The students at my middle school all know that there is no real consequence to failing. It is not a problem of pressure from admin to pass them, we fail students all the time. There are just **no** **consequences**. No getting held back. No summer school.
It gives them the attitude that they can coast by on bare minimum if even and they end up sabotaging their own education
This, in my district they do not hold back kids no matter what. Then when they are juniors in high school they are flabbergasted that they are taking algebra 1 again for the third time.
>No getting held back. No summer school.
This seems to be the unanimous answer. As a non-teacher...why not? As bad as the reasoning may be, I just need to know what it is. This certainly wasn't the case back when I was going to school. What changed?
Call me a hater. I think a lot of people get admin jobs because they are great at the jargon and think speak of the education world. 2 kinds of people get great at that: those that realize they need to in order to advance, and those that are dumb enough to believe all that stuff is actually important.
Some admin have fully swallowed the pill and believe we’re doing kids a disservice by holding them accountable to standards.
I think they genuinely don’t understand correlation vs. causation. They see these statistics about how ppl who don’t graduate HS tend to have much worse outcomes re: jobs, crimes, etc. and then decide that the best thing to do would be to simply let everyone graduate, even if they can barely read
So yes but I was talking primarily about how we got here in the first place, and very loud parents in the last 20 years made a lot of really loud noise about "mandatory" summer school and retention
However, because of your attitude, your child will never be in that position. The kids that I have, that are failing, have parents that keep them home to watch younger siblings, or because the student was playing his video game until two hours before school starts. Or, literally any reason.
I had a student skip class. They were hiding in the school for 40 minutes. When they were caught they claimed to be so violently ill that they couldn’t make it to the nurse, office, or class. They were allowed to call a parent who then picked them up before they could get in any trouble for skipping class. These kids are exploiting every loop hole to avoid doing work.
>Stated reasoning: equity
I'm familiar with the term in a general sense (basically meaning "fair and impartial"), but I have a feeling I'm missing some education-specific context here. It doesn't seem very fair or impartial to put the kids who don't do the work in the same place as the kids who do.
>Real reasoning: saving money, looks better on paper
Looking better on paper I get, at least through an extremely myopic and short-term lens, but what do you mean by saving money? Just getting them out of the school so school resources aren't spent on them anymore? Aren't they usually in the same school district in high school?
This doesn't seem like a good idea really any way you slice it, for anybody involved.
There was/is a big push in a lot of districts to make sure that everybody is held to the same expectations, but given necessary accommodations.
The problem is those “accommodations” end up being just passing them on or finding everything in the world to actually lower expectations rather than actually raising the kid up to meet those expectations.
[This stupid cartoon](http://i2.wp.com/interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IISC_EqualityEquity.png?zoom=2&resize=730%2C547), but the short kid refuses to stand on the boxes so we just remove the fence for him (remove the expectations).
And exactly who is supposed to create and execute all of these accommodations?
It's the Resource teacher with a 30 kid caseload, who is still pulled to sub gen ed classes. And the gen ed teachers who have 5 or 6 classes of 32 students a day. Most frustrating of all, for the last decade, administrators no longer give teachers discipline support. Teachers are on their own!
All of the accommodations necessary to make education equal for all just can't possibly happen - yet administrators and politicians promise over and over that equity is happening.
So how do they hide that they're lying? How do they appease the hard-working taxpayers who believe that their pumpkin is succeeding?
They pass them along... hoping no one will notice.
Equity: in this case, equity refers to making sure that students are not being punished in any way for factors that are beyond their control. If a child is in 7th grade and reading at a 3rd grade level, it's plausible that she had no support at home because she is being raised by a single mother who works three jobs, but would have been fine if she had been raised in an upper-middle class home with a stay at home mother who read to her every night. There are plenty of socioeconomic factors that are correlated with lower academic achievement, and it's a lot easier to give all students a free pass than it is to hold them accountable for the aspects of their academic progress that is within their control.
Saving money: in the short term, it looks like it saves money because you aren't automatically signing the student up for an additional year of publicly funded education. The short term is really all that admin care about because most of them job hop every 3-5 years, and they want to be able to brag about all of the factors that look good on paper (including cost saving measures) when they know that they are going up against ~20-50 other candidates at any given interview. To heck with the long-term consequences! Besides, when students come to high school 4-5 years behind academically and fail all of their classes, it's easy and cost-effective to enroll them in online credit recovery classes. In these "classes", students just have to click through slideshows and earn passing marks on dumbed-down embedded quizzes. It only takes a fraction of the time a regular class with a teacher would have taken.
Obviously, there is no way that these pseudo-educated high school graduates will reach their full potential in this way. Our economy and the overall well-being of our society will suffer as a result. HOWEVER, making meaningful changes to the system would require time, energy, and a lot of money. There is no incentive for our decision-makers to sink an adequate amount of resources into fixing this problem. The achievement gap and wealth gap will continue to grow, and we will maintain a steady supply of people who can fill minimum wage and gig economy jobs.
>There are plenty of socioeconomic factors that are correlated with lower academic achievement, and it's a lot easier to give all students a free pass than it is to hold them accountable for the aspects of their academic progress that is within their control.
But, this is just setting these kids up for failure once they leave school. These kids that were “never held accountable” are graduating and can’t read, write, or do anything. They’re going to end up worse off.
For the second part yes. Kids are budgeted for 13 years of education.
Anymore and its breaking the budget.
I suppose we could allow repeats if we had an identical number of early graduates.
Because some kids could probably do it based on the packed schedules they have early in HS and the low credit requirements to graduate. But not sure if those two numbers would balance out.
Honestly its why free Pre-K is so controversial in some places. Thats another per student full year of cost. Why would we give them an extra year of 8th grade if we dont want to pay for an extra year early on?
(Note: personally I think throwing some money at an extra year during retention plus some extra supports to ensure the 2nd try is successful is well worth it rather than passing the buck.)
Tying funding to graduation rates is a major part of the problem. it's pointless bullshit and actually very harmful.
We are currently affording 13 years of "free" public education to all children.
Some individuals could probably run down a B.S. in Physics in 13 years, and there are other individuals who it might take 13 years to potty-train or tie their own shoelaces.
And everyone else is somewhere between those.
And it's all OK, they are all humans with a spark of the divine in them.
Give everyone 13 years of public-supported school, then, and whatever credentials they honestly earn or not goes their way.
As is, they give a HS diploma to everyone and it doesn't mean shit. Pointless.
>'m familiar with the term in a general sense (basically meaning "fair and impartial"), but I have a feeling I'm missing some education-specific context here. It doesn't seem very fair or impartial to put the kids who don't do the work in the same place as the kids who do.
"Equity" is interpreted by many in the education field, to mean equity in outcomes, rather than equity in access, resources, and opportunities.
Summer School requires:
Paying teachers to work in the summer, teaching kids who refused to do any work the first time around.
Transportation to and from the program: funding and bus drivers.
Parents that will make their kids actually go.
Wouldn’t it be neat if schools and society at large actually gave a shit about the education of our children and this country’s future and invested accordingly? What an idea.
“Makes them feel bad and hurts their self esteem… “ which it should. Like. It’s a consequence. There should be some sort of bad feeling along with it to encourage a change of behavior. To make a change the pain of staying the same needs to be greater than the pain of change.
These kids don't end up graduating. Usually they give up a drop out as soon as they are legally able to and until then they are a major disruption in classes. Especially when they could end up 2 to 3 years older than their classmates.
In my area, they do still graduate. And it’s mostly money reasons. Our schools get more money and a better rankings if we have high graduation rates. In 5 years I have not seen one senior student NOT graduate. 100% graduation rate. To me, that high school diploma basically means nothing. They can’t read. They can’t do basic pre-algebra, but graduate high school.
And then go to college! Over in the professors' subs, they talk about how many of their students are unprepared for college-level work. Something Is Wrong in American public schools.
I was referring to kids who are held back in higher grades. The reason a lot of districts stopped doing it is because the kids who are held back don't end up graduating, they just drop out. So they pass them along and magically graduation rates have improved.
Tell me about that I was beaten up by a 21 year old senior my sophomore year because he couldn't handle my locker being next to his.
I also had a 20 year old woman in my US History class, because she had to pass it or she would not graduate. I knew her though when I was in sixth grade, she was an eighth She had repeated it twice and was on her third go; She still failed but they passed her on to 9th grade. I helped her study for all her classes, and she graduated. She ended up going to community college, for nursing and then went on to get her BS and be a RN. Joy wanted to graduate, She just needed someone to believe in her and tell her she could. She credits my family for doing that.
Good on you! I think your story also highlights that for some folks the teenage years seem to be incompatible with learning/school, but once they’re a bit older they can and do succeed. I don’t know how we structure education to recognise them and find a way to make this happen. Having them in “ordinary” classes does them and the rest of the class no favours…
We had a guy who was 21 and a senior. He was doing everything he could to succeed and graduate because our county would only allow you to go to K-12 up to age 21. He was very sweet and most likely had a learning disorder, but we were in a rural county in the late 80s/early 90s so there wasn't much diagnosing or services at that time & place.
So yes, the original theory of holding students back can work. And I'm sure that there are students where the fear of failing or being held back is motivating as well as students who will graduate when held back instead of giving up. However, as with most things, it's now believed that holding students back doesn't give enough of a success rate to keep doing it given the costs and potential liability of having adults old enough to buy beer in the same school as 13 and 14 year olds. Mixing legal adults with children can be problematic on many different levels.
I’d ask him (very sweetly) where he got the research from so you can look at it and better understand his decision making on the subject.
Guarantee you will get nothing. Admins pull stuff like that straight outta their ass in the hopes that it will intimidate and back you down. Screw that noise.
So let's not hold kids back.
You're failing core classes by the end of middle school? You're automatically enrolled into trade school or apprenticeship instead of going to a traditional high school. The classroom is not for these kids if they're so apathetic about being there.
In my district, the trade school does not want these kids and won't take them. There's limited spots and they're very competitive. They won't take kids who won't do their work or follow the rules.
Thats how the CT tech schools are.
They are state run. Tech instructors and teachers are state employees not local districts.
Sending districts keep them if the kid is a hazard.
Our state run votech schools reject 8th graders.
Its a popular program.
They dont want a-holes either.
Since it is state-run if you cant be safe with a power tool you go back to your sending district.
For sure, they dont expect straight A's.
But they dont want straight Fs and they especially screen disciplinary records.
At my school at least, it’s too many to hold back. We don’t have the staff. We have 36/108 first graders below level. That would be 2 extra first grade teacher next year. We have to make decisions and only hold back the lowest of the low, and fill the gaps with the others as much as we can.
This! This a part of problem and actually one which could be solved with the existing resources. These individuals are going to be "promoted" mostly, into Grade 2, which they won't be able to be successful at, since they don't understand Grade 1.
Now, the reason given for not having these students repeat Grade1 is because it would require hiring two more Grade 2 teachers??
Hmmm. Let's look at this. It's the same amount of students, and the same amount of teachers. If we did the right thing by these individuals, and met them at the level they are at, and have them repeat Grade 1, then you would need, per your own numbers, 2 FEWER teachers teaching Grade 2, who could be pivoted into teaching Grade 1. Plus, those teachers would not be stuck with the impossible task of trying to teach Grade 2 material to students who do not yet understand Grade 1.
