Thousands to repeat grades

[pinerow]

By ANDREA JONES
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/26/06

Thousands of Georgia students who failed a second attempt at a statewide promotion test after a summer of studying will likely be repeating the third, fifth or eighth grade.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2006/09/25/0926mettest.html?cxntnid=amn092606e

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

1. Unless the 8th grader can play football

Suspect the potential jocks will make it through to their high school from 8th grade.

Sad that we have so many who can barely complete the work for their grade level. What is the systemic problem here?

[Tanuki]

2. Retention is ineffective and damaging to children

Although that wasn't mentioned in the AJ-C article,it is here:
http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/articles/retention_edley.php

"For 40 years, study after study on grade retention has reached the same conclusion: Failing a student, particularly in the critical ninth grade year, is the single largest predictor of whether he or she drops out. Unless accompanied by targeted and intensive supports and interventions, this practice yields no academic gains for the retained students, results in huge management problems, and financially taxes the school system.

Widespread retention further exacerbates the racial achievement gap. In Massachusetts, for example, across all grades, African-American and Hispanics are retained at over three times the rate of whites.

These findings were backed up by a 1999 National Academy of Sciences report. Citing eight studies on the harmful impact of retaining students, the report specifically recommended that students not be held back on the basis of a high stakes test. In fact, the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Council on Measurement in Education, the Department of Education, and most testing professionals all assert that no decision of serious consequence in a child's life should be made on the basis of a single test score."

[One_Life_To_Give]

4. Ignoring the problem won't solve it either

accompanied by targeted and intensive supports and interventions, this practice yields no academic gains for the retained students

Retained or not. If the students who can't meet grade requirements don't get the intensive supports amd interventions. They will either drop out or graduate without any skills.

[greccogirl]

34. Yes. I am constantly amazed

at those that want to promote their kids because of social reasons and then stand and watch them fail the next grade, or pass by the skin of their teeth, only to drop out.

If they cannot do the work they need to be retained.

[proud2BlibKansan]

44. Retention isn't how you solve the problem

It doesn't work. Kids who are retained are more likely to drop out than kids who are not retained.

The answer is intervention that works, not retention.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

56. See post #55. -nt

[lonestarnot]

5. And isn't it cheaper to do it right the first time?

Guess they need recruitment victims for cannon fodder.

[ACause]

8. So we should pass then even if they can't do the work?

Because it might hurt the students...what...self-esteem, or isn't cost-effective to keep them on? I expect an 8th grader to be able to read, write legibly, and complete simple mathematic equations, the three R's of old...to send a student who can't do these things onto the next level is only setting the student up for further difficulties down the road.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. But it's got nothing to do with work.

Just some stupid standardized test.

Here's a crazy idea. Why not let the teacher decide if the student has passed the grade.

[ACause]

16. In many cases those "stupid tests" are indicators

of the student's progress thru the grade...if the person can't finish conjugating a sentence on a test..do you think he's done it in the classroom????

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. In some cases.

In some cases a student just has a bad test.

Frankly, a single test is a horrible measure of a student's performance.

"if the person can't finish conjugating a sentence on a test..do you think he's done it in the classroom????"

Yes. Obviously. And unless you've gotten 100% on every exam you've ever taken you're going to have to agree.

[RaRa]

22. An elderly friend (and a former teacher) of mine really gets riled about

this - she insists that a test is an indicator of how the student performed on THAT day - that there are way too many factors that influence their performance aside from their actualy knowledge of the subject. I'm really beginning to agree with the cynics on this board who see standardized testing as nothing more than a means to destroy and eliminate public education.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

23. Yes, this is very obvious.

To everybody who's ever taught, or frankly, anybody who's ever been a student.

I'm not saying that standardized tests don't have their uses. They're tools that a teacher can use, and it should be the teacher that decides whether or not a student passes a grade. Not some politician who wants to play statistics with people's lives.

And yes, NCLB is a total failure.

[proud2BlibKansan]

46. Yes we are not testing kids

We are testing schools. Big difference.

