A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Taking Responsibility

Ending social promotion requires that all stakeholders—from state, district, school, and community leaders to teachers, parents, and students themselves—take responsibility for student performance and the quality of education children receive. This section discusses some important steps in setting a policy context for ending social promotion, including: setting high standards and expectations for learning for all students, creating reliable measures of student achievement against standards, including all stakeholders in the process of improving student performance, and concentrating on providing high-quality curriculum and instruction for all students.

In a recent survey by the Department of Education, 86 percent of districts report that they have a written policy on student promotion and retention. Another survey of the 85 largest school districts in the nation, conducted by the American Federation of Teachers, revealed that more than 90 percent of the districts surveyed reported having formal, written school board policies on retention and promotion. At the same time, the report notes that although no district policy explicitly endorses social promotion, many districts maintain restrictions on retaining students. Forty percent of the districts surveyed have explicit limitations on the number of times a student can be retained. More than 30 percent of districts have mandatory age limits for students in certain grades.⁽¹⁸⁾

But states and districts across the nation are beginning to set clearer policies about the promotion and retention of students. These policies are increasingly explicit, not only about the standards by which promotion decisions are made, but also about the help that students must receive to meet the standards. In 1998, of the 10 states had explicit policies for ending social promotion, 7 based their promotion policies on achievement of state standards. Twenty-four states had high school exit exams based on state standards, and 13 aligned their exit exams to tenth-grade standards or higher.⁽¹⁹⁾ Twenty states funded academic intervention programs for students who are struggling to meet standards.⁽²⁰⁾

Setting Expectations: Highlights from Boston's Policy to End Social Promotion Beginning in summer 1999, summer school is available for students who have not met promotion requirements by the end of grades 2, 5, and 8. Students in grades 5 and 8 who have already been retained one year and who do not meet promotion requirements to grades 6 and 9 must attend a special transition program to boost skills. Students can have only three unexcused absences per marking period or they will receive no credit or fail, unless they pass the final exam for the course. Starting with the class of 2002, all high school students must take and pass advanced algebra. —Boston Public Schools

Recently, Chicago, Tacoma (Washington), Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and New York City, and states such as Florida, Texas, and Oregon, stepped up their efforts to end social promotion. For example, Cincinnati has established standards at three grade levels (3, 6, 8) that students must meet to be promoted. Students must demonstrate proficiency in reading, math, science, and social studies in portfolios of their best work completed in grades K-3, 4-6, and 7-8. Students who do not meet promotion standards participate in "Plus." Plus classrooms at grades 3, 6, 8 serve smaller groups of students and focus on helping students meet the standards. Satisfactory attainment of the eighth-grade standards means that students should be ready to pass the Ohio ninth-grade proficiency test.

As part of its Children First Education Plan, Chicago officials have mandated that students in key transition grades (3, 6, 8, and 9) who fail to meet standards on the district assessment must participate in a seven-week Summer Bridge program and pass the district assessment before moving on to the next grade.

New York City has adopted the New Standards, developed by the National Center for Education and the Economy, for language arts, mathematics, science, and applied learning. The district is making efforts to ensure that all assessments are aligned with the standards and that assessment results guide instruction and are used to hold schools and students accountable for performance. New York City's new promotion standards for grades 4, 7, and 12, proposed for 2000, will rest upon a combination of criteria including citywide assessments, grades, portfolios of student work, and attendance. An early warning systems for parents and early intervention strategies are critical components of the plan. Statewide, students in New York will be required to earn a challenging "regent's diploma" in order to graduate. Some research is showing that high school exit exams such as the New York State Regents have a positive effect on student achievement.⁽²¹⁾

