50% of Pupils Not Ready to Pass, L.A. District Says
By LOUIS SAHAGUN, Times Education Writer. If the Los Angeles Unified School District were to completely stop promotingstudents who are not ready to move up a grade, roughly 50%--or about 350,000students--would be held back, top district administrators said Tuesday. More than two-thirds of eighth graders would be flunked if social promotions werefully ended, according to the administrators, who based their figures on a recent analysisby the district's staff, which examined standardized test results and trends in districtgrades. The depth of the problem, which is far greater than city educators had believed, isone of the prime reasons that the district's new leadership has scaled back ambitious$72-million plans to end social promotion in all grades this year. "These numbers are heartbreaking, their scope is huge, and they show whattremendous reform is and has been necessary," said board member Caprice Young. "Behind those numbers is the tremendous shortage of qualified teachers andadministrators available to deal with the severe problems our children are facingacademically," she said. Direct comparisons with other large urban districts are difficult because each statehas different standards for student achievement. But the projected failure rates for LosAngeles public schools appear to be among the highest in the country's major urbansystems. Roughly 54% of the district's 711,000 students are not yet fluent in English--amajor problem in meeting state education standards. Instead of ending social promotion across the board, district officials said Tuesdaythat at the end of this school year, they would end the practice only in second andeighth grades, phasing in the other grades over a four-year period. The second and eighth grades were selected for the first year's implementationbecause of the need to provide assistance as early as possible and to ensure asuccessful transition to high school, said Ramon Cortines, who has been chosen by theschool board to become interim superintendent next month. Cortines is currently servingas an advisor to Supt. Ruben Zacarias. How to handle promotions is one of the main decisions that will confront whoeverbecomes the next permanent superintendent.My Sardonic Thoughts
- And this is news?
- What caused this? Was it those lawsuits where parents sued the state becuase by failing their children they harmed their psychological ability to bond with their friends?
- Why do they still call it promotion? Can I get one of these promotions at work?
- The new superintendent is supposed to figure out how to handle promotions? How about figuring out how to handle failures, since it seems like most of the students should fail.
- What are we telling our children when we continue to pass them (not promote) from one grade to the next, with absolutely no achievement criteria?
