School districts throughout the nation are searching for alternatives to social promotion and retention, but what other options are there? This book examines these practices in the modern context and offers alternative approaches to ensuring that students gain critical study and job-related skills.
Retention, or holding back a student, negatively impacts students' behavior, attitude, and attendance. On the other hand, the policy of social promotion-keeping students together in their age cohort regardless of academic performance-ultimately results in students unprepared for their future. In this book, a professor of education who is committed to improving K-12 education posits that the common practices of social promotion and retention are undermining the performance of public education in America-and offers alternatives to effect a sea change for the better.
Author Matthew Lynch reviews the current literature on social promotion and retention, explains when and why these practices were enacted in the United States and how they have evolved over the years, and identifies the true societal costs of social promotion and retention. After this background, the book outlines a six-pronged alternative strategy that focuses on preventing the failure cycle that results in poor student performance. The final chapter ties all of the strategies together and explains how teachers and administrators can work together to prevent the need for social promotion and retention.
* Provides a historical look at the practices of social promotion and retention as well as an examination of their use in the 21st century* Supplies a variety of theoretical and practical perspectives that will enable educators and general readers to question the validity of social promotion and retention
* Offers alternative suggestions and strategies for modern education and calls for the abolishment of social promotion and retention as an effective school reform strategy
- ISBN10 1440830193
- ISBN13 9781440830198
- Publish Date 30 April 2015
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Out of Print 15 June 2021
- Publish Country US
- Publisher ABC-CLIO
- Imprint Praeger Publishers Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 265
- Language English