Social Promotion is a Disservice to Our Students
January 15th, 2010
Over the holidays, I went to see, in my opinion, the best movie of 2009, The Blind Side. What a great message for educators and parents. I am now more convinced than ever that our educational system must end must end social promotion in our K-8 schools. I don’t want to give the movie plot away, so I will just glean some of the educational highlights that I believe, we as educators and parents must recognize, if our students are going to be successful and productive citizens of this country.
We must quit passing students from one grade level to the next without having them achieve the level of academic achievement needed for them to be prepared to enter the next grade level. Students get further and further behind when the system continually passes them on from one grade level to the next, Students become unmotivated and disillusioned by the system that does not hold them accountable for learning, and then they either drop out or never have the necessary skills to help them to enroll in higher post secondary schooling. Some even become residents of our penal system because of a lack of an education.
Through interventions during the school day and before and after school, we must remediate students’ academic deficiencies and hold them accountable for their learning before they are allowed to move to the next grade level. As the old adage says, Success breeds success.
Let’s end social promotion, once and for all. We will have students motivated to learn and teachers teaching students who are ready to learn.
Can I contribute more that $5.00? If I contribute $50.00 is that like contributing 10 times?
Thanks,
Nancy