State Promotion Policies California: Assembly Bills 1626 and 1639, signed into law in September 1998, require districts to retain in grade students who do not meet certain performance criteria, and to provide funding for summer remediation programs for those students. Each school board must establish promotion standards for students in grades 2, 3, and 4, and for promotion to both middle school and high school. The promotion standards are based on students' performance either on the state's Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program or the students' grades and other indicators of academic achievement. For students in grades 2 and 3, districts must establish promotion standards only in reading; in the other grades, districts must set standards in reading, language arts, and math. Districts must make summer remediation programs available to retained students--and may compel them to attend. Colorado: The Colorado Basic Literacy Act of 1996 mandates that schools must develop an individual literacy plan for each student who is not proficient or at grade level on the state's third-grade reading assessment and on other indicators of student achievement. Students may still be promoted to the fourth grade with their peers, but reading instruction is adapted to their individual levels. Individual literacy plans must also include a home reading program. Many of the individual literacy plans call for the students to attend summer school and tutoring sessions to improve their reading skills. Ohio: Senate Bill 55, signed by the governor in 1997, prohibits all school districts from promoting any fourth grader who fails to show proficiency on the state's reading test unless the student was exempted because of a disability or unless both the reading teacher and principal agree that the student is academically prepared for grade 5. Districts must annually assess students in grades 1-3 to identify those students below grade level. Students reading below grade level in grades 1 and 2 must be offered intervention; districts must offer intense summer remediation for third grade students identified as reading below grade level. Beginning in the fall of 2001, fourth graders will have three opportunities to take the reading test. Beginning in summer 1999, districts must offer summer remediation to students below proficient on three or more subject area proficiency tests. Ohio's proficiency tests cover the areas of writing, reading, mathematics, citizenship, and science.

Efforts to hold students accountable for meeting standards may be a motivating force for student as well. Results from a recent Public Agenda poll indicate that 68 percent of students in schools with high school exit exams said that the tests made them work harder in school. ⁽²²⁾

Set high standards of learning for all students

The process of making decisions about whether or not to promote students to the next grade still varies widely across the country, with teacher assessments serving as the most frequent tool for decision making. Unfortunately, some research suggests that teachers often make those decisions in the context of different expectations for different students, and sometimes lower expectations for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. For example, a 1994 U.S. Department of Education study found that when student grades were compared with performance on external reading and math exams, there were large disparities in achievement. The report found that an acceptable level of performance in a high-poverty school would be considered failing in more affluent schools.⁽²³⁾

One of the first steps, then, in taking responsibility for ending social promotion requires states and districts to develop clear and challenging standards for all students. There is widespread agreement among the public (87 percent) that schools need to set higher standards than are now required about what students should know and be able to do to be promoted from grade to grade and to graduate. More than two-thirds of the public and 62 percent of teachers want to raise standards of promotion from grade school to junior high. A majority of the public favors stricter requirements for high school graduation.⁽²⁴⁾

Standards help teachers concentrate on instruction, help parents and students understand what is expected academically, and help ensure that students are prepared for the next grade and beyond. In order to be effective, these standards must be clear, specific, realistic, and integrated into the daily work of teachers in the classroom.

Recent history provides some lessons about the impact of standards on student performance and graduation from school, particularly for at-risk students. In the 1970s states instituted minimum competency tests to ensure that their graduates were leaving school with basic skills. Despite the dire warnings that such testing would lead to higher dropout rates, graduation rates and test scores for minority students actually improved during this period. Not only did students rise to the challenge, but, even more important, school systems upgraded curriculum and instruction in line with the standards to ensure that students were prepared to pass the tests.⁽²⁵⁾

As we prepare to enter the 21st century, we are asking more of our students and school systems, yet the same principle applies. Standards can galvanize schools around what is important to teach and what is important to learn. Changing curriculum and instruction to meet more demanding standards of performance poses a monumental challenge, requiring concentrated and sustained effort at all levels of the system.

To help raise the expectations for learning for all students, especially disadvantaged students, the U.S. Department of Education has helped states develop challenging content and student performance standards. Accountability in the largest elementary and secondary program, Title I, is tied to student performance in meeting challenging state standards. Goals 2000 provides grants to help states and districts implement systemic standards-based reform. Almost all states now have content standards in place and are developing challenging student performance standards to measure what students should know and be able to do in key grades throughout their education.

Create reliable measures of student performance against standards

In line with the requirement in Title I for states to adopt challenging state content and student performance standards, states and districts are also required to develop assessments aligned with content and student performance standards that become a basis for school-level accountability measures. The program recognizes that schools must be able to accurately measure student progress toward achieving the standards. States, districts, and schools need to use a variety of assessment instruments to identify students' difficulties early, choose effective intervention strategies, make more consistent decisions about whether a student is ready to be promoted to the next level of instruction, and ultimately hold schools and students more accountable for performance.

