Orange County (FL) may shock some parents this spring, as the movement to end social promotion gains steam:
Educators are prepared to hold back more than double the usual number of students as the district launches a policy tying promotions in grades three to eight to scores on the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. The new policy puts Florida's fifth-largest school district in the middle of one of the most contentious debates in public education: Should struggling students be moved along with youngsters their own age or be made to repeat the grade they didn't master the first time?
School systems across the nation have cracked down on social promotion in recent years, making standardized-test scores the key to advancement to higher grades. Florida joined those ranks two years ago when it made passing FCAT reading a requirement to move to fourth grade.
At least one recent study claims that retaining students (and giving them extensive lessons) helps them perform better within a year.
Some researchers think, however, that these retention rules do little to help children and can harm them academically and emotionally. Orange's new rule already has some parents worried.
"I don't think they should keep them back because of that one test. I really think that's unfair," said Dennis Hamilton, whose two daughters attend Pine Hills Elementary in Orlando. Hamilton's girls, now in fourth and fifth grades, have passed the FCAT previously, he said, so he would be "highly upset" if they falter this year and anyone mentions holding them back.
Understandable. On the other hand, it sounds like he's happy with the fact that they passed in the past, which suggests that he believes the exam measures something worthwhile. If, all of a sudden, his daughters failed, couldn't one reason be that their current teachers aren't cutting the mustard? Wouldn't he want to know that?
It sounds like Florida education officials certainly want to know that:
In the view of Florida's education officials, who have been rallying against social promotion, the 17,151 students who failed but moved on were socially promoted and, perhaps, doomed to failure.
"Nobody wants 15-year-olds in a third-grade classroom," but struggling children have no chance if they're moved on, said Mary Laura Openshaw, a former high-school teacher in Texas and Mississippi who oversees Just Read, Florida!, Gov. Jeb Bush's statewide reading initiative. "Even the best-trained reading teacher cannot move a ninth-grader who is reading at a sixth-grade level up to proficiency," she said. "I taught too many kids in high school who had no chance of success."
Posted by kswygert at January 26, 2005 09:55 AM