Reply to Arguments in favor of giving kids passing grades even when they don't know the material?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There is a worry that having kids repeat a grade increases the chance they will drop out before they graduate [/quote]

I think this argument makes sense if there is then a concentrated effort to get the child up to grade standard in the following year.  But just passing them along is tragic.  I recall when I was in college in the 90s and taking a class on education policy reading a piece in which a mother who was SO PROUD her child was graduating HS—first in the family to do so—only to feel utterly betrayed when she realized he still could not read.   She had no idea he had just been passed along.  That’s the sort of policy that does lead to intergenerational poverty.  But sadly we don’t put the resources into schools to fix this.  There should be basically a whole shadow program specifically devoted to coaching kids who failed to meet grade standards the previous year.

But it should also be noted that sometimes it is the assessments that are lousy.  For the past several years, Maryland has used an assessment that is poorly written and not well tailored to the curriculum.  My kids who are extremely advanced and know the material beyond well, meet the standards, but typically don’t show as exceeds standards.  I know the kids at bend school pretty well and the rate at which kids are failing to meet standards under this test does not reflect the reality of where those kids are.  So the awful tests make the situation look even worse than it is. [/quote]

That is parent failure as well. More so, because it is HER kid.  She never read a book to her child in 18 yrs? Never had him read to her? [/quote]

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