Pass or Fail: Social Promotion in Schools – How We Got Here
In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.
While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?
Does social promotion really help students, or is it an easy way out for educators?
Social promotion is the practice of promoting a child to the next grade level, regardless of skill mastery, in the belief that it will promote self-esteem by allowing the student to “keep up” with their peers. Despite criticisms and problems with social promotion policies, the practice remains common, even today.
Previously marginalized groups, including African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, women, and students with disabilities began to demand that schools stop labeling children as “defective,” advocating for the better adaption of schools and the education system as a whole, to meet the learning needs of children. By the 1980s, in fact, the practice of homogeneous grouping and the associated practice of tracking were also under fire, with the criticism that not only did ability grouping reflect class- and race-based inequalities, but that such practices perpetuated them.
While there was heavy criticism of the justification schools used to support social promotions as an alternative for certain categories of children, criticism from other sectors were levied against the practice of social promotion across the nation. In 1983, A Nation at Risk – a report on the status of education in the United States written by the National Commission on Excellence in Education – stated that the nation was in peril due to the mediocrity of its public schools. The nation, the report suggested, was at a disadvantage when competing economically with Japan and West Germany, largely due to the poor state of education. A Nation at Risk called for reforms that would increase academic standards, improve teacher quality, and reform the curriculum. Education based on standards of what all children should know and be able to do would, critics argued, reduce the practice of social promotion that contributed to the poor quality of education in the nation.
A Nation at Risk caught the attention of the American public, and by the mid-1980s most Americans believed that promotion should be based on students’ mastery of grade-appropriate content and knowledge. By 1998, the Clinton Administration was overtly calling for the end to social promotion. In the era of No Child Left Behind that followed, many states passed legislation that explicitly prohibited promotion of children who did not reach specific levels of performance on state-mandated assessments.
The practices of retention and social promotion evolved over time, as a substantial number of children did not fit easily into the rigidly organized age-grade system of schooling. Reformers have focused on structuring an efficient system of public education without really considering the relationship between efficiency and quality. Their decisions and actions have often resulted in a focus on ways to sort and separate students to enhance a regimented efficiency for schooling in a largely test-focused way.
The idea of common education persists today, however, in the form of standards that all children should know and be able to do throughout the various stages of their education. The goal of this effort would minimize social promotion, although social promotion and retention continue to exist.
Education reformers and stakeholders will continue to explore contemporary iterations of retention and promotion practices and their impact on students. The ultimate goal being that children continue to learn and progress efficiently, over the span of their public education career.
Does social promotion have a place in contemporary public schools?
My opinion would be social promotion cannot be castigated at this point instead those who have gone through the system and been successful should be invited to share their own experiences. The success rate of the program should be measured based on the number of students who have gone a long way to achieving more and those who have given up along the way.
Thanks Mathew for sharing this very important topic.
Your article on social promotion in our area was very enlightening. The report was well documented and clearly showed both sides of the coin.
Thanks for the job well done.
Before reading Hattie, I would have agreed. However, the results of retention are pretty abysmal.
Retention (holding back a year or repeating a grade) had an effect size of -0.13. This practice is also negatively correlated with social/emotional adjustment, behavior, and self-concept.
I don’t have an answer to your question. I think we need to look long and hard at the practice and ask if there are any benefits to students in moving them along, and if so, do the benefits outweigh the negatives.
I agree Dr. Stohr-Hunt.
As a retired elementary administrator, in Los Angeles, I strongly disagree with the concept of “social promotion”. I did implement retention at my assigned school, because I could not witness another child culminating to middle school at a 2nd to 3rd grade reading level. The idea that children would not promote unless they have demonstrated success in their current grade levels actually sent messages to the children, parents, teachers, and entire community that we were extremely serious about educating our children. We held our children, parents, and teachers accountable. It was important to share our educational history and what it took for us to have a right to read and hold a book. As a result, our children realized that they had to respect education and work harder. They realized we were no longer going to push them through one grade level to another, unless they were properly prepared. In the beginning of the school year, we held parent meetings and sent notifications home informing them of our focus. Some parents disagreed and moved their children, but many of them returned their children to our program, after they settled down and realized that their child needed this type of intervention..
At one point, our children were subjected to the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). Folks were interested in knowing what our children knew to exit high school, but folks were not concerned with what they knew as they pushed them through elementary and middle school.
Upon our retention process intervention was implemented for all children identified as in serious need. I did not analyze the data for retained children. My summation is in the raw. We had less children being identified for special education services. We had less fifth grade students being required to take testing for remedial reading placement in middle school, which was based on their fourth grade state test results (from 83 out of 90 students —three years later, only 13 out of 87 students). We improved APIs and maintained over 700s for three consecutive years. We had less discipline and suspensions. We had more participation from our parents. Our receiving middle school acknowledged recognizing children from our school, because they were more prepared.
I have witnessed the academic and social growth of children we have retained. It is very important to make sure that the child and their family has a great understanding of why the retention is important. It is important to build the child up and acknowledge how brave, smart, and honest he/she is for being part of the retention program.
The main problems are the parents who appear to be more ashamed of their child’s retension than their child. Our parents have to realize that allowing children to promote with minimum preparation is destroying their opportunities for success.