Re: Request for Information

[Susan Smethurst <cvpsn222@IDIRECT.CA>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Susan Ohanian <SOhan70241@AOL.COM>

> Hello,
>    I have been asked to write a short op-ed piece on social promotion. I
> would appreciate any stories, statistics, etc. you'd care to offer. I am
> especially interested in the social promotion policies of other nations.

Here's some information from the frozen North <G>. I didn't name the
province where social promotion was not the norm, but I can provide you
privately with more information if you wish. Currently most Canadian schools
systems provide some sort of social promotion, as (among other things) they
lack programs (or enforceable legislation)  for special needs kids, and
moving kids along tends to defuse the situation. I posted the following to a
Canadian e-mail forum when a subscriber asked about the issue. Here it is:

The difficulty with ending social promotion lies in providing effective
interventions for those students to achieve successfully. Whether "booster"
classes, summer programs, special transition schools, tutorial help in the
primary grades, all are*VERY* expensive initiatives. Without
well-thought-out and effective alternatives for children who do not pass,
ending social promotion will only mean hulking adolescents and pregnant
girls in Grade 3. I taught in a province where there was no social
promotion -- even kindergarten children had to pass an exam to go to Grade
1 -- and the end result was classrooms stuffed with overaged and hostile
students. In that particular community, only 4% of the students entering
kindergarten completed high school, and fewer than 45% completed Grade 6. My
Grade 4 class had several 15-year-olds, many more 14-, 13- and 12-year olds,
and only 8 of 42 students who were the average age for the grade.  This
isn't the kind of quantum leap in quality education that people want to see
in Ontario, I'd be willing to bet.

Historically, making students "repeat" grades has not led to improved
achievement, even when it is done early in their school career.  I was
flabbergasted to learn that  a student who repeats a grade and receives
assistance makes LESS long-term progress than a student who is "socially
promoted" with NO intervention!  The factors involved appear to be complex
but there are few issues on which the research evidence is more unambiguous:
grade retention doesn't work.   That's not to say that "social promotion"
works either, but a solution to the problem has not yet been found, although
some creative and innovative efforts have been promising. They are costly,
however, and when budget cutbacks come and the support services are
eliminated, achievement drops back again and all gains disappear. I do not
hear any talk in the current climate about making the necessary investment
to ensure academic success for all students, so it is unlikely that
effective interventions, tutorial programs, preschool and summer boosters,
are "in the works" to enable schools to dispense with moving students along
with their peer group.

There's a large body of research and discussion on this topic on the 'net.
Here's a good one from a recent Educational Leadership: "Grade Retention: A
History of Failure " It starts "A long trail of research tells us that
retention is not the route to take in our efforts to improve student
achievement. .." and can be found at
http://www.ascd.org/pubs/el/sep98/owings.html. A more anecdotal account with
a good presentation of the issues is  "Student retention:Trying to succeed
where others failed" at http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/04-98/048main.htm.
Last summer, School Administrator magazine devoted a whole issue to the
subject, and several of the articles are in the online edition at
http://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdmin/SAMAUG98.htm. Here's a discussion about ways
to balance standards and students support at the school level:" EVERYBODY
HAS TO GET IT:
Extra Help and Support to "Meet Standards" at
http://www.middleweb.com/WhlckReten.html. There's also a substantial list of
links to U.S. newsarticles relating to the social promotion debate on this
site: http://www.middleweb.com/Newswatch.html#anchor10337544. Just scroll
halfway down the page to "Promotion Standards" and browse to your heart's
content!

Coming from a middle school where substantial numbers of students are
significantly below level in all subject areas, I have to shake my head in
cynical amusement at much of the hoopla about "standards," "improvement" and
the like. Unlike a previous poster, I do not for one moment believe that we
can teach these students to read and write effectively without the necessary
tools: books, paper, pencils. A chalkboard and chalk are NOT sufficient and
even so the chalkboards in the school are in such terrible disrepair as to
be nearly useless. Forget computers -- we don't have them, but they aren't
the problem. If there were a REAL commitment to student learning by the
authorities at all levels, this school -- and others like it across
Ontario -- would not *be* in this condition. By their fruits you shall know
them. Which is why we have yet to see the sea-change needed to ensure REAL
effective educational opportunity for ALL our students.

Susan Smethurst
Freelton, Ontario

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