Can you believe that statement?  A researcher at the University of Arkansas, who feels that teachers and administrators (mere public employees) who make a decision to pass a student on to the next grade who didn’t “pass the end of year test” says: “If public employees cannot do what the public has asked them to do, they should stop taking the public’s money and resign their posts.”  So, the student who misses the arbitrary “passing” score by point is out of luck.  The student who goes slightly over the bar is in luck!  Yes, indeed!

Here’s some background.

In the Sunday edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the issue on social promotion (pro/con) was presented in a pair of articles under the title: No Holding Back: Pro – Con.  The pro side of issue, Retaining creates more dropouts was written by C. Thomas Holmes, Professor of educational leadership at the University of Georgia with a speciality in administrative policy affecting student achievement.  The con side of the issue, All we need to do is follow the law was written by Jay P. Greene, holder of the endowed chair of education reform at the University of Arkansas and fellow at the Manhattan Institute. 

Professor Holmes, citing six major research studies reported that the overwhelming consensus in the educational literature that retention of elementary and middle school students most often produces negative results in long-term academic achievement. 

Professor Greene, citing only his own two research studies, reports that retained students outperformed their comparable peers during the next two years.  No mention is made of the long term academic affects.

Holmes has a long history of experience not only as a professor directing more than 80 doctoral dissertations, but also experience as a public school teacher.  Greene has no experience in education, although he has been a public employee in Texas and Arkansas at the university level in departments of history.  Holmes appears to understand education from the inside out.  Greene appears to look down and into education from the outside.  He (Greene) reminds me of the type of researcher that characterized much of educational research prior to the 70s in which researchers stayed on the outside using tests and questionnaires, and rarely worked within classrooms to know and experience the work of teachers and students.  He research appears to more politically driven than seeking answers to questions unknown.

Professor Greene is out of touch with the reality of classroom learning, and instructional practice.  I am surprised that he did not address Georgia’s social studies and mathematics testing debacle.  Perhaps a further indication of his lack of understanding of schooling.   

Professional teachers should be in the business of making decisions about student promotion.  But they should not be held to a failed policy that reduces a full year of learning to a single test score.  Most countries in the world do not.