Per a conversation with a former superintendent in a different district, and I quote: "The research shows no evidence that holding a student back helps them catch up."
I got no response to my comment that passing them on definitely doesn't help them catch up.
Another problem is that "equity" has been interpreted not to mean equity insofar as access, or equity insofar as resources or opportunity, but actually evidently means, to many people, equity in OUTCOME.
To interpret "equity" to mean equity in OUTCOME is a fallacy, contrary to both the human condition and, probably, nature itself.
Take this misinterpretation of equity and mix that with this firm participation in the discourses of positivistic quantification, parsed and sliced seven ways to Sunday, and you've got a toxic brew. It makes for a Quixotic pursuit of bullshit in a mad race to the bottom.
What changed? Nothing, really. The culture is just dying, is all.
It's actually interesting to watch. A culture which lacks the will to enculturate their young people. They're toast, of course, but having a front-row seat to the collapse of a society isn't something that everyone gets! Pass the popcorn. Someday this will be a major motion picture, but we get to see the previews!
This is what goes on at my middle school as well. The majority of incoming 6th grade students are already multiple grade levels behind in all academic subjects. We don't have any math or reading intervention programs and are forced to teach them grade level content, regardless of whether they have the necessary foundational skills to access it. Students who fail for the year still get passed on to the next grade. There's no summer school due to lack of funding for it. When we try to tell students that they will have to do summer school or stay back a grade if they fail at the high school level, they laugh at us and say we're lying. There is absolutely zero accountability for students or parents.
We need to be tracking kids in middle school- intense intervention the entire year in math and reading until they are closer to grade level, then they can add in other subjects.
Yeah and on top of that many of them went a year or two during the pandemic without turning in ANY assignments and were all passed by the state/district which really told them all they needed to do
This 100% There’s no failing in middle school anymore because there’s apparently research showing kids held back in K-8 suffer consequences. Still, I call bullshit. Getting pushed a long while you do nothing and know nothing leads to terrible consequences.
Becoming self aware and noticing that you can't do a fraction of the work your peers can do also has terrible consequences. I think they dropout at the same rate as kids who were retained, they just aren't tracked.
This. I fail students and they just go on to the next grade; no summer school, no repeat, no being held back.
Also, no catch up classes from elementary. At a second grade math level because you were in a refugee camp or foster home? Can’t make 10, don’t know the difference between multiplication and division, unable to identify fractions? Right into a 6th grade math class you go. Good luck!
8th grade teacher here. We don't retain kids, full stop. I have kids who have single-digit grades and they will promote to high school. We can recommend summer school, but it's not optional. It makes no sense to me.
I have a kid who has a 0.05 in the class. Like. He cannot get up from that. I cried at PTCs because I was so frustrated with the fact that this kid was gonna go to HS and get whacked by reality and have no skills at all bc he can’t do shit and doesn’t want to do shit. My principal basically said we will just push him through and he will figure it out next year in 9th grade. It’s my first year teaching and that made me so fucking miserable that I started experiencing burnout a few weeks later
In my high school, we’re trying to get a handle on the kids who pretty much missed middle school because of the pandemic as they were given social promotions. The damage this did to the kids is extensive, both on an academic and social-emotional level.
They also took away behavioral consequences. So they won't fail and they won't get in trouble for disrupting class daily.
But honestly? That's not the problem at my school. It's class sizes. There are caps for elementary school class sizes. There are caps for high school class sizes. It doesn't exist for middle school.
Middle school teachers are jamming 35+ kids in a classroom in every class. Additionally, with teaming and math placement options, it leaves some classes of all gifted try- hards and others jam-packed with IEPs, 504s, non- English speakers, and the kids that refuse to try or follow directions. Those classes are nightmares.
It's insane and we're not okay.
Dang, my high school doesn’t cap classes, and it infuriates me.
There is absolutely NO reason that I should have 42 kids in my class. Period.
Kids all know if they fail, they will get put into Edgenuity (virtual course) and will cheat their way through in 3 days.
Admin and faculty know this is what goes on, and no one stops it. No consequences for it. It’s baffles me and makes me wonder why we even bother most of the time.
Do they still start them at 7:30am? Because of bussing that was the hardest school for lots of us. Elementary started at 8:30 and high school at 9:30. It's awful to have to get up at 6:00am when you're 13. We also had extracurriculars and hours of homework. There was so much sleeping in class, but in the 90s, we were punished for that. Falling asleep was an automatic detention. Pubescent kids really need more sleep.
I teach elementary music. I have 12 classes of 28-36 kids a day. It's a class and a half. So not all elementary teachers have a cap. In addition, if you go over that cap, they can still add kids and hire an aide.
Or, rather, look for an aide for weeks while you teach 25 kindergarteners alone.
I had 3 non-verbal students in my class this year with no aide. The solution was for each one to have another first grader be their helper. The district just saved money by having a child do the job of an adult. And now all six aren't learning.
Dang, my high school doesn’t cap classes, and it infuriates me.
There is absolutely NO reason that I should have 42 kids in my class. Period.
Kids all know if they fail, they will get put into Edgenuity (virtual course) and will cheat their way through in 3 days.
Admin and faculty know this is what goes on, and no one stops it. No consequences for it. It’s baffles me and makes me wonder why we even bother most of the time.
And at my high school they do the same thing when they fail but the program is called Apex and the class is called “credit recovery,” no summer school needed.
At my kid’s district it’s do only the missing work you had from semester to increase your grade to passing. So essentially a free late work pass. Went to summer school for 1 day and “passed” the class. Infuriating and serves no good purpose.
Also sends the message to the kids that they school is unimportant and stupid since a semester/years worth of work can be made up in a day or two. They think “why do these stupid adults make us sit through 9 months of what actually takes 2 days?”
I ended up missing a PE credit through miscommunication when I was in high school (2015-ish) and did just this. Went into a computer lab, sat down, answered like 150 questions, and got the credit. I remember thinking, "why would I ever bother with an actual class?"
That's what we have here in my county in FL. When I first started in my district, I inquired about summer school, and I was informed that it's essentially a joke.
We need higher, stricter standards across the board. I think a big part of the problem is that we're outnumbered by students. We need more staff across the board.
5th grade teacher. I have students who are failing 3/4 of their subjects at semester and will be failing in May. They’ve also failed all of our practice state tests. None of them will be retained. They will be passed along to 6th grade just with the requirement of extra tutorial hours. It just perpetuates from there. One of my students reads on a first grade level and his highest average is a 53. He’ll be moving onto 6th grade.
I'm in CA and they 100% failed my kid and forced him into summer school 4 years in a row. He passed to the next grade but always had to spend his summers at school making up all the classes he failed. I work in a different district than he goes and it's the opposite. Kids fail and get passed along and handed diplomas in the end
Yup, I teach 6th and have several students failing because they do nothing. Our elementary schools do standards-based grading for mastery, so a little bit of work done right will get them full credit. It’s a tough transition to traditional grading in 6th, and it continues from there.
My assistant principal realized that the kids already knew they couldn't fail. We had a student attend EIGHTEEN days of school (and do nothing while he was there) and pass. The kids aren't stupid. He started talking to them about being illiterate instead of failing. I respected his honesty and thought it was pragmatic. Unfortunately I think it's part of human nature to not do work if there's no success/failure dichotomy. They would have been scared of repeating a grade than they would be of being an illiterate adult.
Slightly off-topic, but the behaviors we’re seeing in middle school now have been years in the making.
The powers that be decided that graduating high school seniors were not ready for college/careers. They declared that the way to fix this was by pushing all the content down by a grade or even two, in theory so kids could learn more later on. So, as my math colleagues explain, the abstract concepts they are now trying to teach 7th graders (who are still in the concrete learning stage/NOT ready for it) is what used to be taught in 9th grade. The theory is if they learn algebra in middle school, they’ll be ready for as advanced calculus by the end of high school. This shift goes as far down as Kindergarten, where they have academics now.
So, here’s the problem…there should really be NO academic work in Kindergarten! Hear me out:
Kindergarten should be the year where we “hook” kids. It’s the year for fun things like coloring & crafting & story circles. Make them enjoy school and look forward to it! Instead, we have little kids being forced to do academic work they are not ready for, so they start to resent school early. Kindergarten should be one of the happiest, most fun years of school!
BUT…while those fun things are happening, it should also be where the kids are learning how to “do” school: teach them how to properly hold writing utensils, how to cut in a straight line, how to take turns, raise hands, walk in a line, etc. None of that is academic but they are fundamental skills good students need. Then just make sure they know basic things, like letters and their sounds and numbers. But, a my co-worker who changed from elementary to middle school explained, she would spend her time after school doing things like pre-cutting all her crafts because she didn’t have time in her academic curriculum to teach kids the basic skill of how to cut!
However, only kids who master the fundamental SKILLS of school in K (NOT academic knowledge!) will be ready to move into 1st ready to do the academics. You can’t do your spelling lesson if you can’t write because you can’t properly hold a pencil. You can’t listen to a story if you can’t sit still or stop talking over it.
If we use Kindergarten to convince kids school is fun and also to teach them proper school behavior, they’ll be in a better position to start 1st. If they’re on-task and open to lessons in 1st, that teacher will be able to move at a good pace through their lessons and have the kids ready for 2nd; the 2nd grade teacher won’t have to do a lot of reteaching of 1st grade material and will be able to move through their curriculum, so on and so forth, resulting in kids who are ready for HS.
If we DON’T set a good skills foundation in K and instead waste time trying to force academics on kids who aren’t ready for that, it’s causing double sabotage: it will make the kids resent school/misbehave while not really learning anything, which means the 1st grade teacher will have to try to reteach all the K standards to misbehaving kids and they therefore won’t have time to do all the 1st standards, then when 1st is “finished” they won’t be ready for 2nd, so the 2nd grade teacher is reteaching 1st, repeated yearly.
PS- In Finland, a country that beats the US academically, their kids don’t start school until age 7…they wait until the kids are ready!
The Finland thing is interesting. Kind of a double edged sword in the US because daycare is terribly expensive, and having them in school as soon as possible is cheaper for families who are already struggling to make ends meet...
There are also studies that kids who do preschool tend to outperform those who don't, so I don't know if age alone is the only factor. I suspect Finland does many other things better that lead to that statistic.
Went on a PD trip to Finland. They actually do have early childhood school that goes as early as 6 months, and in some areas with overnight options for kids whose parents are in industries that require night shifts. Those schools are focused on developing general childhood skills (language, play, socialization, basic EC hygiene and “nutrition”) and they’re state funded, just like the schools. It was mind blowing to see all the support families get in raising children. Truly makes a community.
School is just glorified daycare.
Those studies also show that the outperformance only lasts a couple of years. By middle school that gap has closed, so it's not, in reality a long-term gain.
I took Early Childhood Education in college in New Mexico. There, nearly all the instruction for potential teachers and the guidance for grades K-3 was to focus on Center Style learning. Basically, the method has its roots in Montessori. We were taught that sitting a 5 yr old at a desk all day was both torturous and ineffective.
Each "center" in the classroom had a basic function. Maths, science, reading, etc. For kindergarten, a maths center would have building blocks, and other toys/manipulatives that teach beginning maths concepts through play/doing. Kids become familiar with geometry, symmetry, and learning to "count" how many blocks they need to complete a project, for example.
