The Problem of Social Promotion in Schools

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Main body
Conclusion
Implications for the current practice, solutions and research
Bibliography and References
Endnotes

Introduction

According to a 1998 Texas poll, 92% of Texas citizens didn’t want children to leave the third grade without being able to read. Social promotion was viewed by 78% as a serious issue (Bingham; cited in Stevens; Tuck; & Zimmerman)¹. Driving the students socially through the system of education has been blamed for causing millions of expenses to colleges who must offer remedial teaching, and businesses which need to teach new employees on basic skills (Fieldman)². About a half of the students who were admitted into California State University system in 1998, who represented the top third of the California state’s high school graduates, needed remedial English and/or Math instruction (Stevens; Tuck; & Zimmerman)³. This is because there was ignorance to the importance of imparting necessary skills during the students’ passage through the education system. This and many other reactions against the idea of social promotion reveals the fact that social promotion does not only lead to extra expenses to stake holders in our economy but also introduces processes that would otherwise have been eliminated with a good structured education system. Besides, the extra processes required to produce competitive work force in various sectors of our economy may present extra expenses and burden to parents who already had paid for the full preparation of their children in earlier or latter processes of education. The negative effects of social promotion in public schools cannot therefore be underestimated. It leads to high expenses in businesses and the society as a whole.

Main body

Social promotion in public school was approved practice in the late 1950s and 1960s and put in place to allow students pass to the next level of education without meeting the necessary requirements in the current level. Those students who were previously retained but who continued to achieve few academic gains would be promoted socially. This system has been criticized for being unfair and improper. Grammar correction for students is very important because it reduces the burden of parents keeping on correcting the mistakes from their children’s work. An example is a case of Michelle who criticizes the No Child Left behind Act for making teachers focus all their time and efforts to having the children meet the basic requirements and skills to reach a particular grade, something that leaves the “gifted” child behind. She says that she would keep supplementing her children’s education. Further more, future teachers who are current students will be largely affected if no emphasis was not laid down to impart good grammar and excellent grammar skills in them while they are learning. The effects: a future deteriorated education level. Although parents hold a valuable position in ensuring that their kids are learning, it must be noted that the point of making the teachers lax on correction of grammatical errors for the students means that they don’t do what they have been paid for.

Social promotion was an effective way, to eliminate overcrowding in public school as a result of retention, that also led to high costs of education, damaged self-esteem of children who end-up being victims, and violence. However, awareness of its future effects on education and other systems may have provided a strong basis as to why it was and is currently opposed. The American Federation of Teachers studied retention and social promotion and found none to be good. They gave a report which outlined reasons for student failure as being; excessive absenteeism, lack of effort, immaturity, weak curriculum and instruction, teachers’, parents’ and administrators’ failure to practically promote high achievements. As an effort to solve the problems, the AFT President Feldman, who called for end of social promotion after the publication of the AFT report, offered three choices alternative to social promotion and retention. These were; early identification of poor performers and early intervention, strengthening teachers’ training, and establishing grade-level standards.

While some may see the means utilized to raising the performance of the poor performers as discriminatory, since more attention and focus will be turned to them, such assumptions as contained in the No Child Left Behind Act that bright students can learn from any environment should not be used as a basis to shifting focus away from them. They should be availed equal opportunities to excel just as others. Education reformation should not be a mere focus on the poor performers at an expense of those excelling, but should be a boost of those performing poorly without a compromise on the methods and procedures which favor the top performers.

A solution to the problem of continued student failure can be solved partly by empowering the staff rather than implementing social promotion. It must be noted that social promotion is a means to surrender to educational failure and not a way to eliminate it. Equipping the staff teachers with the necessary skill and training would lead to a staff that does not only identify the need for students to succeed but also the best way to achieve it. Student performance has been indicated by Darling-Hammond⁴ to rely on “teacher expertise” which is the single most important factor by far, that determines performance of students.

While social promotion in the public schools was put in place as a solution for the aforementioned problems, it has proved as unsuccessful as retention. Research has shown that non offered high performance. Where there have been efforts to put an end to social promotion, programs put in place have proven successful void of social promotion. An example of places where the program has proved successful is Chicago. A recent study on the program put in place in this state showed an improvement among children who had performed poorly (those with lowest previous scores) after intervention for a period of one year. The intervention mechanism included intensive summer instruction. The retained third graders performed poorer than those who were promoted. Retention was revealed to depend on time and retention as late as third grade was harmful.

