Reply to Lack of Social Promotion at BASIS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just to expose people to some thoughts (and research!) on the subject of retention, check out this article:

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar08/vol65/num06/Grade-Retention.aspx

Early and steady intervention is the key to success here. That may mean longer days and summer academic programs.[/quote]

It is interesting that the studies seem focused exclusively on the educational and social impact of a policy of retention on the retained student.  Perhaps I was not reading carefully, but I saw no mention of studies gauging the impact of a policy of retention on the retained student's peers.

When a student is retained, not only does he get a second chance to master the material he is having trouble with, but his peers get a chance to advance to more challenging material without the burden of devoting class time to remediation.

[b]It is difficult enough to teach Algebra II to a group of students who have mastered Algebra I.  It is much more difficult to do so if you must devote precious instruction time to repeating concepts from Algebra I or Pre-Algebra to those students who were promoted socially.  How do you teach a child to factor polynomials when he has trouble factoring integers?[/b]

What do the children who mastered the material do while the teacher provides remedial instruction to those that did not?  Twiddle their thumbs?  Is that their reward for having studied hard the previous year?

Exactly.  BASIS DC is not a magnet school.  Anyone can be admitted there, so there will be all levels of students, anyone from below basic to advanced.  I keep wondering how they are going to maintain their high achieving rate with under performing students.  Somehow those parents think that their kids are not at the right school; if they move their kids to a high achieving school then their kids will do much better.  While it may be true in some aspects, I don't think the school makes a student better achiever.

I wonder how BASIS is going to persuade you to leave if your student isn't up to speed.

[/quote][/quote]

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