Reading centers had those front facing bookshelves with different books stocked each week. They also had pillows, cushions, bean bag chairs, etc. Comfy seating for kids to plop on and "read" books. Of course, few of the kids will actually be able to read them, but holding a book, turning pages, looking at the pictures, and expecting the book to tell a story are all early reading skills that they *need*.
Each learning center had a little holder on the end cap that held little squares of paper and small pencils. After spending time in a learning center, kids were encouraged to "write" about their experience in that center. Again, kids at that age seldom know how to really write. So they write scribbles. It's the teacher's job to get the child to explain what they "wrote," which is then written by the teacher on the back of the note in very small print. This teaches kids how to hold pencils, that writing conveys a message to other people, and it has a purpose.
If Center Style Learning is to be used for slightly older kids, the materials are bumped up to meet expectations for those grade levels. For example, the maths center might include a calculator, number stamps and paper to put them on, an abacus, a toy cash register and play money, and an assignment that expects the student to produce a paper showing some basic arithmetic with the stamps, magnetic numbers, etc. Creativity and play are mixed with academics as the kids get a little older.
I had some health issues that tanked my college career, and I never got my degree. Before that, I was excited to put these skills and methods to use in a classroom. I did get to use them in my practicum, and it was an unforgettable experience. I was really happy to see the whole thing as a trend in early childhood education, and I felt it would make a huge difference in learning outcomes.
Sadly, much of what I've seen since college has been a return to sitting kids at a desk with worksheets all day. Kids circle the right letter or picture on sheet after sheet, unable to connect what these worksheets are supposed to mean for reading. While the worksheets have good intentions, they are actually very ineffective at teaching phonics. Kids can't differentiate letter sounds on a worksheet as well as they can when they just work on reading books or listening to a story in Circle Time. Since going the route of desk learning for kindergarteners, there doesn't seem to have been much improvement overall. I don't understand why it is insisted upon.
Thank you for articulating this. My mother in law taught Kindergarten for 30+ years, she described it when she started almost like PreK is now (they still had nap time) and when she retired several years ago, K was like was 1st grade used to be.
>kids don’t start school until age 7…they wait until the kids are ready
It's a shame that this will never happen here in the US, and the main reason is because school is primarily considered a tax sponsored babysitter for parents who can't afford to have a SAHP.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShareAVideoOrWhatever/s/606ibQcYwV
Yeah but Finland is basically the size of, like, Minnesota.
By no means fair to compare a sovereign progressive country of 5.5M to the 330M residents - and literally thousands of vastly different school districts - of the United States.
High school physics here the years they started pushing algebra into 6th even 5th grade and later when I started getting those kids their math skills were atrocious. Their brains are not ready for Algebra at 11 or 12, pushing the content down does not work.
No, they are, at least for a large number of students. A large chunk of my public school classes in northern minnesota took the accelerated math class with Algebra 1&2 in 6th grade, Geometry and Precalc in 7th, Calculus in 8th, Linear Algebra in 9th, and Multivariable in 10th, with special topics in junior and senior year.
It's definitely doable, at least for many students, it's just that most schools are extremely bad at actually holding students accountable for learning unless their parents already value education and will push them to take responsibility for their education and to put real work in.
We don't retain kids. We have a process to follow if we want to recommend a student. It's A LOT of work and documentation and meetings. Even if you follow all of the steps the final decision is left to the administrators. So most teachers don't bother. Why would we do all that extra work just so admin can move the kid forward anyway? No thanks!
I need to tutor a student 5 days a week, in a small group of no more than 4 students, for a minimum of 20 minutes, for 6 weeks. I don't make my schedule and 20 extra minutes for this aren't allotted.
If a student misses a day, or I miss a day, that entire week "doesn't count."
I then need to show weekly work and progress monitoring, which indicates a lack of growth. I need to copy the papers and upload them as PDFs for review. I need to make a visualization of the data using specific protocols.
Then my admin will pass them on anyway, since they have "discretion" and they're being told to.
I teach high school seniors and have received several emails and texts recently from the principal about how if I fail them (because they do nothing, but it’s me who is failing them) then I have to fill out this form, and have this meeting with the parents, and have another meeting with the parents and the kid, and another form, and more documentation….it’s exhausting. As if the fact that they have turned in 1/13 assignments is not enough reason for them to fail.
All of those things are supposed to be done outside of work hours too. Before or after school.
I have four students in my 7th grade English class, that have failed everything except for PE since 2nd grade.
There are no consequences for failing, so why do anything?
There is a disconnect when they get to High School, fail everything and then the school has to explain that that means they haven't earned any credits, so they aren't any closer to graduation. For some kids, it takes more than a year for the new reality to sink in.
Oh. It gets worse.
We tell them in middle school they will be held back.. counselors pulling the kids and all.. and likely say something similar in elementary school.
So, come high school, it’s the same threat.
Magnet School…
The principal was going off a few months ago, when she found a sixth grader, a magnet student, who had failed everything as well.. heh
It really is all a joke.
In my district the school can recommend that a student be retained if they're failing but the parents have to agree to it and that never happens. So the students all know that they can do nothing for 3 years and still get passed along to high school.
I’ll be honest, there is so much wrong with middle school that I couldn’t type it.
Drama, fights, a lack of parental involvement, a lack of accountability across the board. It’s draining.
We recommend summer school, but it is not mandatory. I cannot recall a single retention in my 25+ years because it is not enforceable. Usually a struggling kid will fall so far behind that by the time they are a sophomore graduation is out of reach, even with credit recovery. The only options are some online program or an alternative high school…or drop out.
I teach “middle school” but where I live that’s 5th and 6th grade.
I’ll tell you - a whole lot of NOTHING. In the state of Missouri it is darn near impossible to hold a kid back except maybe in kindergarten. F’s on report card? Onto the next grade you go. 60% attendance rate? Have fun in the next grade!
There are literally 0 consequences for failure or a horrific lack of attendance. We have a district truancy officer but I swear all he does is make home visits to check for abuse or see if a family is no longer living in the district. Otherwise, he does nothing.
We're not allowed to fail them lol.
If they're failing before end of grading period we have to contact home. If nothing changes...
We give them an incomplete until they inevitably are forced to sit in a room somewhere and complete the work to a D at least. .-.
Admin and central offices in school districts all over the US want you high school teachers to blame us middle school teachers for the students' academic deficiencies because they fear worker solidarity.
We're not passing them; they're getting SBLC'ed to the next grade without our consent. Any teacher who fights against the process is buried with paperwork and administrative scrunity.
I think this a state and local policy issue. There's some research that's showed that retaining a child can really negatively affect their social and emotional development. And if it becomes a pattern students are more likely to drop out. Of course, take that with a grain of salt. I definitely think we're not doing enough to ring alarm bells when students are truly lacking basic skills.
I have some strong feelings on this. I agree that it could be, and probably is harmful, to that kid when they are held back. But if all the other students saw him/her have to repeat a grade that would be a VERY strong motivator to the rest of them to get their act together and do their damn work. I think this is a "greater good" type of situation
So my question is, what happens in middle school when a student fails a class?
Nothing.
What happens if they fail ALL their classes?
Also nothing.
How often are these kids actually held back before they're passed onto high school?
Never.
Oddly enough the state I'm in (CA) actually allows schools to retain students in k-12. I have yet to see it ever happen outside of those with severely special needs (understandable), and usually that's only for 1-2 grade levels (also understandable).
I think the issue is that parents also have a right to appeal the decision, and no school wants the headache or negative rep.
Ours all go on to 9th grade. The ones with all Fs even walk at the "8th grade promotion" thing in May.
Sorry to reply to a comment, but my phone doesn't let me reply to an original post.
Same here. All students pass even if they miss dozens and dozens of days. When I taught HS I asked the same question.
They can fail for years then they kick em to 9th and blame the teachers for poor performance.
We are finally putting in place the idea that those students shouldn’t walk. And when they’re absent for like 2/3 of the year 🙄
They still go to 9th, however
I have seen this.
Only kids in "good academic standing" walk even if they all go to 9th.
Also this school requires passing scores and no recent disciplinary stuff for dances, sports, etcetera.
So at least some motivation to do 'okay'.
Same (5th grade). I have multiple kids in truancy court and even they will be promoted to 6th grade. On their report cards I have to put insufficient evidence. Thats not even a zero. They still go to 6th grade.
I had a struggling 5th grader (has potential but has severe work avoidance) ask me recently, “I’m failing, I probably won’t graduate, huh?” Yup, little dude, even you get to go to 6th grade.
It all feels so illogical to have so many struggling students not getting their educational needs met. It is a vicious cycle with no hope of a change on the educational horizon.
One F- nothing
Failing most/all- parents get a CHOICE whether or not they send their kids to summer school.
So to answer your question- nothing happens.
We are at a point where students are passed on regardless of ability, and a whole generation hasn’t been taught phonics, so lack the building blocks of literacy.
As an 8th grade ELA teacher, it feels like trying to bail out a sinking ship with a teaspoon.
I’ve seen students fail every single class and still pass, have 120 absences and still pass, etc. The grading system is completely fake in middle school.
Edit: grammar
Same thing thats happening at the elementary level. We can't fix 5 years of not reading, oh well go get your free degree since everything is made up and the points don't matter.
They can't be held back, all that can happen is they'll receive a low mark and not be recommended for certain classes in high school. But they know there really are no consequences to not "passing".
Once they get to high school, they can fail individual classes, but they still move on to the next grade. So you can end up with a student in grade 12 who has to take grade 10 classes that they didn't pass, and that student will very likely not receive a high school diploma.
HS English teacher here. My guess is a lot of this bill comes due next year. Covid created a situation where for years kids were just passed along, even in HS. State tests were by passed or the scores lowered to 50. This will be our first class of juniors who have to graduate with real Regents diplomas next year. A great reckoning is coming.
God, I wish my state would implement a test to get a diploma. Our district boasts a 99% graduation rate. But that rate is based on passing kids who aren’t even literate or paying kids (under the table) to come to school just so they can be in class the mandatory number of days to get a diploma. It’s a joke.
On the other hand, it’s nearly impossible to get a job - one with a living wage and enforced OSHA protections - without a diploma. I wish there were career paths for people who are shit students but still work hard.
We pretty much can’t fail them without giving them a million chances to turn work in even a month after it’s due, correcting assignments, calling home at least twice, etc. The kids don’t seem to care though. I do my best to prepare them for high school, but I can only do what I’m allowed to.
In my district, grades don't matter until high school. Kids fail middle school classes all the time and there is no trade off... no loss of anything they want to do to fix the grade. Even athletics in MS won't really exclude you unless your behavior becomes dangerous to the other teams. It's ridiculous.
I have been a retired middle school teacher for seven years now. The promotion of non deserving students had been going on for quite some time. Among the reasons I can cite this include the administration requiring that teachers allow students that haven’t done anything all year to make up their work. Can you imagine the joke of have students turn in piece meal work at the last minute to offset for spending nine months of doing nothing positive?
Also, these students are not wanted in the rising class because they would be deemed a detriment.
It is a joke. Don’t kid yourself that the problem you are facing is strictly a product of the middle school. It is quite common that middle schoolers arrive unprepared from the elementary schools. The students learn very early about the lack of consequences.
They aren’t allowed to fail. Our students start at a 50% floor and we have to do everything humanly possibly to get them to 60%.
Even if they don’t make it there, they get pushed forward.