Retention was indicated to be expensive and a no cost-effective option for poor performers when compared with cheaper or more effective interventions. According to research on this matter, it was found to contain no gains or harm but that there was tendency for the benefits to wash out after some time. Indication of success after intervention programs like summer instruction reveals that success can be garnered while avoiding harmful projects like social promotion (Thompson, Cunningham, Elizabeth)⁵. Therefore a decision to have social promotion was ill advised in a way.

Clearly, educational reforms must be carefully thought out, structured and established so as not to wipe out the benefits of past structures, present structures and systems. For example, neglecting the need for good grammar and eliminating the need for teachers to impart it on students is not a good way out. Good grammar of the children helps them not only face the present but also prepare for the future. Good grammar is essential for proper presentational skills either as a businessman or a politician, or even as a tourist. Although it may be regarded as emphasizing on the outlook than the content of the material of education, it is necessary for introducing uniformity in schools and in the country as a general. The very purpose of language playing a necessary role to enabling communication amongst individuals and communities will be compromised by such an initiative which discourages teachers’ strictness towards ensuring good grammar is maintained and acquired by children. Although there is an indication that correction of the children in their grammar may degrade the children’s morale and make him or her develop a negative attitude, such can not be an excuse if the child misses important aspects that come with strictness in adhering correct grammar. Again, the initiative has been criticized for absorbing “more time and energy” during the writing classes (Truscott, 328)⁶. It must be considered that any successful work must involve time as an investment asset. Leaving the children free claiming that they will develop a negative attitude towards correction is wasting more resources since the students’ education has been paid for. Such people should concentrate more on its benefits without ignoring the challenges. If the level of education will continue to deteriorate because we fear that the morale of children may drop, or that their attitude may be compromised, then the value and goals of education will be put to question. We should be thinking of ways to improving the morale and the boosting of the attitude of the students without putting mechanisms that will degrade the education systems. A person with a poorly spoken grammar in any spheres of life is considered not brilliant enough or at all.

Besides, the rising competition by other languages like corrupted English and other international languages, the penetration and popularity of English into the United States and other continents would be negatively affected unlike it would be if people were taught to have proficiency in the grammar. This is partly because of the incoming immigrants into the United States. Slowly by slowly, the language may find itself being displaced by other languages of the world.

Although researchers have found that correction of students’ grammar is not effective and may negatively influence the students’ attitudes towards learning, it is possible that the outcome of such research indicates the poor channels or procedures of achieving grammatical improvements in writing-such as wrong emphasis on surface than the developmental process of the grammar-and not the indicator of wrong sum-value of the system in totality. In other words, a good system can fail to be productive as expected because of wrong channels and procedures of achieving the system goals. This is considerable because students’ grammatical correction carries with it benefits. Corrective measures to the system of correcting of students’ grammar in writing classes are what are necessary instead of abolishing the whole practice.

One of the reasons which have been cited for the failure of effectiveness of correction of grammar is the focus of this practice on the surface appearance of the grammar and not the way the language develops (Truscott)⁷. Learning grammar as a second language is a developmental and hierarchical complex and gradual process and some items are acquired before the other. Although this has been cited as the second reason why grammatical correction does not work, it can form a basis for developing a guideline on how corrections should be carried out: according to the educational level of the student, and systematically. Again, it does not mean that grammatical correction can not be tailored to suit these requirements. Study of the process of language development would be required so as to help in putting up a structure for use by teachers to aid students’ grammar correction-other than eliminating correction as a whole. The feeling that teachers may wrongly interpret students texts and provide misleading and vague and insufficient comments on their writing skills (Cohen)⁸-as a third reason why correction in students’ grammar does not work-may have founded grounds but not an excuse to eliminating the practice. Availing the necessary tools, equipments, sufficient training and know-how to teachers to enable them be effective in this job would be a better compromise to ensuring retention of high levels of grammar in schools, and would give a boost to teaching career to end up with a more professional staff. Students must be made to benefit from this initiative by making it as practical as possible.

While students are faced with the need to live out the challenges that modern life presents, the American education may be viewed as having failed in these early ages to come up with an ignorant way of improving education, namely; social promotion. When the current system of globalization and competition requires students to be prepared early enough as future managers in global organization, passing them to higher levels of education without having the required skills can be seen as discouraging this very necessary task for educating them. Children, no matter what is involved must be prepared in advance and reduce the country’s expenditure and burden to future training in order to make up for the same.

