Leg Up for Failing Students Making schools and parents more
accountable for educating children is likely to spell the end of
"social promotion" - the practice of passing students with bad
grades onto the next level.Skip to next paragraph Subscribe
Today to the Monitor At the same time, state-mandated testing is
forcing schools to rethink what best serves failing students.
Holding them back may result in them dropping out later on. To
prevent that, many states are trying to help children get up to
speed academically. In New York City, summer school has been
expanded, but attendance has been a problem. The city plans to
hold back 20,208 students in third grade through eighth grade
this year, including 7,500 who didn't show up for summer school.
But the point is being made: Kids who don't perform face
mandatory summer school. In California, a 1998 law requiring an
end to social promotion is taking hold. Orange County, for
instance, is keeping back a record number of schoolchildren.
It's also offering vigorous ca