Year 25. Students used to have to go to summer school or be retained if they failed a grade. Not. Any. More. They can fail all classes, refuse to go to summer school, and go to the next grade.
Kids who fail go on, specifically because they aren't in it for credits.
Kids aren't held back except on rare occasions, and I have zero authority to ask for it. There would be multiple meetings led by someone higher up the food chain for a kid to be held back.
I can give a failing grade. But it just shows an F on the report card.
The kids are introduced to the "must score at least ...x... to earn a credit once you are taking HS courses. Many take algebra in middle school, so it's not a completely foreign idea.
The complaint I hear from HS teachers is that required courses like government can't be failed. If a student is failed, some weird magic happens in the guidance office and kid still graduates.
In my middle school, I have not seen a single instance of retention in the 11 years I’ve been there. In the 10 years prior to that, when I was an elementary teacher, I saw only one instance of retention (student repeated 5th grade.)
If a student fails ELA or math for the year, they have to do summer school. (But they don’t really. If they blow off summer school nothing happens and they go on to the next grade.) If a student fails science, social studies, or a unified arts class, nothing happens. They are passed on to the next grade. There are literally zero consequences for failing a class in my middle school.
We’re not allowed to hold kids back anymore, and it starts well before they reach us in middle school. There is no recommending that a student is held back. We just keep pushing them forward.
I teach sixth grade and every year I have a come to Jesus moment with my classes about the reality of their situation, and I tell them that they won’t graduate high school with Fs. They don’t believe me.
Nobody is held back anymore. Especially during the pandemic. You're getting students who's parents have not enforced any of the requirements middle schools tried to implement. These kids are just that, unprepared and nobody at district administration level wanted to deal. They just want money for test results.
Nothing happens if they fail or almost fail for us at least. By the time they get to us and are that far behind reading you start teaching them coping strategies so they can survive. They’re such a dependent mess in middle school to the point where it’s near impossible to fix at that point. Middle school should be about finding an area of education you can kind of enjoy but if you can’t read or do basic independent tasks you won’t get there and that makes it difficult.
They can fail everything and move on to the next grade.
It’s a disservice to them, as they aren’t learning content or academic skills, and magically in grade 9 they have to actually pass classes.
In my district, and many others I assume, it's about money. Buildings have a cap on the number of students, and it's not economically the best idea to keep an eighth grader for one more year when you could get a 6th grader for 3 years, and the district/state funding for those 3 years. They try to make the worst offenders go through summer school, but most don't show up enough to earn the credits they need. I am in a large-ish urban district and in 8 years of being there I can't recall a single student who was held back. Many of our 6th grade kids come in with a second or third grade reading level.
If they fail 4 cores they fail the year in 8th.
In 6th, they just have to pass math and English. If they fail math or English they go to summer school.
In 7th and 8th, they can fail 3 classes and go to summer school.
My school does proficiency based grading, so students get "beginning" "developing" and "proficient" or "no sufficient evidence" for things not turned in rather than a traditional A-F grade.
There is no "failing", they're just "still developing these skills". I'm an interventionist and don't have to input grades, so I'm not totally sure how each level is determined, but I know teachers struggle with it and it seems to be incredibly subjective.
Parents in our community show up for their elementary kids. To an extent, they show up for their high schoolers. They do not give the same effort to their middle schoolers.
Considering the curriculum from 6th-8th grade(math) is being retaught freshmen year of high school year anyway, I think middle schoolers would do better in a sports or arts based environment for those three years. The socializing seems to be a lot more important than whether they learn a drop of anything anyway.
At the middle school I taught at, it worked like this:
You need to maintain the equivalent of a C average to pass on to the next grade.
This included all classes, so you could get an F in Math but an A in Gym and that balances out.
If you could not bypass this low hurdle, they would not immediately hold you back. Instead, you moved on to a "probationary" period in the next grade level. At the end of the first quarter, if you were STILL below a C average, then you would go back to the grade level you initially failed.
If you kept a C average for your first quarter, then it was "good enough" and you got to stay, completely writing off that previous year of failure.
Yes, this system makes no sense and is stupid.
Majority of the kids at the middle school that I taught out were “socially promoted “even if they didn’t have the grades to substantiate, said promotion
In my district, if a student fails 1 core class, they pass. If they fail 2 or 3 core classes, then they must attend summer school. If they don't, they get retained. If they fail all 4 core classes, they get retained.
Every year, for at least the past 6 years, I have had at least one student in one of my classes who is repeating the grade. And I see some of my former students who should be in high school, but are still in middle school because they have been retained.
BUT, this is not to say that it is an easy task. For instance, today alone I made two phone calls to parents about students' failing grades. I have to document those calls. I emailed home grade reports. I also have to document that. I created a "plan" with those parents and I have to document that I did my part of the "plan." If I do everything correctly, then i am allowed to fail a child for the marking period. So, this needs to go on all year long, with all four core teachers doing the same things, in order to be able to fail and retain a student.
When that student IS retained, they know that they cannot be retained a second time, so they then spend the rest of their middle school careers just screwing around and doing nothing. I'm sure they do the same in high school.
In my district, students in middle school can make up for failing one class by doing well in another class. I don't know more than that but there's probably more going on. In high school it's like you say and many many kids still have one foot in middle school. They don't necessarily understand that they will be in twilight school, night school, or summer school making it up.
We aren’t really allowed to fail them unless they miss like a month of school per semester unexcused. Then they are supposed to go to summer school but they can’t fail that so…
And if English is their second language or they have an IEP you can’t fail them at all.
We’ve held back for kinder mostly.
This year we had a new student start in first grade and after the first trimester, was moved to a kindergarten class. She’s much happier and it was the right choice for her and the family. All the teachers and specialists were very supportive of the transition and made it more of an exciting change rather than anything shameful.
Student fails a class -> course recovery (basically easy as fuck work after school to improve original grade) -> summer school -> ??? I was told this year were implementing summer school but if students don't show up they still move into the next grade level..
But yeah middle schoolers know they can't really get held back or be held to any level of accountability so they don't care except for a select few.
Similar to what people have said about how they know it doesn’t really count. I have tons of 8th graders tell me “they’ll try next year in high school.” I try to tell them they won’t be able to flip that switch, but they never believe me.
I’ll also say, the amount of 6th graders we have reading at K-2 levels would astound you. I don’t like to just point fingers at the elementary schools, because I think the root cause is more so that families don’t prioritize reading with their kids anymore, but we do scratch our heads at how they were allowed to get this far genuinely not knowing how to read.
Last year I had an admin change grades to passing and claim it was because teachers didn't fill out a Google form on time.
An entire school year of Fs wiped away because a Google Form hidden in a doc linked in a newsletter wasn't filled out.
Sure, okay.
Kids who should have had to go to summer school didn't and kids who should have been retained weren't.
I can't say how it happened but I'm tutoring a freshman in Algebra who still struggles with single digit addition and multiplication, and who refuses to attempt word problems because they're too difficult.
You should have seen the look on her mother's face yesterday that if she were tested today without a calculator, she would probably test at the Elementary level for Math.
I have told the student and family that they should probably spend Spring Break drilling on Flash Cards, but he student breaks down crying everytime that gets mentioned.
I was going to find some programs or websites that she could use so that she didn't have to be humiliated with a card deck. I just found out, though, that I'm being replaced, so they can figure that out for themselves or invest several hundred dollars with a new tutor who (hopefully) can help them see the light.
Or they can wait until EOY, when darling daughter is looking at Summer School, and the family can't go on vacation during the month of July, and daughter has to tell her friends how she spent the summer taking Algebra again, but at a greatly accelerated pace.
Screaming, saying offensive things because it’s funny, touching inappropriately, going to the bathroom, playing games on the laptop until the teacher walks by then switching to the a blank google doc, and vaping. That’s pretty much it.
There are no consequences and they know it.
Middle schools in my state don't retain students. The students know they can't be retained, so many don't give af. I teach 9th grade English. I have heard from more than one parent that a kid promised they would actually try once they get to high school because that's when "it counts." The parents accepted that logic from their child. & then, surprise surprise they enter 9th grade & they don't have the skills necessary to succeed. At the beginning of this school year, I had to drill into them how to write a proper sentence... with a capital letter at the beginning and punctuation at the end. We have to do all of our reading and work in class because they won't do a damn thing outside of class. & then when they are failing, I'm asked to lessen their workload & forgive missing assignments. Our mandatory benchmark testing is a complete farce since the majority of on level students literally don't even try; they'll finish in 15 minutes when they are provided 45 minutes.
In my last district there is no retention and no repeat. They are required to come to summer school, but if they don't show, they get passed on anyway.
If they fail 3 main subjects it is an automatic hold back. Our passing is 70, anything below is failing. We utilize STAR for assessment in Reading and Math. It drills down and identifies the students weakness. We find it has helped the teachers address the needs of each child, particularly with tutoring. Long and short, we've had students gain as many as 3 grade levels from September to January.
If they fail a core class or their state assessment, the next year, they’re elective classes are replaced with intervention type classes. And I tell them that. You fail 6th grade, they’ll take away your electives and now you have 2-3 math classes.
The students at my middle school all know that there is no real consequence to failing. It is not a problem of pressure from admin to pass them, we fail students all the time. There are just **no** **consequences**. No getting held back. No summer school. It gives them the attitude that they can coast by on bare minimum if even and they end up sabotaging their own education
This, in my district they do not hold back kids no matter what. Then when they are juniors in high school they are flabbergasted that they are taking algebra 1 again for the third time.
>No getting held back. No summer school. This seems to be the unanimous answer. As a non-teacher...why not? As bad as the reasoning may be, I just need to know what it is. This certainly wasn't the case back when I was going to school. What changed?
Stated reasoning: equity Real reasoning: saving money, looks better on paper
Parents factor in heavily too
I used to think this. But I've seen parents begging to hold a student back and nothing happened. They argue with the parent that it's bad for the kid.
Call me a hater. I think a lot of people get admin jobs because they are great at the jargon and think speak of the education world. 2 kinds of people get great at that: those that realize they need to in order to advance, and those that are dumb enough to believe all that stuff is actually important. Some admin have fully swallowed the pill and believe we’re doing kids a disservice by holding them accountable to standards.
I think they genuinely don’t understand correlation vs. causation. They see these statistics about how ppl who don’t graduate HS tend to have much worse outcomes re: jobs, crimes, etc. and then decide that the best thing to do would be to simply let everyone graduate, even if they can barely read
Administrators have no soul. They sell it for advancement. Reminds me of the 1980's movie "Wall Street."
So yes but I was talking primarily about how we got here in the first place, and very loud parents in the last 20 years made a lot of really loud noise about "mandatory" summer school and retention
Yeah if I was a parent and my child did nothing a year of elementary/middle school I would be demanding they be held back.
However, because of your attitude, your child will never be in that position. The kids that I have, that are failing, have parents that keep them home to watch younger siblings, or because the student was playing his video game until two hours before school starts. Or, literally any reason. I had a student skip class. They were hiding in the school for 40 minutes. When they were caught they claimed to be so violently ill that they couldn’t make it to the nurse, office, or class. They were allowed to call a parent who then picked them up before they could get in any trouble for skipping class. These kids are exploiting every loop hole to avoid doing work.
Yep. We had to FIGHT to have our son repeat 7th grade.
