Free Republic

On January 5, 2024, Western Oregon University (WOU) announced a bold change to its grading regime: “The letter grades of D- and F” have been axed in favor of a mark of “No Credit (NC)” for undergraduates. WOU’s provost, Jose Coll, clarified that this new system will not lower the university’s academic standards but, rather, “increase retention and graduation rates.” The university will no longer “mask” students’ “demonstrated abilities” with a slew of poor marks, following the likes of Brown University and Hampshire College, which have already exchanged letter grades for alternative measures in some instances. By removing troublesome grades,...

The Detroit Public School system (DPS) is one of the worse in the nation. Its 59% graduation rate puts it at the bottom of major school systems in the nation. Unfortunately, that is the good news. The bad news is that because “grade fixing” appears to be uncomfortably common DPS students are not being honestly achieving even their meager accomplishments because of “social promotions.” The problems of “social promotion” – pushing students along so they don’t have to feel the embarrassment of being left back – are coming home to the DPS system. Recognition of the evils of social promotion...

The pressure to pass students - even those who rarely go to class or can't read - is pervasive in the Philadelphia School District, teachers around the city say. The push comes in memos, in meetings, and in talks about failure rates that are too high, the teachers say. It comes through mountains of paperwork and justification for failing any student. It comes in ways subtle and overt, according to more than a dozen teachers from nine of the city's 62 high schools. "We have to give fake grades," said a teacher at Mastbaum High in Kensington. "The pressure is...

Students earn way by sweat of brow in new program . Bruce Randolph's bold decision last fall to end social promotion, to inform parents that students who fail core academic classes will not be passed on to the next grade. "We're changing the culture," said Principal Kristin Waters. "You can't not pass anymore; you have to do the work." It's an unprecedented stance by a neighborhood school in Denver. DPS, unlike other metro districts, allows parents to decide whether their children are held back a grade until they reach high school. Few choose to hold them back. Not until grade...

  SUMMARY: This study evaluates a program that ends social promotion by linking promotion to standardized test results. In particular, it examines the initial effects of Florida’s policy requiring students to reach a minimum threshold on the state's reading exam to be promoted to the 4th grade. The study compares the year-to-year progress of the first group of students subject to the mandate, as well as the progress of similarly low-performing 3rd graders from the year earlier, before the mandatory retention policy was in place. It finds that students who were retained outperformed their counterparts who were socially promoted...

What is the Proper Way to Run a School? by Robert Murphy [Posted May 5, 2004] An article in the April 5 issue of Time reminds us how deeply ingrained collectivist habits of thought are in this country. The piece deals with the Chicago school board's decision to stop holding back (or "flunking" as it used to be called) so many students. The article begins like this: Eight years ago, Chicago moved to end social promotion of its students, and the city has since been a bellwether in the debate over whether to keeps kids who don't meet standards from...

NYT OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR A Failure Policy That Succeeds By MARLENE HEATH Published: March 30, 2004 CHICAGO — I'll never forget the little girl who sat with a book, ran her fingers across the words, turned the pages and pretended to be reading. She was in one of my first fourth-grade classes at the Beethoven Elementary School on the South Side and we quickly discovered she couldn't recognize the simplest of words, like "in," "it" and "the." That was in 1990, when we thought holding a child back a grade would hurt his or her self-esteem. So while my pupil was...

Politics and School Promotion Published: March 17, 2004 There is nothing about Mayor Michael Bloomberg that's more admirable than his determination to improve New York City schools. But lately he has been acting as if he believes he is the only person in town who cares about the welfare of the students. This week, he fired members of the public school governance board who disagreed with his new initiative to stop social promotion and rammed through that controversial policy. Mr. Bloomberg was wrong on two counts. He made a political mistake in reinforcing the worst fears of opponents of mayoral...

Schools 'Promote' Failure http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/31073.htm

David Porter A wise end to 'social promotion' by David Porter Published May 25, 2002 I still remember walking home from the school bus stop with Eddie Velazquez. It was mid-June 1963. Because it was the last day of school, I was pretty happy. Eddie was not. He walked as though he was headed for the gallows. Eddie had good reason to dread the walk to his home. On the last day of classes at my parochial school, the principal visited each classroom to distribute report cards. The word "promoted" was printed at the bottom of our report cards....