Gothamist: Tension Over Ending 8th Grade Social Promotion

Mike D

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:46:46 -0500

Social promotion seems to violate every principle of education -- students should advance in grades as they advance in knowledge. Otherwise they won't personally benefit and could very possibly pull down the students around them. I don't know what the answer is: More tutoring, schools for "nontraditional students" (i.e. 16-year old middle schoolers), expanded vocational education, or just lowering the drop out age.

HowBoutDemCowboys

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:37:15 -0500

I agree with JDSX that petebfd sounds a bit like a pinko commie with some of his rhetoric. (The pinko commie phrase was used for comedic affect, not to make petebfd mad.) And for petebfd, I never said anything about cutthroat competition. I HATE cutthroat competition because it is a 'win at all costs' philosophy. I was championing healthy competition, which is what I was taught in school before the schools banned all activities involving competition because it could hurt a poor little kid's feelings. If you've ever played a board game or video game with a close friend, you know what healthy competition is... unless you're the type of person who would throw the Monopoly board in the air because you landed on Boardwalk (with hotels) owned by another player and it bankrupt you.

evilqueensofia

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:07:06 -0500

EXPECTATIONS Children who expect to fail will fail Children who's parents expect them to fail will fail Children who's teachers expect them to fail will fail Raise their exptectations. Give them something to hope for other that making it big in the music industry. Elevate our opinion of leaders and professionals by convincing those leaders and professionals to work for real values and real learning. Parents! READ TO YOUR CHILDREN, RESPECT THEIR TEACHERS and don't expect them to make a silk purse if they have nothing but pig's ears to work with.

Think twice

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:30:57 -0500

JDSX is otm. This is exactly why I support gentrification and school vouchers. Public schools and public housing churn out delinquents and vandals.

MFer

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:35:46 -0500

Some kids are stupid. You can blame the parents. And there's nothing you can do about it.

JDSX

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:15:45 -0500

Competition is indeed the key to salvation. Teachers should be competitive and so should schools. I'm not saying the entire system should be privatized but vouchers are a must. If the government has set aside an allotment of money per student then why shouldn't that money follow the student to another public or private school? Neither schools nor teachers have rigorous incentives to improve or churn out high quality. If students had somewhere viable to flee to, you can be sure those schools and teachers would improve or be replaced. They would manage their resources better and you'd get much better grades for the bucks and kids who won't end up those adults you see on viral videos who don't know their senators or can't find other countries on a map. Pete, your suggestion of pulling up instead of pushing down sounds a lot like a Communist ideal which is contrary to human nature. No one will do extra just to provide free success for someone else. This is why the USA is here and the USSR is not. Most schools, teachers, and students will usually do as little as they can get away with and still get paid (or passed). They know that most kids have to come to them anyway. The same philosophy underlies the reasons why politicians are so irresponsible with money...they don't have to earn it.

megs

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:44:19 -0500

Inspired teaching elicits achievement. When Joel Klein and Bloomberg began mandating curriculum and gateway testing; everyone lost. When Bloomberg and Klein disempowered parents and made student choice a lottery; they ducked the blame they deserved for doing their jobs poorly. We need to demand more from our politicians. There are more high school dropouts now, than before Bloomberg took office. His way is failing. Running a school system like a corporation is not working. Students as stand-ins for 'employees' is not working. We seem to be trying as hard as we can to grow failure in our public school system. That learning should be provocative and even joyful at times, is lost on the cretins Bloomberg and Klein. There are so many things wrong with teaching solely to a life-altering test, that I can't even begin to list them. And yes, we needn't pile on each other. But we should absolutely do more for the city's children, than figuring out more ways to punish them.

petebfd

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:08:02 -0500

to your question jdsx about what underlies social promotion, from my limited experience in a floundering school system, social promotion is used largely as a tool for the school to free up resources and for the safety of the students, i.e. not having 16-year-olds and 12-year-olds in the same class. i agree with your assertions (jdsx and cowboys) that alot more is needed to fix the school system than money. but i don't understand the rest of your rhetoric. are you suggesting the privitization of the school system en masse? on a more general note, i just don't get the whole attitude of competition as some key to salvation. that we all need to go at each other cutthroat style to improve as a society. and this idea that seems to underlie resistance to social assistance that for me to get ahead i have to make sure no one gets an undeserved advantage (unless they pay for an advantage, thats fine). why not pull each other up instead of pushing each other down, no?