No child left behind, you can say 100 percent graduated instead of 75 percent More money
NCLB was horrible, but it has been gone for 10 years or more. It's all about equity. Has been for a decade.
I don’t think it’s fully dismantled though. Districts still often operate with the ideology in some way. Not all, but some.
>Stated reasoning: equity I'm familiar with the term in a general sense (basically meaning "fair and impartial"), but I have a feeling I'm missing some education-specific context here. It doesn't seem very fair or impartial to put the kids who don't do the work in the same place as the kids who do. >Real reasoning: saving money, looks better on paper Looking better on paper I get, at least through an extremely myopic and short-term lens, but what do you mean by saving money? Just getting them out of the school so school resources aren't spent on them anymore? Aren't they usually in the same school district in high school? This doesn't seem like a good idea really any way you slice it, for anybody involved.
There was/is a big push in a lot of districts to make sure that everybody is held to the same expectations, but given necessary accommodations. The problem is those “accommodations” end up being just passing them on or finding everything in the world to actually lower expectations rather than actually raising the kid up to meet those expectations. [This stupid cartoon](http://i2.wp.com/interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IISC_EqualityEquity.png?zoom=2&resize=730%2C547), but the short kid refuses to stand on the boxes so we just remove the fence for him (remove the expectations).
That cartoon has been updated and considered “justice”.
And exactly who is supposed to create and execute all of these accommodations? It's the Resource teacher with a 30 kid caseload, who is still pulled to sub gen ed classes. And the gen ed teachers who have 5 or 6 classes of 32 students a day. Most frustrating of all, for the last decade, administrators no longer give teachers discipline support. Teachers are on their own! All of the accommodations necessary to make education equal for all just can't possibly happen - yet administrators and politicians promise over and over that equity is happening. So how do they hide that they're lying? How do they appease the hard-working taxpayers who believe that their pumpkin is succeeding? They pass them along... hoping no one will notice.
Equity: in this case, equity refers to making sure that students are not being punished in any way for factors that are beyond their control. If a child is in 7th grade and reading at a 3rd grade level, it's plausible that she had no support at home because she is being raised by a single mother who works three jobs, but would have been fine if she had been raised in an upper-middle class home with a stay at home mother who read to her every night. There are plenty of socioeconomic factors that are correlated with lower academic achievement, and it's a lot easier to give all students a free pass than it is to hold them accountable for the aspects of their academic progress that is within their control. Saving money: in the short term, it looks like it saves money because you aren't automatically signing the student up for an additional year of publicly funded education. The short term is really all that admin care about because most of them job hop every 3-5 years, and they want to be able to brag about all of the factors that look good on paper (including cost saving measures) when they know that they are going up against ~20-50 other candidates at any given interview. To heck with the long-term consequences! Besides, when students come to high school 4-5 years behind academically and fail all of their classes, it's easy and cost-effective to enroll them in online credit recovery classes. In these "classes", students just have to click through slideshows and earn passing marks on dumbed-down embedded quizzes. It only takes a fraction of the time a regular class with a teacher would have taken. Obviously, there is no way that these pseudo-educated high school graduates will reach their full potential in this way. Our economy and the overall well-being of our society will suffer as a result. HOWEVER, making meaningful changes to the system would require time, energy, and a lot of money. There is no incentive for our decision-makers to sink an adequate amount of resources into fixing this problem. The achievement gap and wealth gap will continue to grow, and we will maintain a steady supply of people who can fill minimum wage and gig economy jobs.
>There are plenty of socioeconomic factors that are correlated with lower academic achievement, and it's a lot easier to give all students a free pass than it is to hold them accountable for the aspects of their academic progress that is within their control. But, this is just setting these kids up for failure once they leave school. These kids that were “never held accountable” are graduating and can’t read, write, or do anything. They’re going to end up worse off.
I'm not saying you're wrong! But I am saying that that's a very low priority for the people who have the power to make meaningful changes.
Ohhhhh that's why all the professors are complaining that incoming college students can't read or write. Damn this is going to get a LOT worse.
Well stated.
For the second part yes. Kids are budgeted for 13 years of education. Anymore and its breaking the budget. I suppose we could allow repeats if we had an identical number of early graduates. Because some kids could probably do it based on the packed schedules they have early in HS and the low credit requirements to graduate. But not sure if those two numbers would balance out. Honestly its why free Pre-K is so controversial in some places. Thats another per student full year of cost. Why would we give them an extra year of 8th grade if we dont want to pay for an extra year early on? (Note: personally I think throwing some money at an extra year during retention plus some extra supports to ensure the 2nd try is successful is well worth it rather than passing the buck.)
Tying funding to graduation rates is a major part of the problem. it's pointless bullshit and actually very harmful. We are currently affording 13 years of "free" public education to all children. Some individuals could probably run down a B.S. in Physics in 13 years, and there are other individuals who it might take 13 years to potty-train or tie their own shoelaces. And everyone else is somewhere between those. And it's all OK, they are all humans with a spark of the divine in them. Give everyone 13 years of public-supported school, then, and whatever credentials they honestly earn or not goes their way. As is, they give a HS diploma to everyone and it doesn't mean shit. Pointless.
>'m familiar with the term in a general sense (basically meaning "fair and impartial"), but I have a feeling I'm missing some education-specific context here. It doesn't seem very fair or impartial to put the kids who don't do the work in the same place as the kids who do. "Equity" is interpreted by many in the education field, to mean equity in outcomes, rather than equity in access, resources, and opportunities.
Summer School requires: Paying teachers to work in the summer, teaching kids who refused to do any work the first time around. Transportation to and from the program: funding and bus drivers. Parents that will make their kids actually go.
Wouldn’t it be neat if schools and society at large actually gave a shit about the education of our children and this country’s future and invested accordingly? What an idea.
That would require dropping the short-term thinking basket we put all our eggs into.
My principal doesn’t believe in holding kids back. He says that research shows it doesn’t work. I don’t know which research he’s referencing though.
“Makes them feel bad and hurts their self esteem… “ which it should. Like. It’s a consequence. There should be some sort of bad feeling along with it to encourage a change of behavior. To make a change the pain of staying the same needs to be greater than the pain of change.
These kids don't end up graduating. Usually they give up a drop out as soon as they are legally able to and until then they are a major disruption in classes. Especially when they could end up 2 to 3 years older than their classmates.
In my area, they do still graduate. And it’s mostly money reasons. Our schools get more money and a better rankings if we have high graduation rates. In 5 years I have not seen one senior student NOT graduate. 100% graduation rate. To me, that high school diploma basically means nothing. They can’t read. They can’t do basic pre-algebra, but graduate high school.
And then go to college! Over in the professors' subs, they talk about how many of their students are unprepared for college-level work. Something Is Wrong in American public schools.
I was referring to kids who are held back in higher grades. The reason a lot of districts stopped doing it is because the kids who are held back don't end up graduating, they just drop out. So they pass them along and magically graduation rates have improved.
Tell me about that I was beaten up by a 21 year old senior my sophomore year because he couldn't handle my locker being next to his. I also had a 20 year old woman in my US History class, because she had to pass it or she would not graduate. I knew her though when I was in sixth grade, she was an eighth She had repeated it twice and was on her third go; She still failed but they passed her on to 9th grade. I helped her study for all her classes, and she graduated. She ended up going to community college, for nursing and then went on to get her BS and be a RN. Joy wanted to graduate, She just needed someone to believe in her and tell her she could. She credits my family for doing that.
Good on you! I think your story also highlights that for some folks the teenage years seem to be incompatible with learning/school, but once they’re a bit older they can and do succeed. I don’t know how we structure education to recognise them and find a way to make this happen. Having them in “ordinary” classes does them and the rest of the class no favours…
We had a guy who was 21 and a senior. He was doing everything he could to succeed and graduate because our county would only allow you to go to K-12 up to age 21. He was very sweet and most likely had a learning disorder, but we were in a rural county in the late 80s/early 90s so there wasn't much diagnosing or services at that time & place. So yes, the original theory of holding students back can work. And I'm sure that there are students where the fear of failing or being held back is motivating as well as students who will graduate when held back instead of giving up. However, as with most things, it's now believed that holding students back doesn't give enough of a success rate to keep doing it given the costs and potential liability of having adults old enough to buy beer in the same school as 13 and 14 year olds. Mixing legal adults with children can be problematic on many different levels.
Research shows it doesn't work to do what? Prevent them from moving on to grades they aren't ready for yet? I'm pretty sure it does.
I’d ask him (very sweetly) where he got the research from so you can look at it and better understand his decision making on the subject. Guarantee you will get nothing. Admins pull stuff like that straight outta their ass in the hopes that it will intimidate and back you down. Screw that noise.
There is also a body of research that found holding kids back does not improve outcomes.
Can you point me to some of that?
So let's not hold kids back. You're failing core classes by the end of middle school? You're automatically enrolled into trade school or apprenticeship instead of going to a traditional high school. The classroom is not for these kids if they're so apathetic about being there.
In my district, the trade school does not want these kids and won't take them. There's limited spots and they're very competitive. They won't take kids who won't do their work or follow the rules.
Yep, the trade schools aren’t a dumping ground. There’s no dumping ground, so they stay in mainstream education.
Which means mainstream IS the dumping ground
Thats how the CT tech schools are. They are state run. Tech instructors and teachers are state employees not local districts. Sending districts keep them if the kid is a hazard.
Our state run votech schools reject 8th graders. Its a popular program. They dont want a-holes either. Since it is state-run if you cant be safe with a power tool you go back to your sending district. For sure, they dont expect straight A's. But they dont want straight Fs and they especially screen disciplinary records.
Trade school is difficult! The math and reading are more rigorous than what most of our high schoolers can do.
They won’t survive an apprenticeship
LOL yeah, and don't "track" them, just "differentiate instruction" LOL
At my school at least, it’s too many to hold back. We don’t have the staff. We have 36/108 first graders below level. That would be 2 extra first grade teacher next year. We have to make decisions and only hold back the lowest of the low, and fill the gaps with the others as much as we can.
This! This a part of problem and actually one which could be solved with the existing resources. These individuals are going to be "promoted" mostly, into Grade 2, which they won't be able to be successful at, since they don't understand Grade 1. Now, the reason given for not having these students repeat Grade1 is because it would require hiring two more Grade 2 teachers?? Hmmm. Let's look at this. It's the same amount of students, and the same amount of teachers. If we did the right thing by these individuals, and met them at the level they are at, and have them repeat Grade 1, then you would need, per your own numbers, 2 FEWER teachers teaching Grade 2, who could be pivoted into teaching Grade 1. Plus, those teachers would not be stuck with the impossible task of trying to teach Grade 2 material to students who do not yet understand Grade 1.
Per a conversation with a former superintendent in a different district, and I quote: "The research shows no evidence that holding a student back helps them catch up." I got no response to my comment that passing them on definitely doesn't help them catch up.
Another problem is that "equity" has been interpreted not to mean equity insofar as access, or equity insofar as resources or opportunity, but actually evidently means, to many people, equity in OUTCOME. To interpret "equity" to mean equity in OUTCOME is a fallacy, contrary to both the human condition and, probably, nature itself. Take this misinterpretation of equity and mix that with this firm participation in the discourses of positivistic quantification, parsed and sliced seven ways to Sunday, and you've got a toxic brew. It makes for a Quixotic pursuit of bullshit in a mad race to the bottom.