Take for example where a country would ignore the needs of the society for better communication skills and extensive or successful interpersonal skills. When they become managers, even of local companies, the same people would be faced with tasks requiring them to use these skills. Failure of usage of the skills as a result of deficiency in such skills will mean failure in their roles which may lead to collapse in a business venture or an organization. Take a keen look at what we are hinted about a successful manager: as leaders, they must learn to carry out proper and effective communications between or among the groups they represent as leaders. Handling of information and feedback will not be exception for a manager. According to Fayol, management entailed coordination, “giving orders” and organizing (71). In order to accomplish certain specific functions as managers, they will need to play various roles to assist them accomplish this. To achieve careful and good planning as a function of the manager, for example, would require good liaison roles, dissemination and negotiation roles. Careful analysis of these roles may reveal to you that the manager may require good grammatical skills, something the American education system would have denied in earlier years under the name of social promotion. In this, we can see the small distorted picture which is replicated in a bigger framed picture. The distortion of the small picture-small as it may be-means that the bigger picture will be distorted. Even in decision making, a manager will have to interact-and as a result express himself to-with his junior staff. Presentation of self and his interests will require essential grammatical expression skills. Even if he does not rise to the rank of management, such a worker may be more prone to failure as a result of poor communication in areas that will require team work, and group results.

For quick and effective promotion of democracy in every country, it is important that the citizens be educated in a way to assist them to contribute effectively in the formation of such democracy. Such citizens will require effective communication and well knowledge on the political system of a country. Yet having been proved less effective, social promotion does not, in the eyes of literacy, best promote this. While the United States may be keen at improving its business policies, international business relations with other countries, it may have ignored the impact that small mistakes can cause. Educational policies should be carefully planned while focusing on the future effects. Such decisions must be widely and well consulted so that their beneficial effects will not be outdone as days go on, even by emerging trends and alternatives. Careful organization would require the manager to be efficient in handling of disturbances brought about by either the workers or outsiders. What we are convinced of is that conflict resolution would require that the manager use a proper strategy that may require proper presentation and interpersonal skills. In addition, workforce in an industry, being a complicated entity of business may require some intervention mechanisms by the manager such as motivating them. The manager will be faced with a challenge of careful learning of most or some employees so as to know how to associate effectively. Such an interaction may involve interviewing, data collection, allocation of duties and advice. The manager will be required to respond appropriately and read any ‘signs’ necessary to becoming familiar or impacting the worker effectively, even with minimal conflict. The work force may comprise of diverse people who understand language better, with better presentation skills than him, or even unlearned, but his proficiency in any of these may count on his success, and his courage make him face all situation. Yet social promotion may have degraded the inner person by making the person see himself as poor and may contribute to his having a low self-esteem.

May be, I should have looked at the low likelihood of these people becoming managers, because in one way or the other others may notice their shortcoming. What we would be training in America may be people with little or low chances of becoming managers. This may be seen as the reason why some companies in future would prefer outsourcing staff rather than recruiting the locals for their operations. This is because businesses are run with one major force: to make profits. Companies therefore would be geared to looking forward to acquiring the most competitive individuals to hire, and the criteria for selection may shift from local to international focus. Hand-in-hand with this may be the focus by companies to concentrate or set up teams at work places as a means to improving team learning needed for corporate success and social corporate responsibility. A company would look for a person who has better communication skills, presentation and interpersonal skills among others. The chances that an American, who has been “pushed” through the education system will compete effectively with an international citizen who has worked hard to achieve his or her grades, in securing this opportunity, are lower. Besides, the number of immigrants has gone up higher in the recent past. In fact, Americans have complained of immigrants grasping and eventually competing with them for the available job opportunities. More surprising, it has happened in their country. While the United States may be praised for achieving increased business activities and industrialization which has resulted in more job opportunities that are available even to outsiders, the country’s past regimes may be blamed for establishing systems that have led to degraded skilled labor force-when the effects of such systems have been felt over time. Instead of equipping our children with necessary interpersonal and external skills, we have been geared towards an effort of equipping young men and women of this country with more of external skills such as technological know-how-only to realize that we also need good interpersonal skills necessary for the success of our corporations. Thus, such system as social promotion would be seen to negatively affect the Americans in their own countries. With majority of the countries in the world focused on equipping their citizens to cross the local boundaries and reach out for international opportunities, localization of our own education system and its failure to compete and keep up with the majority in equipping the citizens with necessary skills and knowledge, we are doing some harm. Even in self-employment, they will require skills to effectively communicate with their clients.