[BamaGirl]

31. In some cases

They are indicators that there is something wrong. Like oh, learing disabilities for instance. My kid knows the material. She just has problems translating what she knows into written words. She's very smart, she gets an A's and B's, but tests--all tests--are a disaster for her. She is far from being the only kid with these kinds of problems, and in our school system it completely screws her over. They actually did class placement this year based on achievement scores (which she did very well on), and it has been a disaster for her. At the rate she's going, she's going to fail the grade. The perfect approach, don't you think? :sarcasm: Judge a kid with a a high IQ and a learning disability on one segment of a standardized test, throw her in an advanced class and tell her to sink or swim. And when she sinks, hold her back a year. Yes, these tests are stupid.

[proud2BlibKansan]

47. Retention doesn't make sense either

Why do we think, when a kid fails, that doing the same class again, in the same way (sometimes with the same teacher) is going to make any difference? If a kid doesn't get it the first time, they won't get it the second time either.

[MelliMel]

52. Teachers used to be able to decide.

And in many states and districts, they still are able to. But they are pressured to pass as many as possible, and that is ridiculous. Kids used to be held back, now they must be passed on.

[Donnachaidh]

14. NO we shouldn't -- my kid is in 8th grade in Georgia

And I consider the school system here appalling! I've had to resort to tutoring my son at home after school, because the standards are so LOW here now. He actually had a Social Studies teacher tell him that the book Animal Farm was too adult for him to read!

[greccogirl]

35. I know how you feel.

I remember when my son was a freshman in high school and they spent six to eight weeks on a 120 or so page book called "The Day No Pigs Will die" or something like that. They went over it a chapter at a time!!

Geesh in the 6th grade we had to do at least four book reports a year, and we picked from a list, and they were decent books. And we didn't go over it forever.

[bhikkhu]

43. I recall ten book reports in 5th grade...but they do AR now.

Read a book, answer a ten or twenty question multiple choice test, and you're done. The ability to articulate or organize a thought is no longer a part of "reading".

[Odin2005]

19. I'm also sick of the "it might hurt thier self esteem" nonsense.

More like parents don't want thier perfect angels' precious little egos damaged by cold, hard reality.

[MelliMel]

53. I agree

What hurts their self-esteem more: Being held back a grade or not being able to get into college, or if they are able to, not being able to keep up?

[kennetha]

20. You're actually completely wrong about this

Decade after decade after decade of studying rentention has actually found that it does almost no good and does great harm, even compared with merely "social" promotion. Kids who are socially promoted -- who are passed on even if they aren't at grade level achievement -- do significantly better than students who are retained over the long term. They drop out at a lower rate, eventually get a little closer to performing at grade level, etc.

Of course, social promotion isn't an ideal tool. But it's better than retention. Again, that's been demonstrated time and again in longitudinal study after longitudinal study.


The best thing is to promote with support. The worst thing is to retain.

YOu could say retain with support, but if you provide the support, retention has no benefits. Advancement does.


The association of school psychologists has called for the end of retention -- period!

[proud2BlibKansan]

48. Amen!!

I am a special ed teacher and I agree completely!

May I belatedly welcome you to DU? :hi:

[anotherdrew]

26. so you think self-esteem is some kind of trival bullshite is that it?

"to send a student who can't do these things"

can't or didn't?

[Ka hrnt]

38. To answer your question...

"...so you think self-esteem is some kind of trival bullshite...?"

Yes, because it is:

Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth
Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, researchshows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress or preventing undesirable behavior.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa008&articleID=000CB565-F330-11BE-AD0683414B7F0000&pageNumber=1&catID=2

"Early work showed positive correlations between self-esteem and academic performance, lending credence to this notion. Modern efforts have, however, cast doubt on the idea that higher self-esteem actually induces students to do better."

"...tested more than 23,000 high school students, first in the 10th and again in the 12th grade. They found that self-esteem in 10th grade is only weakly predictive of academic achievement in 12th grade. Academic achievement in 10th grade correlates with self-esteem in 12th grade only trivially better. Such results, <b>which are now available from multiple studies</b>, certainly do not indicate that raising self-esteem offers students much benefit. <b>Some findings even suggest that artificially boosting self-esteem may lower subsequent performance.</b> {<i>I like to think that this is the kids knowing that they're being BS'd...</i>--Ka Hrnt}

"Even if raising self-esteem does not foster academic progress, might it serve some purpose later, say, on the job? Apparently not. ..."

More in the link.

