Social promotion, the practice of keeping students with their peer group even if their academic achievement doesn’t warrant passing to the next grade, is a well-meaning but flawed policy. Social promotion strives to preserve the self-esteem of failing students at the expense of their education. It is clear that we aren’t doing our students any favors by passing them to the next grade completely unprepared, yet policies to end social promotion must also be accompanied by the recognition that it will take much effort and many resources to help those students who do not meet standards. Failing to take responsibility for the education of all children in our society, including failure to provide opportunity to underachieving students, holds grave consequences. With this outlook, Governor Susana Martinez proposes to end social promotion in New Mexico classrooms and help struggling students make academic gains.
During her campaign Governor Martinez spoke out on social promotion: “When doing anything substantive or meaningful in life, the foundation one puts in place is critical to long term success…every year in the classroom – from pre-kindergarten through high school – builds on learned subject matter and experiences.” It is clear that passing students from grade to grade regardless of their achievement undermines education as a whole by stripping these students of the opportunity to create a solid base for their future. According to the US Department of Education, “More than half of teachers surveyed in a recent poll stated that they had promoted unprepared students in the last school year, often because they see no alternative. Research indicates that from 10 to 15 percent of young adults who graduate from high school and have not gone further--up to 340,000 high school graduates each year--cannot balance a checkbook or write a letter to a credit card company to explain an error on a bill.”
The Southwest Learning Centers do not practice social promotion and have long advocatd for teh elimination of social promotion throughout New Mexico's schools. For example, the Southwest Secondary Learning Center high school curriculum does not allow a student to move forward until they have mastered a concept. Each lesson in the curriculum includes an in-depth lecture, a vocabulary assignment, and a homework assignment. Students must complete the assignments and lecture successfully before attempting to take a short assessment on the topic. A student must earn a grade of 70% - 80% to pass the topic. Otherwise, instruction and additional practice is assigned by the teacher to insure the student has mastered the concept and not just accumulated seat time for the purpose of meeting an arbitrary, state-assigned goal. If a student is not able to pass the assessment, they receive individualized, one-on-one help from an instructor. After completing extra homework or reviewing the lecture, the quiz can be attempted again, usually with much more success. This approach to learning helps students who would normally fall behind. This approach also works very well for students that are normally bored in a traditional classroom setting. Very motivated, high-achieving students are able to work at their own pace and get extra explanation and help as needed. Students who would normally fall behind are able to get the extra attention and assistance required to move to grade-level or ahead.
We invite your comments and suggestions.
Social promotion is really just a coping mechanism the schools have adopted to avoid doing the hard work of teaching all the children. Some kids do need more attention and help to succeed and that costs more money than just passing them on.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with social promotion. In fact, I had never heard of it until I moved here. I grew up in a small Texas town where the principal paddled your behind if you broke the rules and students did not move to the next grade if they did not master the content taught. I had friends who were held back because they did not master the content and make passing grades. There were no discussions, no complaints, that is just the way it was. I think that holding students accountable for the information that needs to be learned teaches them pride and self-confidence. Moving students along without any reward leads them to believe that all things in life are easy; they do not have to work for anything. Children need to learn that they need to take responsibility for themselves. Making them stay in school and learn teaches them this responsibility and makes students more responsible, accountable citizens of our state.
ReplyDeleteI can see that there is a fine line between social promotion and retention. On one hand, it is appalling that students are promoted from grade to grade without mastering the very basics. On the other hand, it is very harmful to hold a student back a grade without making any change to the way they are taught the material. I mean, obviously, it didn't work the first time. Teachers need more freedom to be creative in the way they teach and we need more innovative programs like those seen at Southwest Secondary Learning Center to reach a wide variety of kids with diverse learning styles.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Pete I also find it appalling that teachers are passing students without mastering the skills for that grade level or class. How can keeping students with their peer group even if their academic achievement doesn’t warrant passing to the next grade, and be expected to be successful in the next grade level without those basic skills? They can’t be successful because they need those skills in order to understand the new material: For example if a student who does not pass 8th grade math but because of social promotion was passed anyway, and they don’t know how to use or understand the concept of order of operations how are they going to be able to pass Algebra in 9th grade without that skill? Social promotion is just setting students up to fail letting them pass without learning anything is going to hurt them more than holding them back a year.
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