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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Umm, as it stands now it is illegal to flunk students who are not in 3rd, 5th, or 8th grade in DCPS from what I recall and then DCPS can only hold them back once I believe :roll:  cantania is proposing ending social promotion which I am in favor of. Struggling students need intensive remediation which cannot be done in a normal classroom in most cases.

I agree that 9th grade is too late to identify struggling students. it is shameful that DCPS socially promotes children on to ultimate failure. These children need help and not social promotion.[/quote]

The problem that no-one here is acknowledging, is that the only option with worse outcomes than social promotion, is holding kids back.  Obviously they need remediation, and obviously it should be identified before 9th grade, but according to the research holding kids back beyond 2nd grade has worse results than social promotion.

Yes, it sounds like a simple solution, implement it and problem solved, but it's not that simple after all.[/quote]

I do not buy it that social promotion is better since DC has a drop out rate of about 40% and then how many of the so-called graduates from DCPS graduate essentially illiterate and unable to do basic math??? You call that a good outcome??? :roll:

Obviously I am all for early identification and remediation, in separate classrooms when needed,  of struggling students. I am also for mandatory summer school for struggling students as well and Saturday school and tutoring as well. I do think that keeping students behind a grade should be a part of the tool box as well when all of these other measures are tried as well.[/quote]

It's not a matter of "buying" anything.  Research has demonstrated over and over again, that students who are held back after 2nd grade, are more likely to drop out, and are less likely to leave skills with functional literacy and math.  It simply doesn't work.

Suggesting that the school system address a problem by adopting something that has been demonstrated, over and over again, to CAUSE the problem is like saying "Lung cancer is a huge problem.  We have to do something.  Let's go out and increase smoking rates, maybe we could teach classes about how to smoke in the elementary schools".  [/quote]

I think cause and effect are being confused.  I'd wager that those who dropped out after being held back after 2nd grade would have dropped out regardless of being held back or not.  Also not addressed by that statement is what was done when they were held back...  if they were simply subjected to another round of the exact same teaching methods and approach that didn't work the first time around, it's not likely that it would have worked the second time either.[/quote]

Actually, educational researchers are more capable than giving them credit.  This is an issue that has been looked at from many different angles.  For example, you can control for student academic levels, you can compare groups of students from different cohorts who are subjected to different retention policies (e.g. looking at drop out rates X number of years after a school or school system implements policies that change the number of 3rd graders retained.  etc . . . However you slice it the pattern remains.  Retaining an elementary school student increases the likelihood of negative outcomes for a 2nd to 8th grader relative to the likelihood of negative outcomes for that same student (with the same background, academic skills, parental involvement, etc . . . ) if passed on to the next grade.
[/quote]

How can one actually have objective apples-to-apples comparisons?  I suspect it's anecdotal and piecemeal information as opposed to an objective study.  And no, I don't particularly have a great deal of faith in educational researchers given the many hare-brained and counterproductive things that have come out of the educational community in the last several decades.  Schools with different retention policies may well also have different demographics and socioeconomics, different levels of academic robustness, differing means of assessing students, different levels of grade inflation and many other things - has there actually been a study within the SAME school and SAME demographic mix where multiple cohorts eligible for retention were separated into groups via random selection,  where some were retained and some were not, and with a subsequent longitudinal study of how they did?  And additionally, did anyone actually look at how the group retained was dealt with?  Were they just taught using the same approach and method that failed the first time around or did they do anything different?   You really didn't answer any of my questions other than to just suggest "oh, have faith in educational researchers."  Can't have faith in them without knowing the details.[/quote]

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