Six students promoted despite failing grades

The action provokes a vigorous debate on the practice that some call social promotion.

By ROBERT KING

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 3, 2000

BROOKSVILLE -- One was a child who had been to four schools in four years. His father had committed suicide, and his home has been visited by a family service agency.

One has been shuffled back and forth between his mother and father. This past school year, his list of misbehaviors included lying, stealing and physical aggression. Like his brother before him, there's a strong chance he might need special education classes.

This troubled pair, and four others like them, were fourth-graders this year at various Hernando County elementary schools where they failed to earn passing grades.

On Tuesday night, the Hernando County School Board agreed to promote them to the fifth grade despite their academic shortcomings. In the process, the six students in question became the subject of a vigorous philosophical debate over what some call social promotion. Board member Robert Wiggins said he understands the tragic nature of the children's lives. But their plight will not earn them any free passes in life, he said. "At some point, you are going to have to say, "You are going to get caught up,"' Wiggins said.

The opposite view came from board member John Druzbick, who said these students should not be punished because of the "extraordinary circumstances" of their lives.

"The reasons (for their failure)," Druzbick said, "don't have as much to do with their academic ability as with their situation outside of school."

In the end, Druzbick was joined by Jim Malcolm and Jerry Milby in 3-2 vote to grant what educators refer to as "retention exemptions." Wiggins was joined on the losing end of the vote by Sandra Nicholson.

So ended what is becoming the School Board's annual foray into the social promotion debate.

Last year, the board wrestled with the issue for weeks before it agreed to exempt 187 failing students at a time when school boards could review the case of any student from kindergarten through fifth grade.

The Legislature changed the law this year so school boards could consider exemptions only for fourth-graders.

But there is also strong evidence to suggest that Hernando County schools are simply failing more kids than they have in the past.

Just six fourth-graders were up for exemptions this year. But, a year ago, elementary school principals asked that 28 fourth-graders be exempted. That is a strong indication, according to elementary curriculum specialist Elaine Wooten, that more children are being failed.

A simple explanation is that legal changes have simply made it more difficult for schools to pass kids who have not earned it the old-fashioned way. Kids who continuously struggle in reading must now pass the state's fourth-grade Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

More than that, there seems to be a philosophical change in the making.

For years, educators have clung to research that indicated that children who are retained are much more likely to eventually drop out. The hope was that students who are promoted despite failing grades might catch fire academically as they mature, meet new teachers and get extra help.

But from Washington, D.C., Tallahassee and the School Board in Brooksville, there is increasing pressure to retain subpar students.

"The wind has changed on this," Wooten said. "The political wind."

Brooksville Elementary principal Sue Stoops has felt that pressure. Her school retained 51 of its 780 students this year, or about 6.5 percent. She's not sure, but Stoops thinks that's more than she failed a year ago. Likewise, district officials don't have all the numbers counted yet, but they believe more kids are failing.

But Stoops and others still are unconvinced that a get-tough attitude will get the results some politicians predict. "Sometimes, the child is doing all he or she can do," Stoops said. If no exceptions were granted, she said, "They'd be driving by the time they were out of elementary school."

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