A Simmering Issue for Summer Promotion

School Administrator, August, 1998

As we considered possible themes worthy of significant attention in The School Administrator, no subject seemed hotter during the past spring and early summer than that of social promotion and retention. A hardball, back-to-basics approach has caught the fancy of school leaders in a growing number of school districts that now are experimenting with ways to end the automatic promotion of students from one grade to the next. This issue of the magazine takes a comprehensive look at those efforts.

Free-lance writer Donna Harrington-Lueker kicks off the coverage with a detailed account of school districts that are holding students accountable for reaching academic benchmarks. She suggests the notion of eliminating social promotion has simple, common-sense appeal to today's politicians, yet the research evidence in support of retention is all but lacking.

Gary Natriello, a professor of sociology and education at Columbia University's Teachers College, follows with an informative examination of what research says about the dubious merits of retention, and he cites a few recommended works for those who want to learn more. Linda Darling-Hammond, one of the nation's foremost voices on teaching and learning issues, weighs in with a series of alternative strategies.

We also offer the story of Long Beach, Calif., where school district leaders have put in place a series of nonnegotiable academic checkpoints at various grade levels. The district's ambitious interventions include a fledgling preparatory academy for 8th-grade students who receive two or more F's at year's end.

Finally, this month's profile of Arlene Ackerman, the new superintendent of the District of Columbia Public Schools, seems especially appropriate in light of her wrestling with the promotion-retention bear.

We hope you find this coverage informs you sufficiently. It's a sizzling subject for a hot summer.

Jay P. Goldman

Voice: 703-875-0745

E-mail: jgoldman@aasa.org