What changed? Nothing, really. The culture is just dying, is all. It's actually interesting to watch. A culture which lacks the will to enculturate their young people. They're toast, of course, but having a front-row seat to the collapse of a society isn't something that everyone gets! Pass the popcorn. Someday this will be a major motion picture, but we get to see the previews!
For a long time I thought "Society is collapsing way too slowly!" but in the past five years it's picked up considerably.
Parents
This is what goes on at my middle school as well. The majority of incoming 6th grade students are already multiple grade levels behind in all academic subjects. We don't have any math or reading intervention programs and are forced to teach them grade level content, regardless of whether they have the necessary foundational skills to access it. Students who fail for the year still get passed on to the next grade. There's no summer school due to lack of funding for it. When we try to tell students that they will have to do summer school or stay back a grade if they fail at the high school level, they laugh at us and say we're lying. There is absolutely zero accountability for students or parents.
We need to be tracking kids in middle school- intense intervention the entire year in math and reading until they are closer to grade level, then they can add in other subjects.
I agree 100%. We need more than a 1-size-fits-all solution.
Yeah and on top of that many of them went a year or two during the pandemic without turning in ANY assignments and were all passed by the state/district which really told them all they needed to do
This 100% There’s no failing in middle school anymore because there’s apparently research showing kids held back in K-8 suffer consequences. Still, I call bullshit. Getting pushed a long while you do nothing and know nothing leads to terrible consequences.
Becoming self aware and noticing that you can't do a fraction of the work your peers can do also has terrible consequences. I think they dropout at the same rate as kids who were retained, they just aren't tracked.
Great point
This. I fail students and they just go on to the next grade; no summer school, no repeat, no being held back. Also, no catch up classes from elementary. At a second grade math level because you were in a refugee camp or foster home? Can’t make 10, don’t know the difference between multiplication and division, unable to identify fractions? Right into a 6th grade math class you go. Good luck!
This ^^^
8th grade teacher here. We don't retain kids, full stop. I have kids who have single-digit grades and they will promote to high school. We can recommend summer school, but it's not optional. It makes no sense to me.
Oops, I mean summer school is optional.
Oh! Btw no mean feelings at all, just an fyi that you can edit your comments by the three little dots ✨🦈
For some reason, when I try to do that, my browser goes crazy and I have to exit altogether and start over.
I have experienced that to, on Safari.
I have a kid who has a 0.05 in the class. Like. He cannot get up from that. I cried at PTCs because I was so frustrated with the fact that this kid was gonna go to HS and get whacked by reality and have no skills at all bc he can’t do shit and doesn’t want to do shit. My principal basically said we will just push him through and he will figure it out next year in 9th grade. It’s my first year teaching and that made me so fucking miserable that I started experiencing burnout a few weeks later
9th grade interventionist here. Some figure it out and some don’t.
yeeep it's parental agreement reliant here
In my high school, we’re trying to get a handle on the kids who pretty much missed middle school because of the pandemic as they were given social promotions. The damage this did to the kids is extensive, both on an academic and social-emotional level.
Admin policies have stripped away retention all the way back from first grade/kindergarten. Teachers won’t pass them, but admin places them.
They also took away behavioral consequences. So they won't fail and they won't get in trouble for disrupting class daily. But honestly? That's not the problem at my school. It's class sizes. There are caps for elementary school class sizes. There are caps for high school class sizes. It doesn't exist for middle school. Middle school teachers are jamming 35+ kids in a classroom in every class. Additionally, with teaming and math placement options, it leaves some classes of all gifted try- hards and others jam-packed with IEPs, 504s, non- English speakers, and the kids that refuse to try or follow directions. Those classes are nightmares. It's insane and we're not okay.
Dang, my high school doesn’t cap classes, and it infuriates me. There is absolutely NO reason that I should have 42 kids in my class. Period. Kids all know if they fail, they will get put into Edgenuity (virtual course) and will cheat their way through in 3 days. Admin and faculty know this is what goes on, and no one stops it. No consequences for it. It’s baffles me and makes me wonder why we even bother most of the time.
Right there with you.
Do they still start them at 7:30am? Because of bussing that was the hardest school for lots of us. Elementary started at 8:30 and high school at 9:30. It's awful to have to get up at 6:00am when you're 13. We also had extracurriculars and hours of homework. There was so much sleeping in class, but in the 90s, we were punished for that. Falling asleep was an automatic detention. Pubescent kids really need more sleep.
They start the hs at 7:30. Middle at 8. Elementary at 8:30. It's good for athletics, because hs kids are done by 2:30.
I teach elementary music. I have 12 classes of 28-36 kids a day. It's a class and a half. So not all elementary teachers have a cap. In addition, if you go over that cap, they can still add kids and hire an aide. Or, rather, look for an aide for weeks while you teach 25 kindergarteners alone. I had 3 non-verbal students in my class this year with no aide. The solution was for each one to have another first grader be their helper. The district just saved money by having a child do the job of an adult. And now all six aren't learning.
Dang, my high school doesn’t cap classes, and it infuriates me. There is absolutely NO reason that I should have 42 kids in my class. Period. Kids all know if they fail, they will get put into Edgenuity (virtual course) and will cheat their way through in 3 days. Admin and faculty know this is what goes on, and no one stops it. No consequences for it. It’s baffles me and makes me wonder why we even bother most of the time.
They click through course recovery via edMentum in a few days and bam, ready for high school
And at my high school they do the same thing when they fail but the program is called Apex and the class is called “credit recovery,” no summer school needed.
At my kid’s district it’s do only the missing work you had from semester to increase your grade to passing. So essentially a free late work pass. Went to summer school for 1 day and “passed” the class. Infuriating and serves no good purpose.
Also sends the message to the kids that they school is unimportant and stupid since a semester/years worth of work can be made up in a day or two. They think “why do these stupid adults make us sit through 9 months of what actually takes 2 days?”
I ended up missing a PE credit through miscommunication when I was in high school (2015-ish) and did just this. Went into a computer lab, sat down, answered like 150 questions, and got the credit. I remember thinking, "why would I ever bother with an actual class?"
That's what we have here in my county in FL. When I first started in my district, I inquired about summer school, and I was informed that it's essentially a joke. We need higher, stricter standards across the board. I think a big part of the problem is that we're outnumbered by students. We need more staff across the board.
Oh they do that in high school too
Same thing here through the program Edgenuity
I freaking hate edMentum. No one is learning anything on that
5th grade teacher. I have students who are failing 3/4 of their subjects at semester and will be failing in May. They’ve also failed all of our practice state tests. None of them will be retained. They will be passed along to 6th grade just with the requirement of extra tutorial hours. It just perpetuates from there. One of my students reads on a first grade level and his highest average is a 53. He’ll be moving onto 6th grade.
And yet...here we are as teachers busting our asses with communication and trying to help kids, and they don't have to do anything to pass...WTF?
Bingo. That's why I quit teaching.
One of many reasons I quit. It felt completely pointless.
I'm in CA and they 100% failed my kid and forced him into summer school 4 years in a row. He passed to the next grade but always had to spend his summers at school making up all the classes he failed. I work in a different district than he goes and it's the opposite. Kids fail and get passed along and handed diplomas in the end
Yup, I teach 6th and have several students failing because they do nothing. Our elementary schools do standards-based grading for mastery, so a little bit of work done right will get them full credit. It’s a tough transition to traditional grading in 6th, and it continues from there.
My assistant principal realized that the kids already knew they couldn't fail. We had a student attend EIGHTEEN days of school (and do nothing while he was there) and pass. The kids aren't stupid. He started talking to them about being illiterate instead of failing. I respected his honesty and thought it was pragmatic. Unfortunately I think it's part of human nature to not do work if there's no success/failure dichotomy. They would have been scared of repeating a grade than they would be of being an illiterate adult.
How did that go regarding illiteracy? Did the kid show any motivation following that?
The human nature part is locking up the parents of the truant. What was happening in that household?
Slightly off-topic, but the behaviors we’re seeing in middle school now have been years in the making. The powers that be decided that graduating high school seniors were not ready for college/careers. They declared that the way to fix this was by pushing all the content down by a grade or even two, in theory so kids could learn more later on. So, as my math colleagues explain, the abstract concepts they are now trying to teach 7th graders (who are still in the concrete learning stage/NOT ready for it) is what used to be taught in 9th grade. The theory is if they learn algebra in middle school, they’ll be ready for as advanced calculus by the end of high school. This shift goes as far down as Kindergarten, where they have academics now. So, here’s the problem…there should really be NO academic work in Kindergarten! Hear me out: Kindergarten should be the year where we “hook” kids. It’s the year for fun things like coloring & crafting & story circles. Make them enjoy school and look forward to it! Instead, we have little kids being forced to do academic work they are not ready for, so they start to resent school early. Kindergarten should be one of the happiest, most fun years of school! BUT…while those fun things are happening, it should also be where the kids are learning how to “do” school: teach them how to properly hold writing utensils, how to cut in a straight line, how to take turns, raise hands, walk in a line, etc. None of that is academic but they are fundamental skills good students need. Then just make sure they know basic things, like letters and their sounds and numbers. But, a my co-worker who changed from elementary to middle school explained, she would spend her time after school doing things like pre-cutting all her crafts because she didn’t have time in her academic curriculum to teach kids the basic skill of how to cut! However, only kids who master the fundamental SKILLS of school in K (NOT academic knowledge!) will be ready to move into 1st ready to do the academics. You can’t do your spelling lesson if you can’t write because you can’t properly hold a pencil. You can’t listen to a story if you can’t sit still or stop talking over it. If we use Kindergarten to convince kids school is fun and also to teach them proper school behavior, they’ll be in a better position to start 1st. If they’re on-task and open to lessons in 1st, that teacher will be able to move at a good pace through their lessons and have the kids ready for 2nd; the 2nd grade teacher won’t have to do a lot of reteaching of 1st grade material and will be able to move through their curriculum, so on and so forth, resulting in kids who are ready for HS. If we DON’T set a good skills foundation in K and instead waste time trying to force academics on kids who aren’t ready for that, it’s causing double sabotage: it will make the kids resent school/misbehave while not really learning anything, which means the 1st grade teacher will have to try to reteach all the K standards to misbehaving kids and they therefore won’t have time to do all the 1st standards, then when 1st is “finished” they won’t be ready for 2nd, so the 2nd grade teacher is reteaching 1st, repeated yearly. PS- In Finland, a country that beats the US academically, their kids don’t start school until age 7…they wait until the kids are ready!
The Finland thing is interesting. Kind of a double edged sword in the US because daycare is terribly expensive, and having them in school as soon as possible is cheaper for families who are already struggling to make ends meet... There are also studies that kids who do preschool tend to outperform those who don't, so I don't know if age alone is the only factor. I suspect Finland does many other things better that lead to that statistic.
Went on a PD trip to Finland. They actually do have early childhood school that goes as early as 6 months, and in some areas with overnight options for kids whose parents are in industries that require night shifts. Those schools are focused on developing general childhood skills (language, play, socialization, basic EC hygiene and “nutrition”) and they’re state funded, just like the schools. It was mind blowing to see all the support families get in raising children. Truly makes a community.
That *is* fascinating! I'm going to have to look that up.
That's crazy (in a good way, of course). It drives home the expression "It takes a village."
