Passing Failing Students
The Return of Social Promotions
By Daniel Muniz

One of the most explosive education issues today is promoting students to the next grade even though they failed. This insidious practice, known as social promotion, was harshly criticized for decades until it was greatly curtailed.

Regrettably, the cure was worse than the illness.

By failing kids and then requiring them to repeat grades, school districts ended up with plenty of extra older students. And many of them were no better off remaining in our education system for the additional years. Critics of social promotion and even the teachers who detested the practice of passing kids who fail admit that they do not want students who are too old to be in their classrooms. Consequently, the proliferation of failed students, who may be two or three years older than everybody else especially in the earlier grades, began to present additional social problems to their younger peers.

As a result, it didn’t take long for social promotions to make a comeback.

But both options failed to solve the problem. With social promotion, it is totally useless to graduate a teenager who is almost illiterate. Likewise, it is equally worthless to retain a student until drinking age while he or she is barely able to read or write. Of course a large portion of failing students drop out anyways because of the lenient compulsory laws in many states that allow kids to leave the system as early as 16 years old.

It is time for our education system to actually fix the problem instead of employing two distinctive but ineffective methods.

First of all, social promotions are not a solution so it must be entirely eliminated especially when more rigorous curriculums are adopted. In addition, for many school districts, requiring students to repeat a grade doesn’t work either because they are simply recycled through the system without ever identifying ways to ensure success the next time around. However, the best way to prevent a student from repeating a grade is to prevent the failure in the first place. And that is the process needed to solve this national problem.

Currently, too many school districts are not proactive enough to help a student avoid failing a grade. For the most part, the only procedures available are purely reactive. That is, informing parents and if necessary, making a student repeat the failed year, or taking no action at all thus resorting to social promotion. As a result, the entire education system must be transformed to make it proactive and responsive to identify failing students.

Unfortunately, too many schools rigged their grading systems in favor of underachieving students. Suppose a child turns in absolutely no homework, and provides absolutely no answers to quizzes and tests. Even with no effort expended, that student can still achieve a failing grade of a 50 instead of a zero because plenty of school districts refuse to accurately measure a child’s performance (or lack thereof). These shenanigans allow for the manipulation of grades so that it becomes easier to pass a failing student.

It is vitally important to remove this tomfoolery because severe underperformance has to serve as a trigger to alert school officials that a child needs intensive assistance instead of finding ways to scam a passing grade. Our education system must establish the mechanisms that automatically place students in additional remedial classes as well as close monitoring of progress.

In essence, a child must be thoroughly evaluated to identify the problems that are causing the failure of a class. For instance, if a student does poorly in reading, then other non-core subjects have to be curtailed so that he or she get the specialized attention needed in a remedial class. Additional assistance may also require improving study habits or perhaps counseling to identify emotional or social problems.

Repeating a grade is totally worthless unless the problems are identified and dealt with accordingly. And for a lot of kids, such assistance is beyond the scope of their teachers, thus help has to come from professionals. Too often, parents and society in general, place unrealistic expectations on educators even though such problems are far beyond their areas of expertise and experience.

But what about the role of parents in this transformation?

Yes, they have to be made an integral part of it. Notifying parents of underachievement is next to useless. For decades, kids have found creative ways doctor or falsify the notices that say that they are failing. In fact, some parents do not even find out that their child has flunked until it is too late although they cyber age is changing that.

For much too long, lots of parents have been nothing more than passive observers while their children floundered in our education system. Quite a number of them really wanted to help but they were unable to do so because they were unaware of the severity of the problem. Others also had to deal with lying offspring. Then there were plenty of parents who did not have a clue on how to deal with learning disabilities or with problem children. And finally, there are plenty of lousy parents who don’t care.

As a result, parents have to be legally required to be part of the process. Some may have to be involved in intensive parenting classes as well as being trained in how to deal with children who have special needs. Others may have to be trained in how to deal with emotional problems while others need help with disciplinarian issues.

Regrettably, parents as well as society have placed too many unrealistic expectations on our school system in dealing with problems that only a parent ought to be responsible for. And it doesn’t matter if it involves discipline or a learning disability, our society can no longer allow a parent to palm off that problem to the education system.

And if a parent refuses to cooperate or is unwilling to fulfill their obligations in this intervention to prevent their child from failing, then the local child protective services office has to get involved. Yes, you did read that correctly and no, I am not off my rocker.

A failing student or a problem child can no longer slip through the cracks as they have done so for decades. If parents are unable or unwilling to make the difference, then this action has to be escalated so that it is treated as a severe societal problem. If a student does fail, then a social worker has to be involved in a parent’s life and that is perhaps the harshest way to deal with this dilemma. To the general public, it may sound Draconian but that is because society is accustomed to blaming teachers and the education system instead making parents accountable.

This transformation process has to be a two pronged approach especially since each prong has historically failed to be entirely accountable.

Our school system must be identify problems the moment they occur instead of relying on methods to scam a passing grade. Then they must authentically intervene and give the child the specialized attention that they need instead of passing them or recycling them through the same grade.

But most importantly, parents have to be legally required to be part of the intervention process. The days of being passive observers have to end.

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