[anotherdrew]

51. well

yes, the self-esteem industry is a bit foolish, but... leaving a kid behind a year, seperating them from all their friends quite typicly, is a horrible thing to do. Just get the kid more tutoring. Or perhaps we have to admit that some kids won't or or can't for any number of reasons 'perform' above average (after all, by definition half the kids are below 'average').

grades should be assigned subjectivly by the teachers, with the schools keeping tabs that teachers aren't playing favorites. It's a perfectly reasonable way to attempt quantify the unquantifiable.

[anotherdrew]

27. an idea: require parents to be able to pass the same tests n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

28. Or the politicians.

[proud2BlibKansan]

45. Actually it is more cost effective to provide programs to help kids pass

the first time than to retain them.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

55. What about failing only the subjects that they failed?

Instead of repeating all the other classes that they PASSED?

[Centered]

65. Good Idea

or how about 9 week (or some other interval) Exams to identify "weak areas" Why do we have to wait until the end of the year to find out that a child is having a problem learning?? Indentify the problem while there is time to still fix it!! Everybody wins. What about mandatory Summer school to help them pass the failed subjects?

If a child needs to be held back then both the student and the teacher have failed. The student failed to learn... the teacher failed to notice...

[mike_c]

33. bad, bad use of statistics....

Correlation does not imply causation. Both grade retention and dropping out would likely be correlated with other indicators of poor performance, but there is NO reason to believe that there is any causal link between those particular circumstances. Students who are frustrated by their inability to achieve academic success for a whole host of possible reasons would likely have increased probabilities of BOTH grade retention and eventually dropping out-- and the real cause would be the unmeasured (or measured) other possible reasons.

Using a correlation this way is very very bad statistics. It's a sign of untrustworthiness if deliberate, and ignorance if inadvertent.

[proud2BlibKansan]

49. It doesn't work Mike

I understand what you are saying about statistics and this particular example. However, I can tell you that retention does NOT work. There is research going back decades that shows it is better to provide intervention and CHANGE how we teach a kid than to retain them.

[pinerow]

3. Depending solely on standardized

testing is a poor metric when determining whether "is our children learning"...I believe a more realistic approach is to return to the mid-term and exit exams that were the standard back in the day, and even that was not as effective as we may like it to be...

[Threedifferentones]

30. I don't believe these schools depend solely on standardized tests

If the schools in Georgia are similar to those in Tennessee, the kids have to make passing grades all year and then pass the tests in order to move on, and those classroom grades may involve any exams the teachers see fit. Of course there are plenty of bad teachers, but thats another topic.

[proud2BlibKansan]

50. In some states, test scores alone determine if kids pass

I don't know about Georgia, but I do know that yes, not making a certain score on ONE standardized test is enough to fail a kid.

[LibDemAlways]

6. Going by only my personal experience as the parent

of an 8th grader in Southern California (so, I admit upfront I'm not familiar with the curriculum in Georgia), the work my daughter is being assigned is way more difficult and advanced than anything I was given at her age. Algebra is mandatory for all 8th graders at her school. The history course is taught at the high school, if not college, level. In 7th grade last year the students were required to dissect everything from frogs to cow eyes and complete a complicated science fair project with abstract and a 10 page paper. In English class she is reading Daniel Keyes' short story "Flowers for Algernon" - which I read as a class assignment in 11th grade - and is required to research the "Americans With Disabilities Act" and relate it to the story. By the way this is a public, not private, school.

Kids are pushed, pushed, pushed these days. My daughter has at least three hours of homework a night. It's no wonder kids fall behind. The expectations are often simply too unrealistic. (Thank God I'm here to be a full time tutor. Many kids simply flounder.)

[rmgarrette64]

7. Where in So. Cal.?

That's a tremendously encouraging report, but it differs vastly from my own experiences. My nephews are in high school, and a niece in 8th grade, in Rancho Cucamunga and Claremont respectively. I find their work to be several grade levels below what I would expect. I find the teachers grade them far too high, especially given the huge number of very basic grammatical errors in every essay of theirs I have ever read. Their knowledge of history is cursory at best, and their math skills are nearly nonexistent if they do not have a claculator.

They all attend public schools. I teach at a Catholic school in the same area (2nd grade), and find the curriculum there only a slight improvement over the public schools. I've simply assumed these very low standards were common throughout California - backed up by our consistently low ratings on national rankings. But it sounds like your experience is radically different. What school is your daughter attending? I'd love to look into it more.

