Chicago is "moderating" its grade retention plan:
The city's school board voted unanimously to reduce the number of elementary students forced to repeat a grade, eight years after officials vowed not to advance failing students. Among the changes, students will no longer be held back based solely on math scores, and students won't repeat a grade more than once.
So, students who are bad at math will just continue to be passed on up the line? And students who do not benefit from an extra year spent in one grade will be promoted regardless? Sounds like a recipe for success to me!
School system chief Arne Duncan said the changes will put a "laser-light focus" on reading skills and offer more and earlier help to children in danger of failing.
There's nothing wrong with concentrating on those skills, and offering kids help earlier. But it's hard not to think that Chicago is panicking after discovering how many third-graders in NYC faced being held back. Chicago doesn't want to see those numbers - but if they have a plan in place to really help students, the rule about not holding a kid back more than once would seem to be superfluous.
As in the past, children will still be forced to repeat a grade if their scores on standardized reading tests fall below a certain level or they have a failing grade in reading _ unless they successfully complete summer school and meet other requirements...
Some of the parts of the policy have already been put into practice. For instance, during the 2002-03 school year, students were allowed to offset a marginal score on standardized math tests with good grades, conduct and attendance.
I hope Chicago is monitoring the number of diligent kids with good math grades who are nonetheless failing the standardized test in math. That's very useful data that will suggest, if there are many students in this category, that either the grades or the test scores are inaccurate.
Posted by kswygert at March 25, 2004 12:18 PM