HowBoutDemCowboys

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:43:21 -0500

"enlighten me as to why an adequately funded school system is a bad thing?" What good does it do you to pour millions of dollars into a toilet? None. The government's answer to everything is to throw more money at it. Have a war that's going badly? Throw more money at it. Have a public education system that fails more than it succeeds? Throw more money at it. They're too scared to find the real problem and point the finger because it means they would have to do real work to fix it. It's the difference between having the choice to pick the best option from what is presented or having to do what you are forced to do, because the government said so. Think about it. You are REQUIRED BY LAW to send your children to school. Does the government give you money to choose where to send your child? No. Using districts and zones, they DICTATE where your children go. If there's no competition, there's no incentive to become better.

JDSX

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:31:46 -0500

Pete, there is nothing wrong with adequate funding although we will certainly differ as to what is adequate in terms of funding. I think a lot of that money is probably being wasted and I know that money alone will not fix the education system. It's dysfunctional and a large cause of that dysfunction can be laid at the feet of the teacher unions along with wherever idiotic concepts like social promotion stem from. Why even send those kids to school? Just hand out a high school diploma with the birth certificate and let them get a huge rude awakening when they have to function and compete in the real world. Come to think of it, just default those babies' votes to whichever politician du jour is offering to maintain or raise the social programs that most will require to survive. We've already come close to that now.

petebfd

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:09:37 -0500

@jdsx enlighten me as to why an adequately funded school system is a bad thing?

Pharmer

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:53:00 -0500

Having been through the public school system, I agree with 2. It's almost never the teacher's fault. Parents think they can just drop their kids off at school and leave the rest up to the teachers. Unfortunately, it takes a lot more to raise children.

babyhitler

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:48:27 -0500

p diddy needs to get these kids walking over the brooklyn bridge to get cheesecake. That will wake em up .

JDSX

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:33:05 -0500

Corporations are just tax collectors, it's the consumers of those corporations that are the ones paying any corporate taxes levied. A sort of extra consumption tax. Our economy is in trouble because we churn out losers and elect people who stop at nothing to confiscate and spend our earned income on buying votes, subsidizing losers, and other ridiculous endeavors. Pouring money into our education system has never provided results. It's a qualitative issue that must be resolved, preferably by first executing all their union reps.

petebfd

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:17:43 -0500

i think it may be different for every school district, but i know it exists in systems outside the city. they used it in the school district i used to work at upstate.

petebfd

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:14:48 -0500

@jdsx what country do you live in? because the american economy certainly isn't failing due to welfare. its failing because of corporate greed. but, ignoring the existence of giant tax breaks for wealthy corporations and individuals coupled with outrageous war spending, maybe if we put a little more money into the educational system rather than cutting funding once again the system wouldn't churn out the "morons" that are the scourge to our public coiffers.

jaja007

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:07:33 -0500

Social promotion? Is there another municipality that offers this?

JDSX

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:02:57 -0500

Are there consequences to failure? Do we teach students and their parents that it's never their fault? That someone else will take the blame when they don't meet requirements? Sooner or later the universe will catch up will all these morons the system churns out even if it means bringing down our entire economy trying to support them on welfare.

eyekantspel

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:01:21 -0500

why are so many of our students failing? 3 reasons: (1) teachers (2) family (3) student. pick one or all. my guess is usually it's a mixture of the family and student.

petebfd

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:41:34 -0500

tough question. i'm not sure there's a really good answer. both sides have points. do we send kids on to high school unprepared? or leave them mired in the same school that they have been failing in with all the problems that entails? (for the student, the teachers, and the other students) if this is something that is affecting a large number of students in our city's schools, than maybe the question should be why are so many of our students failing?