WASHINGTON (By Jonathan Darman, Newsweek) March 21, 2004 - New York City third graders already have a host of authority figures to answer to when they perform poorly in school—teachers, principals, parents. Now another adult wants to have his say: Mayor Michael Bloomberg. With dramatic flourish uncharacteristic for the low-key “Mayor Mike,” Bloomberg this week rammed through an eyebrow-raising policy that would stop social promotion in the third grade, forcing students to repeat the year if they perform below a minimum level on standardized tests. Some say the mayor’s new policy shows just how serious he is about fixing the Big Apple’s flailing schools. Others think holding kids back unfairly targets children when the system itself is to blame.

 

But while Bloomberg may be catching heat right now over the issue, he’s not the only politician to come out swinging against schools that promote kids for social reasons. In recent years, school districts across the country have introduced new standards for grade advancement, holding back children who can’t demonstrate adequate proficiency in reading and math. The immediate results are often dramatic: in large cities like Chicago, nearly half the public school population has been shipped off to summer school in order to advance to the next grade. Less clear, however, is how successful prohibiting social promotion will be in the long term. After all, there’s no guarantee that being held back makes a third grader any more likely to be able to read.

 

Richard Riley has spent a good deal of time thinking about the problem of social promotion. Former U.S. secretary of Education Riley came out in favor of federal policies aimed at stopping the advancement of students regardless of their performance in reading and math. He recoils, however, at the notion that you can help students by merely holding them back. From his office in South Carolina, Riley told NEWSWEEK’s Jonathan Darman that politicians have to match tough social-promotion policies with a serious commitment to fixing schools. Excerpts:

 

NEWSWEEK: Why is it advantageous for a school system to have a strict policy against social promotion?
 

Richard Riley: The advantages are that it brings attention to the fact that you’re not giving up on a child and that achievement levels at certain grades are very important.

 

But if you’re saying a child doesn’t get to advance to the next grade level couldn’t that be interpreted as giving up on a child?
 

We realized that just passing children along without reaching certain achievement levels or standards was not the way to go and that was really just giving up on a child … However, before you have a policy of holding a child back you need to look at several factors, and we always listed those before we raised the issue of social promotion.

What were those factors?

Expanding preschool opportunities, a realization that a lot of children come to [kindergarten with diminished opportunities] in terms of education and poverty and so forth, smaller classes, an emphasis on reading. Our goal was that all children should be able to read independently by the third grade, and is consistent with that. And parental involvement is a key part of it—for some kids, that’s a key part of it, other kids, unfortunately don’t have the benefit of parents who are capable, able to help them … Those are the kinds of things that we said.

Do you think it’s more important for schools to focus on those things than to have strict policies against social promotion?

The idea of holding a child back is not what we favored. We favored a policy for enabling a child to pass, to move forward—not social promotion, but to move forward based on the education system’s ability to teach the child.

But if a school system doesn’t address all the factors you just mentioned, is it unfair for that school system to have a strict policy saying students have to perform at a certain standard if they want to advance to the next grade level?

If they’re not there, and for children who have not developed and who are struggling, any policy is wrong. In other words, it’s wrong to socially promote them and say, "Just go on through." That’s not good. It is also wrong to hold them back because it’s not their fault, and holding them back doesn’t do any good unless you’re putting extra services in there to help them develop achievement levels. Reading independently by the end of the third grade is exactly the right message to the system, but you have to start early. Another thing is flexibility: if you have a rule, all of a sudden, that is very strict, you have to be careful with that because all children learn differently and at different levels at different ages.

Is it appropriate, then, to have the decision about whether or not a child can advance to the next grade level be based on that child’s performance on a single test?

It makes a good statement and a good message to the school system, not the child; those children are too young to understand that well. But to the system, it gets their attention and says, "You know, we’re not just going to move children through the system, they’re going to have to, at some point in time, reach a basic level of achievement."

What’s the psychological effect on children of being held back in school?

I think a lot of good educators would tell you that holding a child back, across the board, leads to more dropouts. Why that is: they’re held back, and they’re older than the other children, and they aren’t in the flow of education … A lot of people who are in that world, researchers, say that holding the kid back makes it very difficult for the child to then go through the whole system, so a lot of them don’t like that. However, big researchers don’t like moving a kid through the system without reaching certain levels of achievement. So you’ve got a Catch-22. You’ve got a no-win deal if you don’t provide what’s necessary.

What should parents do if it looks like their child is in danger of not being passed on to the next level?

That would be a concern of parents, too … If you have one test to say this child is not going to move forward, that seems a little narrow to me. It seems to me like you ought to have consultation with the teacher, the child’s teachers and so forth to make that kind of judgment … The main thing parents can do is to let their children know, clearly, in lots of ways that education is very, very important. Coming from teachers, it’s natural. But coming from parents is a very powerful message. Even if a parent can’t read, saying over and over again, how important [it is] for you to read and having the child read to them … that is a wonderful message from parents.

What should a parent do if their child is held back?

That should be a very important message to the parent that they—along with the school system, the teachers, the principal and everybody else—need to beef up this child’s education. Again, when I favored doing away with social promotion, I favored a policy for success and for achievement and for passing instead of a policy for holding back … And, of course, for some children, that’s a real struggle, and you have to work with them throughout the system.

At what age level is it most appropriate to have standards that are meant to stop social promotion?

The end-of-third-grade reading was the Clinton administration’s national goal. Bush has followed through with that … No question about whether the right goal for reading is to look and see at the end of the third grade if the child can read independently and also do just basic math. That’s a pretty good grade level to take a look at those basics.

But couldn’t the threat of not being promoted to the next grade level better motivate students to work hard at a later level because older students are more sensitive to how they’re viewed by their peers?

You have those things trigger in later on. You have exit exams from high school—if they want to graduate from high school, they’re going to have to pass that. You have, of course, SAT and ACT tests that kids who are going on to college or whatever will be taking. There are all sorts of incentives for them to do better for them to move on through. Third grade is a pretty good age to see where a child is.

Is social promotion a particular problem in America or do other countries have it as well?

I don’t know. I would say more of an American problem than in other countries that I’m familiar with. Of course some countries have very strict policies. So I think it’s more American than other developed countries, yes.

Which way is the trend going on this issue? Is it increasingly popular nationwide for school districts to have harsh standards cracking down on social promotion?

I do think the standards movement, which is what all this is built on, has taken off. I’m a very strong believer in standards  as a way to get your arms around education. What should a child know at the end of the third grade? What should a child be able to do at the end of third grade? Those are standards. And then the system is supposed to reach that standard. You can’t start that in the third grade, you’ve got to start at preschool, you’ve got to understand that children come into the system behind. That’s what education’s all about. That’s not a harsh policy; it’s a very supportive policy.

More broadly, as a Democrat, if you were going to advise John Kerry on how to run against President Bush on the issue of education this year, what would you tell him to do?

I’d want him first of all to have education as a priority and realize that public education in America is what’s made America great, and if we are to have greatness in the future, and I’m sure we will, we’ve got to have public education quality, up front, for all children, and I really mean all children. That calls for policies nationally, statewide and locally that make sure that all children, from preschool forward … have high-quality education. That should be a high priority in his administration, and I think it will be.