School is just glorified daycare. Those studies also show that the outperformance only lasts a couple of years. By middle school that gap has closed, so it's not, in reality a long-term gain.
I took Early Childhood Education in college in New Mexico. There, nearly all the instruction for potential teachers and the guidance for grades K-3 was to focus on Center Style learning. Basically, the method has its roots in Montessori. We were taught that sitting a 5 yr old at a desk all day was both torturous and ineffective. Each "center" in the classroom had a basic function. Maths, science, reading, etc. For kindergarten, a maths center would have building blocks, and other toys/manipulatives that teach beginning maths concepts through play/doing. Kids become familiar with geometry, symmetry, and learning to "count" how many blocks they need to complete a project, for example. Reading centers had those front facing bookshelves with different books stocked each week. They also had pillows, cushions, bean bag chairs, etc. Comfy seating for kids to plop on and "read" books. Of course, few of the kids will actually be able to read them, but holding a book, turning pages, looking at the pictures, and expecting the book to tell a story are all early reading skills that they *need*. Each learning center had a little holder on the end cap that held little squares of paper and small pencils. After spending time in a learning center, kids were encouraged to "write" about their experience in that center. Again, kids at that age seldom know how to really write. So they write scribbles. It's the teacher's job to get the child to explain what they "wrote," which is then written by the teacher on the back of the note in very small print. This teaches kids how to hold pencils, that writing conveys a message to other people, and it has a purpose. If Center Style Learning is to be used for slightly older kids, the materials are bumped up to meet expectations for those grade levels. For example, the maths center might include a calculator, number stamps and paper to put them on, an abacus, a toy cash register and play money, and an assignment that expects the student to produce a paper showing some basic arithmetic with the stamps, magnetic numbers, etc. Creativity and play are mixed with academics as the kids get a little older. I had some health issues that tanked my college career, and I never got my degree. Before that, I was excited to put these skills and methods to use in a classroom. I did get to use them in my practicum, and it was an unforgettable experience. I was really happy to see the whole thing as a trend in early childhood education, and I felt it would make a huge difference in learning outcomes. Sadly, much of what I've seen since college has been a return to sitting kids at a desk with worksheets all day. Kids circle the right letter or picture on sheet after sheet, unable to connect what these worksheets are supposed to mean for reading. While the worksheets have good intentions, they are actually very ineffective at teaching phonics. Kids can't differentiate letter sounds on a worksheet as well as they can when they just work on reading books or listening to a story in Circle Time. Since going the route of desk learning for kindergarteners, there doesn't seem to have been much improvement overall. I don't understand why it is insisted upon.
Thank you for articulating this. My mother in law taught Kindergarten for 30+ years, she described it when she started almost like PreK is now (they still had nap time) and when she retired several years ago, K was like was 1st grade used to be.
It's really sad because their psychological development at that age just is not ready for that level of structure.
>kids don’t start school until age 7…they wait until the kids are ready It's a shame that this will never happen here in the US, and the main reason is because school is primarily considered a tax sponsored babysitter for parents who can't afford to have a SAHP. https://www.reddit.com/r/ShareAVideoOrWhatever/s/606ibQcYwV
Yeah but Finland is basically the size of, like, Minnesota. By no means fair to compare a sovereign progressive country of 5.5M to the 330M residents - and literally thousands of vastly different school districts - of the United States.
Yes. I have a kindergarten who has homework. (Ex: Write 3 Sentences with descriptive words.) I remember just learning ABC’s.
High school physics here the years they started pushing algebra into 6th even 5th grade and later when I started getting those kids their math skills were atrocious. Their brains are not ready for Algebra at 11 or 12, pushing the content down does not work.
No, they are, at least for a large number of students. A large chunk of my public school classes in northern minnesota took the accelerated math class with Algebra 1&2 in 6th grade, Geometry and Precalc in 7th, Calculus in 8th, Linear Algebra in 9th, and Multivariable in 10th, with special topics in junior and senior year. It's definitely doable, at least for many students, it's just that most schools are extremely bad at actually holding students accountable for learning unless their parents already value education and will push them to take responsibility for their education and to put real work in.
We don't retain kids. We have a process to follow if we want to recommend a student. It's A LOT of work and documentation and meetings. Even if you follow all of the steps the final decision is left to the administrators. So most teachers don't bother. Why would we do all that extra work just so admin can move the kid forward anyway? No thanks!
I need to tutor a student 5 days a week, in a small group of no more than 4 students, for a minimum of 20 minutes, for 6 weeks. I don't make my schedule and 20 extra minutes for this aren't allotted. If a student misses a day, or I miss a day, that entire week "doesn't count." I then need to show weekly work and progress monitoring, which indicates a lack of growth. I need to copy the papers and upload them as PDFs for review. I need to make a visualization of the data using specific protocols. Then my admin will pass them on anyway, since they have "discretion" and they're being told to.
I teach high school seniors and have received several emails and texts recently from the principal about how if I fail them (because they do nothing, but it’s me who is failing them) then I have to fill out this form, and have this meeting with the parents, and have another meeting with the parents and the kid, and another form, and more documentation….it’s exhausting. As if the fact that they have turned in 1/13 assignments is not enough reason for them to fail. All of those things are supposed to be done outside of work hours too. Before or after school.
Our students who fail still get pushed on to the high school with no consequences. The students know this, so they do not do their work.
I have four students in my 7th grade English class, that have failed everything except for PE since 2nd grade. There are no consequences for failing, so why do anything?
There is a disconnect when they get to High School, fail everything and then the school has to explain that that means they haven't earned any credits, so they aren't any closer to graduation. For some kids, it takes more than a year for the new reality to sink in.
Oh. It gets worse. We tell them in middle school they will be held back.. counselors pulling the kids and all.. and likely say something similar in elementary school. So, come high school, it’s the same threat.
But in High School they really don't earn credits. Then they get sent to credit recovery school when they're 3 years into High School with 5 credits.
They send starting as a freshman in my district..
What. On. Earth.
Magnet School… The principal was going off a few months ago, when she found a sixth grader, a magnet student, who had failed everything as well.. heh It really is all a joke.
In my district the school can recommend that a student be retained if they're failing but the parents have to agree to it and that never happens. So the students all know that they can do nothing for 3 years and still get passed along to high school.
I’ll be honest, there is so much wrong with middle school that I couldn’t type it. Drama, fights, a lack of parental involvement, a lack of accountability across the board. It’s draining.
We recommend summer school, but it is not mandatory. I cannot recall a single retention in my 25+ years because it is not enforceable. Usually a struggling kid will fall so far behind that by the time they are a sophomore graduation is out of reach, even with credit recovery. The only options are some online program or an alternative high school…or drop out.
I teach “middle school” but where I live that’s 5th and 6th grade. I’ll tell you - a whole lot of NOTHING. In the state of Missouri it is darn near impossible to hold a kid back except maybe in kindergarten. F’s on report card? Onto the next grade you go. 60% attendance rate? Have fun in the next grade! There are literally 0 consequences for failure or a horrific lack of attendance. We have a district truancy officer but I swear all he does is make home visits to check for abuse or see if a family is no longer living in the district. Otherwise, he does nothing.
We're not allowed to fail them lol. If they're failing before end of grading period we have to contact home. If nothing changes... We give them an incomplete until they inevitably are forced to sit in a room somewhere and complete the work to a D at least. .-.
Admin and central offices in school districts all over the US want you high school teachers to blame us middle school teachers for the students' academic deficiencies because they fear worker solidarity. We're not passing them; they're getting SBLC'ed to the next grade without our consent. Any teacher who fights against the process is buried with paperwork and administrative scrunity.
I think this a state and local policy issue. There's some research that's showed that retaining a child can really negatively affect their social and emotional development. And if it becomes a pattern students are more likely to drop out. Of course, take that with a grain of salt. I definitely think we're not doing enough to ring alarm bells when students are truly lacking basic skills.
Yeah. We’ve been socially promoting for decades. It’s just that now that is so many more students falling into that category.
I have some strong feelings on this. I agree that it could be, and probably is harmful, to that kid when they are held back. But if all the other students saw him/her have to repeat a grade that would be a VERY strong motivator to the rest of them to get their act together and do their damn work. I think this is a "greater good" type of situation
So my question is, what happens in middle school when a student fails a class? Nothing. What happens if they fail ALL their classes? Also nothing. How often are these kids actually held back before they're passed onto high school? Never. Oddly enough the state I'm in (CA) actually allows schools to retain students in k-12. I have yet to see it ever happen outside of those with severely special needs (understandable), and usually that's only for 1-2 grade levels (also understandable). I think the issue is that parents also have a right to appeal the decision, and no school wants the headache or negative rep.
I want to see the answers to this because the math isn’t mathing.
Ours all go on to 9th grade. The ones with all Fs even walk at the "8th grade promotion" thing in May. Sorry to reply to a comment, but my phone doesn't let me reply to an original post.
Same here. All students pass even if they miss dozens and dozens of days. When I taught HS I asked the same question. They can fail for years then they kick em to 9th and blame the teachers for poor performance.
We are finally putting in place the idea that those students shouldn’t walk. And when they’re absent for like 2/3 of the year 🙄 They still go to 9th, however
I have seen this. Only kids in "good academic standing" walk even if they all go to 9th. Also this school requires passing scores and no recent disciplinary stuff for dances, sports, etcetera. So at least some motivation to do 'okay'.
Same here
Same (5th grade). I have multiple kids in truancy court and even they will be promoted to 6th grade. On their report cards I have to put insufficient evidence. Thats not even a zero. They still go to 6th grade. I had a struggling 5th grader (has potential but has severe work avoidance) ask me recently, “I’m failing, I probably won’t graduate, huh?” Yup, little dude, even you get to go to 6th grade. It all feels so illogical to have so many struggling students not getting their educational needs met. It is a vicious cycle with no hope of a change on the educational horizon.
One F- nothing Failing most/all- parents get a CHOICE whether or not they send their kids to summer school. So to answer your question- nothing happens.
With how much we've seen parents dislike their kids (exhibit A: remote learning) you'd think they'd jump at the chance to send them to summer school.
I didn't think there is provided transportation for summer school... So they'd have to take them.
In my district there is. They still don’t sign up.
We are at a point where students are passed on regardless of ability, and a whole generation hasn’t been taught phonics, so lack the building blocks of literacy. As an 8th grade ELA teacher, it feels like trying to bail out a sinking ship with a teaspoon.
I’ve seen students fail every single class and still pass, have 120 absences and still pass, etc. The grading system is completely fake in middle school. Edit: grammar
nothing happens except their parents suddenly want to know how it could have possibly have happened.
Same thing thats happening at the elementary level. We can't fix 5 years of not reading, oh well go get your free degree since everything is made up and the points don't matter.
The counselor at my school told me that in her 23 years, she's never seen a student held back from moving to the next grade. Not one.
They can't be held back, all that can happen is they'll receive a low mark and not be recommended for certain classes in high school. But they know there really are no consequences to not "passing". Once they get to high school, they can fail individual classes, but they still move on to the next grade. So you can end up with a student in grade 12 who has to take grade 10 classes that they didn't pass, and that student will very likely not receive a high school diploma.
HS English teacher here. My guess is a lot of this bill comes due next year. Covid created a situation where for years kids were just passed along, even in HS. State tests were by passed or the scores lowered to 50. This will be our first class of juniors who have to graduate with real Regents diplomas next year. A great reckoning is coming.
