead, the experts suggest that colleges become more selective to meet the actual needs of today’s students. Young people who want to teach in high-demand subject areas like mathematics, bilingual education, the physical sciences and special education should be given a higher priority by admissions boards of teaching colleges. Such a needs-based philosophy addresses actual voids in the industry and produces teachers who are better equipped to meet students’ needs.

Virtual learning options. Although online college courses have been around for years, K-12 education has also begun to provide distance learning options for students in some areas. During the 2010-2011 school year, 1.8 million students in grades K-12 were enrolled in some distance learning program. That is up from just 50,000 in the 2000-2001 school year, according to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning. This is a trend that teachers-to-be simply cannot ignore. Virtual learning is not reserved only for those who can afford it; 40 U.S. states have state-run online programs, and 30 of those states provide statewide, full-time K-12 schools online. The University of Central Florida is one of the only schools to offer a virtual-school emphasis for education majors that lets students apprentice with Florida Virtual School instructors.

Public education in America needs teachers who are better trained to meet the needs of specific student populations, who understand the necessary role of distance learning, and who are willing to speak up for making real change in the classroom. Without such teachers, it is unlikely that social promotion and retention can be replaced by individual-based learning.

July 1, 2017

Pass or Fail: Intervention, Early and Often

When it comes to getting rid of our current pass-fail system, I have developed six strategies (click to see them all). The last strategy is the provision of intervention opportunities.

Under this program, assessments, as well as many other indicators, would trigger one or more remedial interventions. To implement this strategy teachers need clear-cut ways to identify a child who needs extra help, as well as the knowledge and training to be able to make use of the extra resources required. There is strong evidence that such intervention programs can prevent more serious academic problems from occurring in later grades.

A system for intervening early and often has already established to some extent. Across the country, there are already many school districts that make employ early-intervention services, including intermediate unit support systems, early childhood support systems and, of course, school-aged support systems that help children in school as early as the first time a child walks through the school door.

The changes needed to promote intervention are like those we have already suggested for improving teacher quality: measures that intensify policies and procedures that have worked well in the past, perhaps modifying them somewhat to meet specific, contextual requirements.

Research has overwhelmingly supported the notion that early intervention – and the earlier, the better – is truly the key to helping students achieve school-readiness and to developing strategies for success. The early-intervention model proposed in this book not only embraces that principle but seeks to celebrate it as a focus of collaboration between those responsible for the early interventions (preschool-age interventions) and the schools, which take charge as a child transitions to school-age programming.

Promoting collaboration as well as early and frequent interventions is a strategy that seeks to build community support for education, and for public education specifically. It seeks to emphasize the need for support across all settings and the benefits of a comprehensive support model. The strategy seeks to eliminate the need for children to be segregated based on special needs. Rather, the only segregation or streaming allowed in education should be based on academic abilities and learning preferences. Schools can easily support the streaming of groups with certain abilities without having to target students with special needs.

The proposed model of frequent and intensive interventions, especially in the early years, allows for a broad, quality education that addresses far more than performance on tests. If the goal is truly to prepare students for a lifetime of learning, the emphasis on early education, in particular, should be more on the acquisition of learning skills than on the on the accumulation of knowledge. The primary goal of K-12 education really ought to be the development of the ability to think critically and to learn how to function effectively within a school environment.