R. Garrett

[LibDemAlways]

9. Welcome to DU.

Information about the district is here:

http://www.opusd.k12.ca.us/

Because this is a small district and our community is built out, we have an open door policy and several hundred students from outside the area attend our schools.

The curriculum is challenging and most everybody goes on to college - although that's partly a result of the demographics of this area.

I taught 8th grade English/Social Studies in a Catholic school twenty years ago, and the work was nothing like what the kids are getting here today.

[pinerow]

11. I tend to agree on you as far as the "grading is concerned...

my grandkids are in school in CA....one in Santa Clara, and the others in Oakland...sloppy handwriting, "almost" correct spelling (as long as it's phonetically correct)...I tutor them when I can, but there doesn't seem to any tutorial programs available...possesive pronouns(your) as opposed to contractions (you're) escape the teachers' eye when correcting a paper...mispelling "losing" as "loosing"...needless to say that I am not the favorite grandfather when it comes to school work...

[greccogirl]

36. My friend's daughter was supposedly on

the honor list at her high school, I remember him asking me to help her on a paper she was writing. It was terrible. Terrible sentence context, worse spelling, just terrible. She was a senior at the time and I told my husband when she got to college she was going to be in trouble.

Sure enough, her first English Teacher sent her first paper back with this notation: "This is College English. You are going to have to do better than this if you wish to pass". It had a failing grade on it.

She ended up like many college students, in remedial classes. Her first year was spent in remedial classes half the time.

She did make it through, but didn't graduate on time, and she told me later that she felt "lost" in college and totally unprepared for it.

[Ka hrnt]

39. Yup.

Welcome to the era of Grade Inflation. I have students in my chem class that are incapable of middle-school algebra (manipulating a simple expression such as PV=nRT to solve for n, P, V, T, etc.). Their writing is atrocious (perhaps a side-effect of having never had to write without a spell-checker...) and their structure of writing is even worse. The reason we need these remedial classes in college is because these students were passed on, despite being completely unqualified.

Now, that being said, I still get the occasional student who is clearly gifted, the ones where I have to tell them, "Just bare with me for a few days while I get the rest of the class up to your level of understanding. Here, have try some calculus to keep you busy." Those students are the reason I still teach.

Some links that may interest you:
http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i30/30b02401.htm
http://www.ent.ohiou.edu/~manhire/grade/grades.html

[lonestarnot]

10. Yes the sad truth is, many are left to flounder. It also requires an

interest in your own kids and making time for them, even if you work for a living away from home. Tough task for most families.

[cobalt1999]

12. I don't see it as harder.

I had algebra by the 7th grade, we did "Flowers for Algernon" by the 8th or 9th grade, and same with science projects. What was a shock was when I left the country to go to school in NZ. I was WAY behind. Went from straight A's in the US to B's & C's in NZ until I caught up. I remember the Chemistry reports/studies we had to do there...I didn't repeat that until I was back in the US and in college.

My daughters are both straight A's and don't need much help, so, no, I don't think the expectations are unrealistic. In some places they are greater.

[LibDemAlways]

15. You must be considerably younger than me.

When I was in 8th grade, everybody took 8th grade math. 9th grade was Pre-Algebra or Algebra (for the brightest kids). My dad insisted I take algebra in 9th grade and I had a hell of a time because I wasn't well-prepared. I'm learning it now, along with my daughter. And I somehow made it through even high school biology without ever having to dissect anything! The curriculum consisted of "Read the book and answer the questions."

I know my daughter's experience isn't unique today, but the curriculum was way different when I was in school 40 years ago.

[cobalt1999]

24. I doubt I'm considerably younger.

I'm 45 now, so it's been a long time for me too. We did two years of Algebra 7th/8th, Geometry 9th, Trigonometry 10th, pre-Calculus 11th, Calculus 12th. Granted I was always good at math, but I was not in the gifted class that actually went to the local Jr College for their math classes.

This was in the south in the 70's.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. It depends on the school.

For instance, the high school I taught in shared a campus with the junior high. And the high school math teachers were willing and able to teach an intro. algebra class to advanced junior high students.

It also depends on the district and state.

[kath]

37. 3+ hours of homework a night?!?! In 8th grade?!?! That's fokkin'

ridiculous.