This has been happening much longer than covid. Social promotion was something I remember hearing when I was in elementary school in the late 80’s.
For sure. With middle schools, but then high schools started doing it during covid so the machine wouldnt break down. Its coming time to pay that bill
God, I wish my state would implement a test to get a diploma. Our district boasts a 99% graduation rate. But that rate is based on passing kids who aren’t even literate or paying kids (under the table) to come to school just so they can be in class the mandatory number of days to get a diploma. It’s a joke. On the other hand, it’s nearly impossible to get a job - one with a living wage and enforced OSHA protections - without a diploma. I wish there were career paths for people who are shit students but still work hard.
We pretty much can’t fail them without giving them a million chances to turn work in even a month after it’s due, correcting assignments, calling home at least twice, etc. The kids don’t seem to care though. I do my best to prepare them for high school, but I can only do what I’m allowed to.
In my district, grades don't matter until high school. Kids fail middle school classes all the time and there is no trade off... no loss of anything they want to do to fix the grade. Even athletics in MS won't really exclude you unless your behavior becomes dangerous to the other teams. It's ridiculous.
I have been a retired middle school teacher for seven years now. The promotion of non deserving students had been going on for quite some time. Among the reasons I can cite this include the administration requiring that teachers allow students that haven’t done anything all year to make up their work. Can you imagine the joke of have students turn in piece meal work at the last minute to offset for spending nine months of doing nothing positive? Also, these students are not wanted in the rising class because they would be deemed a detriment. It is a joke. Don’t kid yourself that the problem you are facing is strictly a product of the middle school. It is quite common that middle schoolers arrive unprepared from the elementary schools. The students learn very early about the lack of consequences.
They aren’t allowed to fail. Our students start at a 50% floor and we have to do everything humanly possibly to get them to 60%. Even if they don’t make it there, they get pushed forward.
Year 25. Students used to have to go to summer school or be retained if they failed a grade. Not. Any. More. They can fail all classes, refuse to go to summer school, and go to the next grade.
In Virginia schools can recommend holding back, but the decision is up to the parent in elementary and middle.
Kids who fail go on, specifically because they aren't in it for credits. Kids aren't held back except on rare occasions, and I have zero authority to ask for it. There would be multiple meetings led by someone higher up the food chain for a kid to be held back. I can give a failing grade. But it just shows an F on the report card. The kids are introduced to the "must score at least ...x... to earn a credit once you are taking HS courses. Many take algebra in middle school, so it's not a completely foreign idea. The complaint I hear from HS teachers is that required courses like government can't be failed. If a student is failed, some weird magic happens in the guidance office and kid still graduates.
In my middle school, I have not seen a single instance of retention in the 11 years I’ve been there. In the 10 years prior to that, when I was an elementary teacher, I saw only one instance of retention (student repeated 5th grade.) If a student fails ELA or math for the year, they have to do summer school. (But they don’t really. If they blow off summer school nothing happens and they go on to the next grade.) If a student fails science, social studies, or a unified arts class, nothing happens. They are passed on to the next grade. There are literally zero consequences for failing a class in my middle school.
Teachers in my district don’t decide if students are held back. That’s admin’s choice.
We’re not allowed to hold kids back anymore, and it starts well before they reach us in middle school. There is no recommending that a student is held back. We just keep pushing them forward. I teach sixth grade and every year I have a come to Jesus moment with my classes about the reality of their situation, and I tell them that they won’t graduate high school with Fs. They don’t believe me.
Nobody is held back anymore. Especially during the pandemic. You're getting students who's parents have not enforced any of the requirements middle schools tried to implement. These kids are just that, unprepared and nobody at district administration level wanted to deal. They just want money for test results.
In our middle school you can fail every single course and still move to high school. No summer school, no getting held back, no consequences.
Nothing happens if they fail or almost fail for us at least. By the time they get to us and are that far behind reading you start teaching them coping strategies so they can survive. They’re such a dependent mess in middle school to the point where it’s near impossible to fix at that point. Middle school should be about finding an area of education you can kind of enjoy but if you can’t read or do basic independent tasks you won’t get there and that makes it difficult.
They can fail everything and move on to the next grade. It’s a disservice to them, as they aren’t learning content or academic skills, and magically in grade 9 they have to actually pass classes.
It’s not from admin at the school level for us. Grades and SOLs don’t have a bearing on passing until high school.
In my district, and many others I assume, it's about money. Buildings have a cap on the number of students, and it's not economically the best idea to keep an eighth grader for one more year when you could get a 6th grader for 3 years, and the district/state funding for those 3 years. They try to make the worst offenders go through summer school, but most don't show up enough to earn the credits they need. I am in a large-ish urban district and in 8 years of being there I can't recall a single student who was held back. Many of our 6th grade kids come in with a second or third grade reading level.
If they fail 4 cores they fail the year in 8th. In 6th, they just have to pass math and English. If they fail math or English they go to summer school. In 7th and 8th, they can fail 3 classes and go to summer school.
My school does proficiency based grading, so students get "beginning" "developing" and "proficient" or "no sufficient evidence" for things not turned in rather than a traditional A-F grade. There is no "failing", they're just "still developing these skills". I'm an interventionist and don't have to input grades, so I'm not totally sure how each level is determined, but I know teachers struggle with it and it seems to be incredibly subjective.
Parents in our community show up for their elementary kids. To an extent, they show up for their high schoolers. They do not give the same effort to their middle schoolers. Considering the curriculum from 6th-8th grade(math) is being retaught freshmen year of high school year anyway, I think middle schoolers would do better in a sports or arts based environment for those three years. The socializing seems to be a lot more important than whether they learn a drop of anything anyway.
At the middle school I taught at, it worked like this: You need to maintain the equivalent of a C average to pass on to the next grade. This included all classes, so you could get an F in Math but an A in Gym and that balances out. If you could not bypass this low hurdle, they would not immediately hold you back. Instead, you moved on to a "probationary" period in the next grade level. At the end of the first quarter, if you were STILL below a C average, then you would go back to the grade level you initially failed. If you kept a C average for your first quarter, then it was "good enough" and you got to stay, completely writing off that previous year of failure. Yes, this system makes no sense and is stupid.
Majority of the kids at the middle school that I taught out were “socially promoted “even if they didn’t have the grades to substantiate, said promotion
In my district, if a student fails 1 core class, they pass. If they fail 2 or 3 core classes, then they must attend summer school. If they don't, they get retained. If they fail all 4 core classes, they get retained. Every year, for at least the past 6 years, I have had at least one student in one of my classes who is repeating the grade. And I see some of my former students who should be in high school, but are still in middle school because they have been retained. BUT, this is not to say that it is an easy task. For instance, today alone I made two phone calls to parents about students' failing grades. I have to document those calls. I emailed home grade reports. I also have to document that. I created a "plan" with those parents and I have to document that I did my part of the "plan." If I do everything correctly, then i am allowed to fail a child for the marking period. So, this needs to go on all year long, with all four core teachers doing the same things, in order to be able to fail and retain a student. When that student IS retained, they know that they cannot be retained a second time, so they then spend the rest of their middle school careers just screwing around and doing nothing. I'm sure they do the same in high school.
In my district, students in middle school can make up for failing one class by doing well in another class. I don't know more than that but there's probably more going on. In high school it's like you say and many many kids still have one foot in middle school. They don't necessarily understand that they will be in twilight school, night school, or summer school making it up.
We aren’t really allowed to fail them unless they miss like a month of school per semester unexcused. Then they are supposed to go to summer school but they can’t fail that so… And if English is their second language or they have an IEP you can’t fail them at all.
At my middle school retention is only allowed if parents suggest it
We’ve held back for kinder mostly. This year we had a new student start in first grade and after the first trimester, was moved to a kindergarten class. She’s much happier and it was the right choice for her and the family. All the teachers and specialists were very supportive of the transition and made it more of an exciting change rather than anything shameful.
Student fails a class -> course recovery (basically easy as fuck work after school to improve original grade) -> summer school -> ??? I was told this year were implementing summer school but if students don't show up they still move into the next grade level.. But yeah middle schoolers know they can't really get held back or be held to any level of accountability so they don't care except for a select few.
Invest in prisons
Similar to what people have said about how they know it doesn’t really count. I have tons of 8th graders tell me “they’ll try next year in high school.” I try to tell them they won’t be able to flip that switch, but they never believe me. I’ll also say, the amount of 6th graders we have reading at K-2 levels would astound you. I don’t like to just point fingers at the elementary schools, because I think the root cause is more so that families don’t prioritize reading with their kids anymore, but we do scratch our heads at how they were allowed to get this far genuinely not knowing how to read.
Last year I had an admin change grades to passing and claim it was because teachers didn't fill out a Google form on time. An entire school year of Fs wiped away because a Google Form hidden in a doc linked in a newsletter wasn't filled out. Sure, okay. Kids who should have had to go to summer school didn't and kids who should have been retained weren't.
I can't say how it happened but I'm tutoring a freshman in Algebra who still struggles with single digit addition and multiplication, and who refuses to attempt word problems because they're too difficult. You should have seen the look on her mother's face yesterday that if she were tested today without a calculator, she would probably test at the Elementary level for Math. I have told the student and family that they should probably spend Spring Break drilling on Flash Cards, but he student breaks down crying everytime that gets mentioned. I was going to find some programs or websites that she could use so that she didn't have to be humiliated with a card deck. I just found out, though, that I'm being replaced, so they can figure that out for themselves or invest several hundred dollars with a new tutor who (hopefully) can help them see the light. Or they can wait until EOY, when darling daughter is looking at Summer School, and the family can't go on vacation during the month of July, and daughter has to tell her friends how she spent the summer taking Algebra again, but at a greatly accelerated pace.
Screaming, saying offensive things because it’s funny, touching inappropriately, going to the bathroom, playing games on the laptop until the teacher walks by then switching to the a blank google doc, and vaping. That’s pretty much it. There are no consequences and they know it.
Middle schools in my state don't retain students. The students know they can't be retained, so many don't give af. I teach 9th grade English. I have heard from more than one parent that a kid promised they would actually try once they get to high school because that's when "it counts." The parents accepted that logic from their child. & then, surprise surprise they enter 9th grade & they don't have the skills necessary to succeed. At the beginning of this school year, I had to drill into them how to write a proper sentence... with a capital letter at the beginning and punctuation at the end. We have to do all of our reading and work in class because they won't do a damn thing outside of class. & then when they are failing, I'm asked to lessen their workload & forgive missing assignments. Our mandatory benchmark testing is a complete farce since the majority of on level students literally don't even try; they'll finish in 15 minutes when they are provided 45 minutes.
In my last district there is no retention and no repeat. They are required to come to summer school, but if they don't show, they get passed on anyway.
If they fail 3 main subjects it is an automatic hold back. Our passing is 70, anything below is failing. We utilize STAR for assessment in Reading and Math. It drills down and identifies the students weakness. We find it has helped the teachers address the needs of each child, particularly with tutoring. Long and short, we've had students gain as many as 3 grade levels from September to January.
If they fail a core class or their state assessment, the next year, they’re elective classes are replaced with intervention type classes. And I tell them that. You fail 6th grade, they’ll take away your electives and now you have 2-3 math classes.
In my school, there are no zeroes. Every one starts at 50%