RON DAVIS -- Through My Eyes

I don’t want any of you to interpret this column as a statement of

support for Proposition 38, the school voucher initiative, because I

haven’t made up my mind on that subject yet. But how did we ever get into

this social promotion mess?

Most of you know that social promotion is the practice of a school

promoting a student who hasn’t mastered the reading, writing and

arithmetic required in his or her grade but is nonetheless passed to the

next grade.

Social promotion represents the value judgment of a school system that

sacrifices the students’ attainment of basic educational competence to

protect the students from the potential trauma and embarrassment

associated with being held back. This trade-off holds that it’s better to

have a student who isn’t embarrassed or traumatized than to have a

student who is capable.

Such a policy places the student at serious risk of suffering the

constant future embarrassment of not being able to succeed at the next

level -- or life -- because of substandard skills.

You may have noticed that school districts are reversing this policy.

In fact, the Times reported that more than 5,000 kids are being retained

(held back) in Orange County schools. I support them in this.

The object of education is to prepare a child for the future. The

lesson to the victim of social promotion is that you’ll advance even if

you don’t try or even if you’re not capable. Is that the way life really

is?

How can we ask youngsters who see little relevance in math or reading

to appreciate that the real world we’re supposed to be preparing them for

doesn’t function on the basis of social promotion? Does a kid in school

understand that his or her future employers won’t promote on the basis of

hurt feelings or embarrassment?

One of my favorite Times’ columnists, Dana Parsons, questions this new

tough-love approach being taken by our schools. Parsons quoted a teacher

wrestling with the uncomfortable decision of whether to retain or promote

a fourth-grader. The teacher indicated that the student was “gently”

given to the next teacher, explaining that the student would have been

devastated to be the only fourth-grader held back.

Perhaps the third-grade, second-grade, first-grade and kindergarten

teachers felt the same way and “gently” gave the student to the next

teacher, thereby compounding the problem. As with illness, early

detection and treatment are crucial. And what may have been readily

rectified with early treatment by a repeat of kindergarten, first, second

or third grade is going to be exceedingly difficult in the fifth grade.

School kids are often told the great lie, that there are no stupid

questions, as an encouragement to kids to ask questions. But there are

indeed stupid questions. And the kid without even fourth-grade skills who

is passed to the fifth grade knows that, as do the other kids in the

fifth grade.

Does anyone really think that a kid, devastated at the prospect of

being retained in the fourth grade, won’t be devastated by asking what

other kids consider to be stupid questions? Questions that should have

been asked, answered and understood in earlier grades? Does anyone think

that the other kids aren’t going to snicker at the question? Isn’t it

reasonable to believe that the other kids will act in a way that makes

the kid feel stupid and inhibits him from asking further questions?

And if we continue to pass him on, he will naturally ask fewer and

fewer questions, receiving fewer and fewer answers, needlessly crippling

him, not only in his future classes, but life. * RON DAVIS is a private

attorney who lives in Huntington Beach. He can be reached by e-mail at

o7 [email protected]