Ever since the Nov. 3 election the Knight has really been on his high horse. Encouraged by the success of several progressive programs in the election, he has been bugging the Apprentice to finish remodelling the castle - now a month late because of high wind, hail, and laziness - and get to work on updating the website with two new (to him) proposals for reforming public education. Actually, the first of the Knight's ideas has been recently resurrected by reactionary activists, including Bill Sizemore.
"Social promotion" is the old-fashioned name given to the practice of passing students on from grade to grade, despite their having failed to master the skills appropriate to the lower grade level. Controversy over practice of social promotion in public schools died down in the 1950's as WWII vets led the parade of marginal high school grads into college under the GI Bill. Since then the "dumbing down" of standards has made holding students back almost unknown except for those rare cases where the parent(s) are in favor of their student repeating a year.
Passing a child on after third grade who has not yet mastered the skills required for at least marginal success in the following grade is doing the student no favor. Without the necessary preparation, continued difficulty is sure to follow and get worse as the classwork gets more complex. Of course, appropriate accomodations are required for students with certified learning disabilities.
Retention should not be regarded as primarily a disciplinary measure. For this reason, stigmatizing retained students should be avoided. For some students, repeating a grade will be a welcome chance to catch up; for some the separation from peers will be painful. The disciplinary benefit of the policy will result from potential disruptors seeing how certain fellow students fell behind in their studies because of misbehavior and inattention and were retained.
The responsibility for deciding whether a student has achieved a passing level falls primarily on the individual teacher(s) who have worked with the student during the school year. In many instances the decision to retain a student can be expected to be controversial, with parents pressing administrators to override the teachers' decision. In such cases there needs to be a review process involving previous teachers and counselors and administrators with personal experience dealing with the student.
Unfortunately, the 1997 Oregon Legislature increased the risks to teachers who would instigate retentions . The "Accountability for Schools for the 21st Century" Law very considerably reduces teachers'job security by repealing the Fair Dismissal Law, which protected teachers from arbitrary firing. Republicans and the press referred to the evidentiary requirements of the Fair Dismissal Law as teachers' "tenure." But in such controversial situations as involuntary retentions, the lack of fair dismissal protections leaves teachers vulnerable to retaliation by parents who are able to influence school administrators or school board members.
An additional consideration is that few teachers and administrators look forward to having responsibility for a particularly difficult student for an added second (or third) year. Moreover, requiremments for accountability from non-educator politicians focus on student scores on standardized tests. Retaining the lowest-performing pupils obviously lowers a school's overall performance marks.
The Knight's second proposal concerns student discipline. The Oregonian article "Disruptive students strain schools," Dec. 11, 1998, by Michael A.W.Ottey, describes a 50% increase in the number of disruptive students being reported by teachers between 1991 and 1994. The article quotes figures indicating disruptive students waste a great deal of teachers' time, to the detriment of the other students. Parental involvement in students' education declined over the same time period. There is controversy among educators over how important parental involvement is. Some studies find involved parents to be one of the most effective sources of motivation and discipline for students with attendance and behavioral problems. Other educators are reluctant to make demands on parents for fear of generating resentment .
The knight's answer is to authorize a disciplinary services fee to be paid by parents of students whose misbehavior requires excessive monitoring by staff, teachers, and administrators. The fee should be waived by the principal in cases where parents cooperate with teachers and administrators and take an active part in a plan to correct the misbehavior. Initially the fee need not be more than a few dollars, increasing gradually. Even if it costs more to enforce the fee than the amount collected, to the extent it succeeds in involving disengaged parents in the effort to straighten out their students, it will be a good investment.