The New York DOE is aiming to stop social promotion for seventh-graders:
Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Monday that, like third and fifth-graders, seventh-graders will now have to pass citywide standardized reading and math tests to move on to the next grade.Students who fail either or both of the exams can go to summer school and retake them. If they still don't pass, there's also an appeals process that may allow them to move on to the next grade.
“We’re not going to put any of our students on that trajectory to failure any longer,” said Bloomberg. “Improving students’ performance in the seventh grade will strengthen their possibilities of getting into the high schools they want, and it will give them a foundation in the fundamentals of reading, writing and math that they will need for success in eighth grade, in high school, and most importantly, in life.”
Astonishingly, there's nary an unsupported "Critics say..." comment countering Bloomberg's plan in the entire article, but I'm sure that's just an oversight. Future articles are sure to contain such arguments, in which critics claim that it's far more damaging for a child to repeat seventh grade than to be promoted to high school while practically illiterate.
That much said, there's certainly an argument to be made that retention should not be made on the basis of a single exam. However, multiple retakes, summer school, and a appeals process are available.
Posted by kswygert at July 18, 2005 12:46 PM