Poor kid. :cry: :cry:

[pinerow]

59. Three hours of homework does not mean

that they have to do it in one sitting...unless of course one is too busy taking Jane/Joe to this or that soccer practice, football practice...you fill in the blanks...

[kath]

60. Still, 3 hrs of homework a night in 8th grade is too fokkin' much -

what the heck do they do during the 6-7 hours/day that they're in school?
I graduated back in the mid 70s from a (then) quite good middle class suburban-Cleveland high school (not one of the ritzy suburbs). I did not have to do 3+ hours of studying a night until my senior year, at which point I was taking 4 AP classes. Probably a couple of hours a night as a junior (taking AP Chem, 1st year of a 2 year AP US history course, College Alg/Trig and Honors/AP level British Lit.
And we got a damned good education during those junior high and high school years.

And way too often, homework is just busy work.
Kids do need time for other activities. Granted, we're a sports-crazed culture, but there should be time for other interests - music, Scouts, sports (in moderation), reading for pleasure, and just some "doin' nothin'" time. Heck, adults come home from a hard day at work and are allowed to kick back and relax on the couch - they don't bring 3 hours of *extra* work. (yeah, yeah, in some professions they do, but this isn't the norm.) A 13-year-old should be able to have some time for things besides school work.

[rocktivity]

18. If the summer school didn't help, passing them on sure won't.

But at least those kids GOT to go to summer school. My niece got caught in a New York City public school program which simply eliminated summer school for the fourth and seventh grades--if you flunked, you HAD to repeat them. I'm still not sure what the result was supposed to be--scaring them into studying harder? It certainly didn't save money or resources--with fourth and seventh grade classrooms clogged with students who could have been promoted if they'd had a chance to "make good" in summer school, how could it have?

:headbang:
rocknation

[Politicub]

21. We'll reap the whirlwind on this

like so many other of the awful policies of the Bush administration.

[pinerow]

25. It's not only the Bush administration...(I never thought I would write

that sentence)...we must look at the local school board elections, county commisioners...there seems to be money for high school football stadiums, but heaven forbid you should tack on a half mil to our property taxes in order to hire more teachers and retain the best of the bunch...I live in Polk County, Fl., a first year teacher can expect to get approximately 24K per annum...that very same teacher can drive twenty miles east or west for an additional 7K a year...They found taxpayer money in Tampa to build a stadium for the Bucs, and they are going to get taxpayer money for the Orlando Magic...but none for schools..someone said " we will reap the whirlwind...I got news for you...nail everything down...'cause there's a wind a'coming...:wtf:

[Cozumel]

41. Not to mention...

all the budget cuts in FL for fine/creative arts in schools. I fought it in high school and jr. high school. If it weren't for music and film, I'd have no real direction in life today. They were the first and ONLY things to make sense to me in life. And they both helped me forge friendships with people that I never would have become friends with outside of it. Sadly, these days only those with money can stay in the music programs in public schools (it started to become that way my junior year in high school, when my parents couldn't afford me and both my sisters becoming musicians, so I had to get a part time job to pay for the REQUIRED activities to stay in band classes.

[pinerow]

57. Damned Shame...

nt

[bpeale]

32. oh no!

we can't possibly teach these youngsters about failure now can we? something tells me that's how we ended up with GWB who can't admit to a failure. I think these kids are kids who would drop out anyway. where i live, teachers do not teach anymore and its boring beyond belief. if you make it interesting to learn kids will not drop out. having to repeat a grade teaches kids a very valuable lesson. you can't do substandard or no work and still expect to pass. if they deserve to fail, then they should fail and repeat a grade.

[Cozumel]

40. no child left behind at it's finest.

