Do You Want Me To Pass Your Child Anyway?
I get chills when I consider that there are actually adults who still insist on social promotion of schoolchildren, regardless of the effects on the children’s academic and personal success. Parents, teachers, and administrators are all guilty of moving students along through grades, despite their inability to prove competence or mastery at grade levels and for specific subjects. Where’s the concern for student academic achievement and self esteem? What’s it going to take to produce a teacher corps that is wholly committed to honest and fair student assessments and evaluations? Sadly, some adults are more concerned about maintaining their jobs and professional status. Others somehow believe that they are actually helping students by not holding them back but advancing them to the next grade, even as they lack academic readiness. Social promotion serves no good purpose; it cripples students and prolongs the affected child’s growth and development inside and outside of the classroom. This practice is simply a tool for lowering the expectations for some students instead of identifying their real learning needs. This is simply another example of the unwillingness by some to do what is necessary to educate young people across the learning spectrum. Moving students along who are not academically ready for promotion defeats well-meaning efforts to engage and empower families to be more involved in K-12 education. Our goal is to work with parents (not against them) by being honest and open with them about their children’s academic achievement. We want schools to be effective and ethical partners in education, not perpetuators of the status quo as schools continue to fail.
My heart aches for the young girl (and so many like her) whose teacher actually asked her father, “Do you want me to pass your child anyway?” Unfortunately, the father told the teacher to go ahead and pass the child to the next grade, knowing full well that his child was not ready for the next grade level. Parents, like some teaching professionals, are making decisions about their children’s education based on their adult insecurities and weaknesses. As a result, the educational needs of the students are being ignored as the grownups assuage their own needs and shortcomings. Moms and dads are more concerned about being ashamed of their child being held back a grade than with the child’s educational development. Some parents don’t have enough self-confidence themselves to meet with teachers so that they can gain a better understanding of their child’s academic profile. Teachers are told that it is a reflection of bad teaching when students fail a grade, so they pass students who are actually failing. These kinds of feelings and emotions that grip adults feed the social promotion phenomenon, but have nothing to do with the reality that students must meet pre-established academic benchmarks in order to be promoted. This is just another example of how K-12 priorities have shifted away from what’s best for the youth. Adult agendas have hijacked the discussions that we should have to help mitigate practices like social promotion which can do permanent harm to young people’s self esteem. It’s up to the adults to make sure that all students are given a chance to succeed in the classroom by replacing their selfishness with a commitment to the academic success of students.
My heart aches for the young girl (and so many like her) whose teacher actually asked her father, “Do you want me to pass your child anyway?” Unfortunately, the father told the teacher to go ahead and pass the child to the next grade, knowing full well that his child was not ready for the next grade level. Parents, like some teaching professionals, are making decisions about their children’s education based on their adult insecurities and weaknesses. As a result, the educational needs of the students are being ignored as the grownups assuage their own needs and shortcomings. Moms and dads are more concerned about being ashamed of their child being held back a grade than with the child’s educational development. Some parents don’t have enough self-confidence themselves to meet with teachers so that they can gain a better understanding of their child’s academic profile. Teachers are told that it is a reflection of bad teaching when students fail a grade, so they pass students who are actually failing. These kinds of feelings and emotions that grip adults feed the social promotion phenomenon, but have nothing to do with the reality that students must meet pre-established academic benchmarks in order to be promoted. This is just another example of how K-12 priorities have shifted away from what’s best for the youth. Adult agendas have hijacked the discussions that we should have to help mitigate practices like social promotion which can do permanent harm to young people’s self esteem. It’s up to the adults to make sure that all students are given a chance to succeed in the classroom by replacing their selfishness with a commitment to the academic success of students.
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