These assessments have been welcomed in many states as a means to hold schools more accountable for performance, and in some states, as part of an effort to hold students more accountable and put an end to social promotion. Currently, nearly 40 percent of districts report that they use a districtwide standardized test as part of making promotion decisions at the elementary school level, 35 percent use them at the middle-school level, and 23 percent at the high school level. At least 32 states and 34 urban districts now have accountability systems that provide rewards or sanctions for schools that are based, at least in part, on state or district assessment results.⁽²⁶⁾

Some states have seen dramatic increases in student achievement with the implementation of state assessment and accountability systems. Texas and North Carolina, for example, were recently recognized by the National Education Goals Panel for significant gains in student achievement and success in improving education.

• In Texas, schools are rated based on three indicators reflected in the state's Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS): student achievement on the reading, math, and writing sections of the state assessment for grades 3, 8, and 10; annual dropout rates for grades 7-12; and attendance rates for grades 1-12. The state has developed four rating levels for schools: exemplary, recognized, acceptable, and low-performing. Since instituting its state assessment and accountability system, Texas has seen a significant decline in the number of low-performing schools in the state and an increase in the number of exemplary schools. The Texas Learning Index shows that the proportion of students passing the state assessment improved from 55 percent in 1994 to 74 percent in 1997. Texas is noteworthy in that its school accountability requires not only that most students meet performance thresholds but that at-risk subgroups in each school meet them as well. Performance results and dropout rates are disaggregated for four student groups: African American, Hispanic, white and economically disadvantaged. Schools must show that they meet the performance targets overall and for student subgroups. The greatest recent improvements registered on the Texas state assessment have been among African American, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students--students traditionally at the highest risk of school failure.
• North Carolina's "ABCs of Public Education" is a school accountability system that relies on an expected growth composite based on three factors: statewide average academic growth, the previous performance of students in the school, and a statistical adjustment that is used when comparing the student performance from one year to the next. Schools are categorized according to seven recognition categories. In 1997-98, 83 percent of elementary and middle schools in the state met either expected or exemplary growth standards.

These state policies exemplify efforts to enforce school-level accountability for student performance. This accountability is central to ending social promotion; that is, schools must be held responsible for delivering the kind of high-quality education that students must receive in order to reach high standards.

But when states and school districts use tests to hold students accountable and tie assessments to decisions about student promotion, there are a number of important issues to consider. The discussion of high-stakes testing and holding students accountable for performance must be understood in the context of the possible disproportionate effects of promotion and retention policies on low-income and minority children. Disadvantaged children begin school without many of the supports enjoyed by their more advantaged peers. The National Association of State Directors of Special Education, in particular, has pointed out the disproportionate representation of students from racial and ethnic minority groups in special education. Children in poverty are more likely to have disabilities and therefore need special education services to a greater extent than other children. Schools located in communities of concentrated poverty often lack important resources, both financial and social, that are needed for academic success. Although much research shows that access to skilled, effective teachers is an important determinant of student performance, low-income students are often less likely than higher-income students to be taught by skilled teachers.⁽²⁷⁾

Policies to end social promotion and raise accountability for student performance demand that difficult issues be faced head on, particularly with regard to high-stakes tests and other student accountability measures. Student promotion decisions should not be based on a single, high-stakes assessment alone. Standardized assessments ensure some degree of consistency in making promotion decisions. But no single assessment tool is sensitive enough to capture all the relevant information related to identifying what the needs of particular students are, how those needs are best addressed, and when difficulties have been adequately overcome. State or district assessments need to be used as one of a variety of indicators. Consideration must also be given to the role of teacher judgment and the inventory of assessments teachers and tutors use every day to monitor the continual progress of students. Leaders must take care when deciding whether, and how, high-stakes tests should be used to make promotion decisions.⁽²⁸⁾ The federal legal and civil rights principles that educators should be aware of are as follows:

• Adequate educational justification. There must be an adequate educational justification for the use of a test for high-stakes purpose. Establishing "qualitative achievement standards" and encouraging academic achievement are examples of adequate educational justifications for using a statewide or districtwide test to determine student promotion.