When I was a kid, I repeated the 7th grade. Then in high school, I struggled in math and science classes. However, I always excelled in english and music courses (ya know, the creative one). I was also considered "gifted" since the 3rd grade (I think that's a way to tag the people who can think outside the box as ALL of the people I knew in the gifted program are struggling to get by now, many with college degrees). I was lucky enough that my school offered "catch-up" courses on a computer. If I was dedicated enough, I could finish an entire course in 2 days, including reports and other written assignments that accompanied it. My last day of high school, however, I finished 2 whole courses. I spent about 12 hours or so at school that day. I was determined to graduate on time (or as timely as I could for someone who repeated a grade). Now, at age 26 and in my last year in college, I've had A's all the way across (minus a B in script development, and an F (should've been an incomplete cos I dropped the course halfway through) in Algebra (once again, that math stuff). In less than a year, I will have a degree in Film, and mind you every ONE of my oportunities was due to Clinton's innitiatives in classrooms. This is also in Florida, pre Jeb Bush. The teachers in my school (I graduated in '99), and the school board itself was bound and determined to help EVERY SINGLE STUDENT graduate. I had 3 teachers who helped me so immensely, but will never see the recognition they deserve, minus my going to visit them (of course post-Columbine, this has been next to impossible) and thank them. We didn't have standardized tests (actually, there was one, and I NEVER took it. I remember ditching it to go smoke some pot, lol) to tell us if we could graduate or goto the next grade. And I honestly believe that those tests are bullshit. If you ask me how to properly conjugate a sentence today, I probably couldn't tell you. However, if you ask me to repair your broken PC, I could have it fixed in no time (a job that requires some certification from a standardized test that I've never taken or studied for mind you, and probably couldn't pass either). Where am I going with this? I don't know. But I felt the need to share it with everyone. Education is important. Standardized testing is NOT education. Thank you for your time and listening to (reading) my rant.

[LibDemAlways]

42. Welcome to DU. One overriding issue seems to be

that schools want to create a "one education fits all" system and life isn't like that. PE is the bane of my 8th grader's existence because someone decided if you are an 8th grade girl you must run the mile in under 10 minutes or receive an "F." Try as she might, she can't do it in under 10:30, so she gets an "F" for the mile. Fortunately attendance counts, too, so ultimately she'll get a "C," but it's bullshit like that that leaves me shaking my head. Another BS "rule" is that all eighth graders must take algebra - even those who aren't ready for it and are doomed from the getgo to fail and have to repeat it next year anyway.

When I received her standardized test results, I tossed the envelope in the trash. I don't care how she did because those tests don't measure anything except how many boxes she filled in "correctly" on a given day. They should have tested me, too, since I'm the one who sits beside her every day after school for three hours making sure she completes enormous amounts of homework - most of which she could never do without my assistance.

Congratulations on not letting the system leave you behind and on making it this far. Good luck, and hope you can put your creativity to good use in the marketplace.

[kath]

54. LDA, have you considered homeschooling your daughter? It's great to

leave all the school system's bullshit behind - like the 10-minute mile thing, "algebra for ALL 8th-graders, no matter what", the endless mindless testing, the stupid no-tolerance policies, etc. Even more important, you leave the atmosphere that crushes the curiosity and love of learning out of so many children (and the one-size-fits-all mentality). Heck, with the 3+ hours of homework every night (an abomination for an 8th grader, IMHO) on top of 6-7 hours/day in school, both you and she would have more free time if you homeschooled and could actually have a life! She would have time to follow her bliss, whatever that might be - art, music, drama, sports, the outdoors, writing, reading, whatever.

In California, there are LOTS of liberal homeschoolers, so it shouldn't be hard for you to find some like-minded people where you are. (unfortunately, here in OK most of them fit the fundie stereotype, so we feel a bit lonely :-( ) There's even a homeschooling group here at DU.

[Cozumel]

64. It is a good option

and I plan on doing the same for my daughter when she's old enough to start school (hell, before honestly). She's almost 10 months now, but time flies by these days. Better to plan ahead (even if tomorrow never comes).

[dsc]

62. You can and should go back

I don't know if you could film them and you can't film the kids, but you surely can go back and thank them.

[VegasWolf]

58. But, hot damn, they know the Holy Babble! nt

[CRK7376]

61. 39 years ago

I failed 3rd Grade and it was humiliating. Fortunately for me I had plenty of support from my parents, both college professors....I didn't read well, was probably dsylexic...Plus we moved so I ended up going to 3rd grade again at a different school, made new friends etc...Still deep down inside I knew I had failed and it was painful....

Today I have two Master's degrees and am working on my third one. So I guess I was able to turn around and become a better student. As a teacher, a student had to really try hard to fail in my class. Now I would not hand out a free grade, they had to work, but it wasn't rocekt science either. Do the assignments, participate in class and pass tests = a go in my classroom.

[humbled_opinion]

63. Children of the Child Left Behind Act. n/t

[sakabatou]

66. NCLB, my ass!