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skoolboy
August 12, 2009
Mike Bloomberg’s comments at Monday’s press conference announcing plans to extend a test-based promotion policy to grades four and six were eerily reminiscent of Arne Duncan’s and Joel Klein’s reactions to two reports on social promotion released by the Consortium on Chicago School Research in 2004. The Chicago Consortium, an independent research group studying Chicago schools, examined the effects of promotional gates at the third-, sixth- and eighth-grade levels. (I reviewed one of the draft reports at the request of the Consortium.) The findings were unequivocal: Test-based retention did not alter the achievement trajectories of third-graders, and sixth-graders who were retained had lower achievement growth than similar low-achieving students who were promoted. Implementing the eighth-grade promotional gate reduced overall dropout rates slightly, but clearly lowered the likelihood of high school graduation for very low achievers and students who were already overage for grade at the time they reached the gate.
David Herszenhorn, writing in the New York Times at the time, described a Chicago press conference releasing the reports. He quoted Arne Duncan, then the chief executive of the Chicago public schools, as saying, “Common sense tells you that ending social promotion has contributed to higher test scores and lower dropout rates over the last eight years … I am absolutely convinced in my heart, it’s the right thing to do.” Herszenhorn delicately noted that Duncan made claims about the promotional policies that were not supported by the two reports. “While the report drew no such conclusion,” he wrote, “[Duncan] credited the tough promotion rules for improvements in the system as a whole, including better overall test scores, higher graduation and attendance rates and a lower overall dropout rate.”
In the same article, Herszenhorn suggested that NYC Chancellor Joel Klein had “seemed to push aside the findings.” He cited a statement by Klein that, “The Chicago study strongly supports our view that effective early grade interventions are key to ending social promotion and preparing students for the hard work they will encounter in later grades.” Klein’s statement was patently false: the Chicago studies didn’t examine early grade interventions. Rather, authors Jenny Nagaoka and Melissa Roderick pointed out that a great many students in Chicago were struggling well before the third-grade promotional gate, suggesting the desirability of early intervention with struggling students.
(A critic might wonder what effective early grade interventions the NYC Department of Education has developed over the past five years. Moreover, if these interventions are effective, why is it necessary to extend the promotion policy to grades four and six?)
Fast-forward to 2009. According to Javier Hernandez’ article in Tuesday’s New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg was asked what evidence he had to show that the promotion policy had increased student achievement. Bloomberg said he was speechless. “If you don’t believe ending social promotion is one of the real keys to doing this,” he said, “I don’t know quite how to answer the question.” As is occasionally the case, the mayor’s comment is hard to interpret. Is he saying that if you believe ending social promotion is the desired policy outcome, evidence on its effects is irrelevant? Does belief trump evidence? That’s consistent with Arne Duncan’s claim of what he believed in his heart. Such views run counter to the prevailing trends in education policy, which generally call for greater reliance on evidence of the impact of programs and policies in the policymaking process.
Now, it’s true that sometimes policies are formulated in a vacuum, with little existing evidence on the likely effects of a policy. But that’s not the case here. The Chicago studies are highly suggestive of what might be found in New York, due to the similarities in the promotion policies. Moreover, evidence on the effects of the New York City promotion policy is forthcoming, in the form of a study conducted by the RAND Corporation on behalf of the NYC Department of Education and scheduled to be released in the next few months. If evidence matters, it would be prudent to wait until the results are in before adding grades four and six to the existing complement of promotional gates in grades three, five, seven and eight.
Policy without evidence. Beliefs and “common sense” that ignore facts. Mike Bloomberg, Joel Klein and Arne Duncan: kicking it old school.
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August 12th, 2009 7:10 pm
This is another example why Stephen Colbert’s satire is so brilliant. In his first show he newly defined “truthiness,” the sense that something *feels* true, regardless of whether it *is* true.
Obviously, Colbert has been very funny with the whole truthiness things, but the brilliance of the satire is that it is based on what we really see. It was easy to mock President Bush for his belief in truthiness, but Mayor Bloomberg is a different sort of politican. He projects intelligence and compentence, and the electorate is quite convinced that he makes good decisions.
In this case, however, we have a “facts be damned” approach. It’s just obvious that social promotion hurts student achievement. It *feels* true. We don’t need studies to tell us that, and that studies that do are not important.
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August 12th, 2009 10:14 pm
You know ceolaf i battled pretty hard against you the past couple of days but after reading this article I’m willing to come over to your side.. Me and my fantasy vocational education track.
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August 12th, 2009 11:35 pm
InsiderKnowledge,
I don’t have a problem with vocational education, provided it is high quality and not just a dumping ground.
It’s not even, to be honest, that I am that much in favor of social promotion. It’s that that alternative at hand is worse, and we *already* know it is worse.
The ideal answer — one that meets your fantasy and mine — is a kind of intervention specially helps these students. Something that that both addresses their skill deficits and provides the kinds of supports and encouragements that can keep them invested in schooling and education. But I don’t know if such a thing is even possible? How would such a program not be stigmatizing?
I have my educational fantasies, too. But educational policy needs to be based on more than fantasies — even mine.
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August 13th, 2009 12:06 am
This is like the old debate over subliminal advertising. Who cares if it sells product? From the point of view of the ad agency, it sells…. ad campaigns.
Similarly, who cares if test-based promotion works? It’s a selling point of… a political campaign.
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August 13th, 2009 12:25 am
Well ceolaf I think we cannot fear the stigma..I think when we worry about feelings then policy that deals with the realities of the situation get lost in the shuffle. We all want and believe our kids have the ability to atain excellence in education but it is not reality. Some students struggle because well we are all not equally as smart. That is just plain truth. Even among A students some are better then others. This is a troubling trend in our society.. that we cannot accept that we are not equal so we strive for parity. It takes an astute parent to realize that their child may need extra help and we have to make sure that instead of putting our heads in the sand we offer that help. It surely is not about passing a watered down test or retaining students because it feels right.. It must done right.
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August 13th, 2009 5:34 pm
I don’t write about social promotion because I don’t have an opinion on it. But I do have an educated opinion on the Chicago Schools Consortium. I’d think long and hard before rejecting their wisdom. And I do have an opinion on saying one thing and doing another. I have an opinion on the Truthieness in education exemplified by data-driven “reformers.” I have an opinion about the formal ending of social promotion, replacing it with nonstop pressure just to “pass on” students after complying with some fig leafs.
We do have to fear stigma. But we must also fear dishonesty.
So, I fearfully think we should provide as many interventions as possible while listening to the research, especially when we are talking about low academic performance. When students reach a certain age, and their absenteeism and behavior gets to a point, however, we must yield to reality. Then I’d invest in Rolls Royce-quality Accelerated Middle Schools. When that was unsuccessful I’d invest in dropout recovery and community colleges, and digital means of outreach. I would never give up on troubled students. At a certain point, as long as we are talking about realistic as opposed to utopian levels of funding, I’d give up on social promotion of students who are emotionally incapable of functioning in regular secondary classes. But I’d never lie and claim that I feel comfortable about it, much less stick my head in the sand like Bloom/Klein.
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