Social Promotion

I was reading the New York Times (online), when I found an interesting article underneath the education tab. It was an article about Mayor Bloomberg (of New York) and his plan to stop low-performing (students who scored poorly on standardized tests) 4th and 6th graders from moving on to the next grade. Hmmm....

I wanted to know more about what was going on in New York, so I decided to read the article and share the knowledge here, online.

In the New York School system, apparently they followed a policy known as "Social Promotion." Down below is a direct quote of what Social Promotion is (so you here it from the horses mouth and not my own):

"Previously, under a policy known as social promotion, school officials gave a pass to low-performing students under the belief that they would be more likely to drop out if they were held back and separated from children their own age."
At an East Harlem elementary school on Monday, Mr. Bloomberg said social promotion was “as cruel and mean a thing as we could possibly do for any student.”
“All we’re doing is setting those students up for failure,” he said. “We are not going to do that.”

Unfortunately, there is no hard, concrete evidence that the end of Social Promotion and the establishment of harder restrictions has been helping students. Less students are being heldback anyways thanks to rising test scores since Bloomberg's reign in office. Plus, Here are some statistics from the article: The city’s Department of Education said that 94 percent of low-performing students who were held back in the seventh grade earned a Level 2 (out of 4) or higher on their eighth-grade English tests. By contrast, 59 percent of those low-performing students who were promoted to the next grade reached that level.

So the final question of the day is, "Was/Is Social Promotion harmful or beneficial to our students?"

hmmmm....

Only time and real concrete evidence will tell.

In His Everlasting Love,

Nicole