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It's called "social promotion"; it is done in grades K-8, then suddenly in high school, the rules change and they have to actually pass classes to get required credits to graduate from high school. Apparently the schools got tired of parents bitching about kids who flunked because they obviously didn't meet the minimum standards for advancement, and just decided "screw it... promote everyone!"

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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You are correct -- schools are underfunded. I beleive school administrators and teachers have a good idea what needs to be done to improve outcomes, but simply aren't being given the resources necessary to do those things. My daughter, with attention problems, was placed into a classroom with 26 other kids where it was nearly impossible for her to learn anything due to all the distractions. We need to decide whether we want the schools to just be a free babysitting service, or if we willing to give them the resources they need to actually educate our kids to the best of each child's ability to learn.

The other problem is that the schools use social promotion for grades K-8, where there are little consequences for poor performance. Then in highschool they are thrown into an environment where they actually have to demonstrate mastery to get credits, and they then have to suddenly make up for the defiencies of the previous 9 years. Then we are suprised when students facing the embarrassment of taking 5 of 6 years to finish high instead choose to drop out.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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Punishing parents for their children's truancy makes little more sense than punishing the teachers for children's truancy. My child was in a classroom wherein the teacher jumped at every opportunity to humiliate her and embarrass her in front of her peers, and actively encouraged the other children to ridicule her and ostracize her. This led to my daughter objecting to this treatment, which led to almost daily complaints by the teacher about "behavior problems", which continued to get worse the more the teacher treated her different from the other children. In desperation, we asked that our daughter be transferred to a different classroom, and the "behavior problems" magically all went away! If your are going to fine the parents, why not fine the teachers too, for intentionally driving the children they don't like out of their classrooms? Note that since now teacher performance is judged my how well their students do on standarized tests, teachers now have a very strong incentive to get rid of poorly scoring students in order to better their own evaluations. Since kicking a child out is virtually impossible, they do the next best thing: ride the child every day until they stop showing up for class.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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