Social Promotion

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Social Promotion: An Excuse for Not Educating a Child

When it comes to students failing a grade level there has always been two options, either a student can be socially promoted or they can be retained. The choices for a failing child are limited and both situations have stigmas attached. Both options have positive and negative effects this I concur. While, presenting both sides of the argument I will note that retention is not always the solution to a failing child’s future, however, promoting a student without the skills or knowledge to proceed to the next grade level only paves a future of destruction.
What is Social Promotion?
“Social promotion is the practice of promoting students to the next grade when they have failed to master part or all of the grade-level curriculum.” Social promotion is considered to keep a student’s social and psychological well being intact by allowing them to stay with their peers (social promotion). Social promotion reinforces failure, ignores students’ problems, and sends a message to every student that achievement and effort do not matter. (#1 pg. 1)
The Alternative…Retention
Retention is often viewed as the only alternative to social promotion, it is a policy that holds back students who have failing grades at the end of a school year (#2 pg. 3). Retention allows students to have an additional year to repeat a grade and to master the core curriculum for that grade level. However, when a child repeats a grade level they are often taught the same skills in the exact same manner from the previous year, thus leading them through another unsuccessful year.
While most teachers know that educational research indicates that retention can be ineffective, if not harmful, they feel there are insufficient educational alternatives (#2 pg. 4). It is estimated that between 15 and 19 percent of students are retained each year and as many as 50 percent of students in large urban areas are usually retained at least once before they graduate or decide to drop out of school (Starr pg.1). The American Federation of Teachers reports that very few studies have ever documented any appreciable long-term academic gains with retention (Starr pg. 1). The AFT also notes that with retention come problems such as, student alien...

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...ly intervention, and a determine and well prepared staff.
It is so easy to pass a child off by just promoting them to the next level. One might think it is not my problem anymore. By socially promoting children by just one grade level can effect that student’s performance for a lifetime. Students are in school to learn not to be passed off. They have right to a proper education and they must master all skills before being promoted. There is no hope for a child who has not met the standards or mastered the skills to be constantly promoted from one grade to the next. A student with an immeasurable amount of unmet skills and standards will never be able to function on “normal” level within society. If school systems, teachers, and parents do not hold each child responsible for the set standards then they are depriving these students of an education and a chance to ever have a successful future. When the question asked what is to be done with a failing student the answer is not social promotion. Social promotion is an excuse, a scapegoat, or a way out of taking the time, extra effort, and responsibility of educating a child.

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