Policy Update: Standards Based Promotion

Ending social promotion in the Los Angeles Unified School District would cost the district money it does not currently have. 

That was the conclusion a district working group presented to the School Board's Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Committee at its inaugural meeting earlier this week.

Social promotion is the practice of promoting students to the next grade on the basis of age rather than whether they have met the current grade's minimum academic requirements.

The report to the Committee followed up on Tamar's July 2011 resolution to update the District's Standards-Based Promotion (SBP) policy for grades K-6, and grade 8. Tamar's resolution also created a working group to determine an implementation plan for the updated SBP policy.

As called for in the resolution, a working group made up of parents, community members, teachers, administrators, and central instruction staff was formed last fall to look at the issue.  The members examined student data, educational research, and best practices around social promotion. 

According to Gerardo Loera, LAUSD's Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction, 7.5% of district students are currently held back.  Of those retained, most were boys, were younger than most of their classmates, low-income, English Learners, Latino, and had poor reading skills.  Retention was also found to be more common in schools that score low on API, the standardized tests used to evaluate student achievement.  

Retention was most common in first grade, the working group found, and least common in third grade and up.  Loera told the committee that students held back in first and second grade made short term academic gains, but those temporary advances disappeared within three years.  The group also found that since the district made full-day kindergarten mandatory five years ago, fewer children were being retained. 

Loera said many studies showed that holding children back actually has a negative impact on academic achievement, and increases the likelihood that the student eventually will drop out. Simply making students repeat a grade with the same approach as the first time does not improve academic achievement. 

Studies show that the best way to improve academic achievement is not to retain, but to offer intensive, targeted intervention before, during and after school. Unfortunately, with the district facing a $543 million budget shortfall next year, there is no money available to fund the necessary and effective interventions, the group found.

"A comprehensive SBP policy and implementation plan would require significant increase in allocation of resources-human, fiscal, and time," said Loera.  "Given the District's fiscal crisis, the recommendation from the steering committee was to postpone the restructuring of the SBP policy."