A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

Taking Responsibility for Ending Social Promotion: A Guide for Educators and State and Local Leaders — May 1999

Helping Students Who Still Do Not Meet Standards

For students who continue to be unsuccessful in meeting standards, repeating a grade still is not an effective strategy. Students in this situation need other alternatives that help them develop the skills they need to achieve. The commitment to ending social promotion must extend to providing all students with every chance to meet high expectations. No student should be allowed to fall through the cracks. Most of the strategies in this section are designed to help students in the critical middle and high school grades.

Develop effective transition programs for students unprepared for promotion

In making the transition from childhood to young adulthood, students face tough challenges and peer pressure that can seriously affect their academic lives. At this stage of their academic careers, particularly as states and districts are increasing the stakes for students to pass exit exams before they can receive high school diplomas, teenagers need extra help. Two of the many examples of programs to ease the transition of students into high school and beyond are described here. Some programs provide alternative settings for students while others provide more individualized attention within the traditional middle or high school.

Agua Fria High School, near Phoenix, has a transition school program that provides academic and counseling support to students whose poor basic skills or attendance are impairing their performance in their regular classes. The program's goal is to return students to their regular classrooms once they have caught up with the rest of the class. Most students attend the program for one semester before returning to their class. The program works with no more than eight students each class period, and about 125 students attend each year. A certified teacher and classroom aide provide computer-assisted and small-group instruction, while a home-school liaison offers counseling. Students attend the transition school instead of a regular class to work on the skills or material with which they need particular help. According to the program coordinator, "Students are not assigned here to make up a particular class. We focus more on strengthening a particular skill that affects their performance in all classes." Through partnerships with a local community college, Agua Fria also allows students aged 17-20 with at least 12 credits toward graduation to earn either their high school diploma or a GED or both while attending the college.
In Connecticut, East Hartford High School's ninth-grade transition program provides academic tutoring while allowing the student to work closely with a full-time staff member. The program, instituted to cut the ninth-grade retention rate, assigns a tutor to each ninth-grade team of teachers. Tutors participate in all team meetings and assist in classes. Tutors work with at-risk students during the students' study hall periods as well as during a mandatory afterschool program, and maintain weekly contact with parents. Social work interns lead weekly small-group sessions on study skills, time management, and goal setting. A Summer Transition Program for incoming freshmen provides three weeks of academic enrichment in each of the core academic areas. About 70 students who fail two or more classes in the eighth grade attend the summer program.

Charter Schools

Of the more than 500 federally funded charter schools operating in the nation, many serve students who are at risk of dropping out, are low achievers, or are in adjudication. Thirty percent of federally funded charter schools serve a high-poverty student population, 20 percent are alternative schools, and many focus on the needs of students with limited English language skills.

The Long Beach Unified School District assigns eighth-graders who fail two or more classes to an alternative program titled the Long Beach Preparatory Academy. The Prep Academy is a year-long program that has smaller classes than regular ninth-grade classes. A counselor and a social worker work closely with students and their families. In the program's first year in operation, close to 90 percent of over 280 participating students earned the right to be promoted to the ninth grade.

Sometimes, despite the best efforts of schools and teachers, students still are not ready to move on to the next grade. Alternative public schools or an alternative program within a school can offer a second chance for children who are failing. There are many different types, but most share the following characteristics: fewer students per teacher, individualized attention, a mentoring environment, clear academic and behavioral standards, a strong education program, strong parental participation, and counseling services.

Reasons Students Drop Out of High School

Dislike of school, often because school is boring and irrelevant to student needs;
Low academic achievement and poor grades;
Retention (particularly being held back more than once);
Poverty, including the need or desire to work full time;
A sense that teachers and administrators do not care about students; and
Inability to feel comfortable in a large, depersonalized school setting.

Prevent dropouts and help students realize postsecondary opportunities

Strategies that create smaller learning environments and tailor instruction more closely to individual needs in a supportive environment are becoming a trend, not just for intervention and transition programs, but also for the design of middle and high schools more generally. Many high schools where dropping out has become a serious problem have redesigned the traditional, large, impersonal high school into smaller learning academies or schools within schools. Patterson High School in Baltimore, for example, has become a nationally recognized example of how personalizing relationships, along with concentrating on curriculum, can create a good learning environment.⁽⁴²⁾ The school adopted the Talent Development Model, reorganizing the school into four career academies and a special school just for ninth-graders. Instead of suspending or transferring students with discipline or attendance problems, Patterson has an after hours "Twilight School" to help get the students on track. After the first two years of implementation, the school's attendance rate, school climate, and the percentage of students meeting state standards increased.⁽⁴³⁾

As mentioned earlier in this guide, 13 states now have exit exams aligned with state standards that high school students must pass in order to graduate. As such policies are adopted, the risk that students will drop out of school may increase if states and districts do not also implement strategies for helping students pass proficiency tests. In New York City for example, the "Post-5" program is designed to address the needs of students unable to meet graduation requirements. Students receive accelerated and alternative instruction but are held to the same high standards for graduation.

Motivating students to stay in school often involves expanding their horizons to think through and carry out career and postsecondary education goals. Several U.S. Department of Education programs respond to this new emphasis and help young people and adults develop the knowledge and skills they need for careers that often demand ever-higher levels of education and training. The School-to-Work Opportunities Act, administered jointly by the Department of Education and the Department of Labor, provides seed money to every state and to interested communities to develop and launch a comprehensive school-to-work system. These systems combine school-based and work-based learning with activities designed to prepare students for a first job.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that schools provide transition services to help students with disabilities move more successfully from school to post-school activities, including post-secondary education, vocational training, and employment. The National Transition Alliance (NTA), funded under IDEA, provides technical assistance to state school-to-work systems to assist them in addressing the needs of students with disabilities in their programs. The NTA also develops and disseminates information about effective transition practices that support youth with disabilities in learning the skills needed to live successfully in the community and thrive in the workplace.

The Higher Education Amendments of 1998 include a new national effort to encourage more young people to have high expectations, stay in school and study hard, and go to college. In a recent survey, almost 70 percent of parents indicated that they have little information, or want more information, about which courses their child should take to prepare for college, and 89 percent of parents want more information about how to pay for college, including the use of tax credits.⁽⁴⁴⁾

Earlier this year President Clinton proposed the High Hopes for College initiative to create a national effort so that every college works in partnership with at least one middle school in a low-income community to help raise expectations and ensure that students are well prepared for college. Under the new GEAR UP program (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) the Department is spending $120 million to fund competitive grants that support early college awareness activities at both the state and local levels. The initiative will award multi year grants to locally designed partnerships between colleges and high-poverty middle and high schools, plus at least two other partners--such as community organizations, businesses, religious groups, state education agencies, parent groups, or nonprofits--to increase college attendance rates among low-income youth by:

Informing students and parents about college options and financial aid,
Promoting rigorous academic coursework based on college entrance requirements, and
Providing comprehensive services--mentoring, tutoring, counseling, and other activities such as after-school programs, summer academic and enrichment programs, and college visits--to students beginning in grades 6 and 7 and continuing through high school graduation.

Each of these programs and strategies can contribute to ending social promotion by helping students feel that adults care about their future and helping the students understand how their academic careers are related to their future potential. Creating smaller learning communities, personalizing instruction, and introducing students to the world of college and work can give students a stake in their educational success that they might not otherwise develop.

Notes:

42. McPartland, 1997.

43. McPartland, 1998.

44. Gallup, 1998
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