• Professionally acceptable evidence regarding test validity and reliability. When a statewide or districtwide test is being used to determine student promotion, the state or district must be able to provide professionally acceptable evidence that the test is valid and reliable for the purpose for which it is being used. If a state or district chooses to use a test as a principal criterion for decisions about student promotion, the test must be designed for this use and there must be evidence that it is appropriate to use the test as a sole or principal criterion. When a high-stakes test is designed to measure whether students have learned specific skills or acquired specific knowledge, the test needs to be representative of the knowledge and skills the state or school district intends to measure.

• Adequate prior notice to students and parents. When a statewide or districtwide test will have high-stakes consequences, students and parents must receive adequate prior notice that the state or district intends to establish new requirements. The notice must be far enough in advance of the implementation of the requirements to ensure that students have sufficient time and opportunity to learn the material to be tested.

• Alignment between curriculum standards and the assessment and between the assessment and instruction. When a state or district establishes curriculum standards that will be the basis for high-stakes statewide or districtwide assessments to measure student achievement, schools have a responsibility to provide instruction in the knowledge and skills being measured by the test. Parents should be informed about how they can help at home and in the schools so that students are well prepared.

• Consideration for disparate effects on the basis of race, national origin, or gender. When a statewide or districtwide high-stakes test has a significant impact based on race, national origin, or gender, the use of the test must be educationally necessary. This means that the test must be valid and reliable for the particular purpose used. Even when the test is valid and reliable for the purpose for which it is being used, consideration must be given to whether there are any practicable alternative practices that would effectively measure the knowledge and skills the state or district intends to measure with less adverse impact.

• Equal educational opportunity for students with limited English proficiency. Under federal civil rights laws, school districts have an obligation to ensure that students with limited English proficiency (LEP) are provided with a program that enables them to acquire English-language skills and instructs them in the knowledge and skills that all students are required to master. When states or school districts use tests for high-stakes purposes, they must ensure that the tests effectively measure students' knowledge and skills in the particular content area being assessed. Furthermore, the students must be provided "appropriate accommodations" to ensure valid and reliable results. Depending on the nature and purpose of the test and the particular needs of the LEP student, appropriate accommodations may include providing a valid and reliable version of the test in the student's native language, extended time, or the use of bilingual dictionaries. LEP students must be included in statewide or districtwide assessments unless there is a valid educational justification for their exclusion. In situations in which students are excluded from a particular statewide or district assessment, comparable information about these students' academic progress must be collected.

• Participation of students with disabilities in statewide or districtwide assessments. Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), school districts have a responsibility to provide students with disabilities with a free appropriate public education. Providing effective instruction in the core curriculum for students with disabilities is an important aspect of this requirement. Under federal law, students with disabilities must be included in the same state and districtwide assessments of student achievement as nondisabled students, unless the student's individualized education program team (IEP team) determines either that individual modifications in the administration of the assessments need to be provided or that a particular assessment is not appropriate for the student. In these cases the student's IEP must include a statement of why that assessment is not appropriate and how the student will be assessed. If the IEP team properly makes individualized decisions about the participation of each child with a disability in general state and districtwide assessments, including the use of appropriate accommodations, modifications, and individual modifications in administration, it will be necessary to use alternate assessments for a relatively small percentage of children with disabilities. The IDEA also requires states or local education agencies to develop guidelines for students with disabilities who cannot take part in state and districtwide tests to participate in alternate assessments.

Concentrate on providing high quality curriculum and instruction for all students

We know that if social promotion is to end, all adults must do their part to enable students to meet high standards. The central task of educators is clear--to provide curriculum and instruction that help all students reach challenging academic standards. To accomplish this, schools must concentrate on learning, and states and districts must help move standards into classroom practice.

Classrooms with high standards are places where expectations are clearly communicated and displayed to students so that all know and understand them. In such classrooms, examples of student work are prominent and teachers make concrete connections between standards and the activities they pursue with their students. A classroom striving to reach high standards does not necessarily specify a certain type of instructional method or pedagogy. Rather, it involves good instruction by teachers who know the content they are teaching, engage students in learning, and challenge them to strive for greater accomplishments.