Conclusion

Countries which are, even to date, more economically and technologically disadvantaged than ours, have been building over time on investing and improving on human labor force; and now, it is like we have woken up from a dream to realize that full economic benefits can not be achieved by a one right-handed man, but that interpersonal skills are necessary. As we begin to prepare to go back to our sweet dreams of leading the world in all aspects, it is regretful that we may have lost a grip towards preparing our children to lead the world in future. On one hand we may have presented him or her with the necessary strategy and tools to face the future technological and any other type of barrier or challenge, yet on the other hand we must present him with the necessary skills to engage these tools and equipments, give him the necessary interpersonal skills such as courage and self confidence to enable him network with other people-including his competitors in special interests, in addition to eliminating the possible barriers-such as shortage of human labor-that would arise in future. Such people must be proved ready by means of an elaborate education system that fosters excellence. The United States must not make careless steps such as compromising with its education system by reintroducing social promotion in public schools that merely encourages students to go through the system without extra-ordinary focus on quality of the graduates at various education levels. We should focus on a stricter program that encourages achievement through hard-work, not on a program that renders “cheap” means of successes that is no good for global competitiveness.

Implications for the current practice, solutions and research

While we seem to prove that, by way of reason social promotion and retention do not present formidable solution, we must steer clear that we must put proper policies in place to avoid such and other draw backs, because of changing political systems. Whereas we may be trying to heal from the effects of ill-advised policies, we require a healing process by putting in place formidable policies and structures. For example, grammar correction of students has been criticized with focusing on the surface of grammar other than the way it develops. We must venture into organizing the system to reap the benefit that comes with it and eliminate the unnecessary burdens and expenses. It has already been indicated that acquiring of a second language, for example by an immigrant, is a developmental and hierarchical process and some components may be acquired before than others. Therefore we should ensure that our system that allows grammar correction in our writing classes, and related policies are framed to go hand in hand with research and tested practice. While we may by all means oppose grammatical correction to our children by focusing on the research findings that such practice yield little or at times no benefit at all, we must venture into extensive research to reveal whether there are possibilities to better the practice and the best methods of doing it. The benefits of such practice must be carefully analyzed and supported with relevant information and research.

There are cautions that the policymakers who are trying to abolish social promotion must take into considerations. These are listed below:

Preschool programs that will prepare children to succeed in latter stages must be emphasized. The importance of this practice is underlined by the finding that early retention may harm students and considering the possibility of experiencing large number of students being retained in first grade and even kindergarten
To march the current system with the research findings on early retention effects, we should put in place a mechanism that allows tracking of children’s performance from the earliest grades. This will allow us to spot low performers who need swift re-mediation
Special attention must be given to students identified to face the risk of retention, at the transition into middle and high school before and after transition
Students should take accountability tests more than once in order to provide a formidable reason as concerning retention, special attention to students, and promotion
Abolishment of social promotion must be replaced with special attention since needy students will always be there. Parents and other stake holders must be involved constructively

In conclusion, having reviewed the negative impacts of social promotion and whether there is a likelihood of benefits from such a system, we see that it was ill advised and less profitable. Replacement programs need to be put in place to wipe out the negative effects of it and provide better alternatives.

Bibliography and References

‘Classification of Managerial Roles’. 2008.
Cohen, A.D. Student processing of feedback on their compositions. In A. Wenden & J. Rubin (Eds.). Learner strategies in language learning (pp. 55-69). New York: Prentice Hall, 1987
Darling-Hammond, L. Alternatives to grade retention. The School Administrator. 1998.
Feldman, S. (1997). Passing on failure: the problem of social promotion in schools. Address. National Press Club.
Feldman, S. UFT President Sandra Feldman takes a tough stand on social promotions. 1997. Address. United Federation of Teachers Spring Conference.
Lee Ann Oblinger. Election Issues Explained. Improving Schools. 2004. Web.
Michelle. The Gifted Child Left Behind. 2007.
Stevens Jeremy, Lorraine Tuck, & Fara Zimmermen. One More Time: The Social Promotion Debate. Web.
Thompson, Charles L. – Cunningham, Elizabeth K. Retention and Social Promotion: Research and Implications for Policy. 2000.Web.
Truscott John. “The Case Against Grammar Correction in L2 Writing Classes”. Language Learning. 46:2, 1996.pp.328. Web.

Endnotes

See Stevens Jeremy, Lorraine Tuck, & Fara Zimmermen for these statistics on the subject matter
Feldman discuses challenges of social promotion
Ibid 1
See Darling-Hammond criticizes retention in social promotion
Effects of retention as realized according to Thompson, Charles L. – Cunningham, Elizabeth K.
See further complains on retention according to Truscott.
Ibid 6
Cohen. The possibilities of teachers misinterpreting students work during writing and thus giving wrong comments

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