Studies of high-achieving schools that serve overwhelmingly disadvantaged children reveal important lessons for schools facing the dual challenge of raising standards and reducing social promotion. Most importantly, schools that have markedly improved student performance have high expectations for achievement and offer challenging and demanding coursework. Consequently, states, districts, and schools must concentrate on high expectations for early literacy, and encourage all students to learn basic and advanced mathematics skills in elementary school, enroll in challenging prerequisite courses early in secondary school, and build on their education in high school with rigorous coursework.

To end social promotion, schools must focus on improving classroom instruction—and direct resources toward that goal. Without attention to this central issue, the other strategies featured in this guide are useless. Ending social promotion requires a comprehensive approach. The effort to concentrate on learning and improve what happens in the classroom is bolstered by other strategies featured in this guide, such as ensuring that there is a well-prepared teacher in every classroom, reducing class size, extending learning time, and creating programs for students who are not ready for promotion.

Include families

Substantial research shows that educators cannot do their jobs alone. For this reason, families and communities must help reinforce what students learn in school. Schools and students cannot be held accountable for performance outside the context of the efforts of families and communities.

Parental involvement in education is critical to academic success. Children whose parents are involved in their education earn higher grades, have higher test scores, attend school more regularly, complete more homework, demonstrate a better attitude and better behavior, graduate from high school at higher rates, and are more likely to go on to higher education than do children whose parents are less involved. The implications for efforts to eliminate social promotion are clear: increasing family involvement in schools will help students to learn so that they are prepared for the next grade and for school success. ⁽²⁹⁾

Yet despite the value of parental involvement, many parents remain uninvolved. Teachers often complain about the lack of parental involvement at school and assume that such families are indifferent. But often, particularly in low-income communities, parents often feel uncomfortable or intimidated at their children's school. Some parents were low-achieving students themselves, and retain feelings of inadequacy and failure after their own school experiences.

Many parents also see teachers as unwilling or uninterested in working together with them. Several studies have confirmed that although most parents truly care about their children's education, they may not know how to help with it. Some parents express the wish that teachers would make a greater effort to involve them in their children's learning. According to one recent survey, 79 percent of parents report wanting to learn more about how to be involved in their children's education.⁽³⁰⁾

Integral to the success of parental involvement in education is good communication between school and families. The communication cannot be only formal and one-way; schools cannot wait to communicate with parents only when problems arise. Particularly as students enter middle and high school, parental involvement is critical to ensuring academic success. It is during these years that children begin to grapple with how to deal with authority, handle independence, and respond to social pressures, and they become more at risk for dropping out of school. Despite the importance of parental involvement, studies show that parents tend to decrease their school involvement once their children move to middle and high school. Therefore, it is important to develop strategies that will draw parents into schools, particularly in the later grades.⁽³¹⁾

Because a key factor in supporting family involvement is the level of support and information provided by schools in promoting an active partnership, Title I is designed to encourage such efforts. All Title I schools are required to develop, with parents, a school-parent compact that recognizes their shared responsibility for learning and outlines how each will support high achievement by students. The U.S. Department of Education's Compact for Learning is a guide that helps schools, families, and students think through their shared responsibility for achievement. Suggestions for parents include:

• Working with the school to plan a rigorous academic program and discussing with children the importance of working hard to get the most out of school;

• Monitoring student progress and supervising the completion of homework;

• Reading at home together and encouraging children to read at least 30 minutes a day;

• Pledging to attend back-to-school events and teacher conferences, and volunteering for at least one event per semester to support the school; and

• Participating in school decisions by attending meetings and serving on advisory councils.

If schools are to end social promotion and hold students more accountable for performance, compacts can help parents and families define responsibilities for helping students meet academic standards.

Involve community stakeholders

Community resources must be tapped to help students meet high expectations. Businesses must take a leading role in helping students meet standards. Businesses depend on the products of the American public education system but often complain about the quality of students and must spend resources on remediation for students who graduate from schools without the skills necessary for work and careers.

Businesses have the power to help end social promotion by connecting academic performance to future work opportunities. Businesses can offer internships to students and make the connection between school and work tangible by asking to review student transcripts when interviewing students for jobs.

Business and community members can help end social promotion by becoming mentors to students and by spending time in schools as tutors and teachers. These connections between school and community can be a powerful motivating force for students who may otherwise see their academic careers as a dead end.

31. U.S. Department of Education, 1998.
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[Introduction]

[Starting Early]