The 2001 installment in the

ongoing process of education reform in Georgia's public schools is making

its way among Georgia legislators, educators and interested parents.

The package this year in large

part builds on reforms that were put in to place last year. House Bill

1187, enacted in the 2000 Georgia legislative session, placed high stakes

on schools and teachers by linking pay bonuses to improved student scores

on standardized tests. HB 656 seeks to shift some of the burden for performance

back on to students in a bill section called the "Georgia Academic

Placement and Promotion Policy."

HB 656 calls for an end to

an era of "social promotion," a sort of silent "code"

among educators and parents which allows students to move along to the

next grade level with same age classmates despite their failure to fully

master the curriculum objectives of the grade before.

Popular opinion for many has

been that holding a child back to repeat a grade potentially caused as

many problems socially as it attempted to alleviate academically.

Modern public education, with

its child-centered approach to learning, has attributed many of students'

academic deficits in grades kindergarten through second grade to the inherently

variable nature of child development, believing that over time, usually

field academically.

It is here then, at third grade,

that HB 656 first aims to address that playing field and put to the test

the notion that most children will "catch up" developmentally

and obtain mastery of reading and other academic areas. The "Georgia

Academic Placement and Promotion Policy," if enacted as part of HB

656 by the Georgia legislature, will phase in an end to social promotion

at the grade level milestones of third, fifth, and eighth grades. Promotion

to the fourth, sixth, and ninth grade will hinge on a student's performance

on certain criterion referenced tests.

The good news is that along

with high stakes testing comes an increased emphasis on providing early

intervention and remediation for children who are lagging behind academically.

Students will be allowed to get extra help, then attempt to pass the criterion

referenced test again.

If the student still shows

a lack of mastery of the skills necessary to progress to the next grade

level, parents, the student, the child's teacher(s), and a school administrative

designee will confer to determine whether retention is the best course

of action. There will also likely be an appeal process, if any member

of the child's "team" is unsatisfied with the recommended grade

placement.

The notion of high stakes testing

raises the blood pressure of nearly every stakeholder in public education.

Teachers resent the impetus to "teach to the test," and view

the whole process as intrusive and disruptive to the educational process.

Learning for the sake of learning gives way to learning to score well

on the test.

Parents, though interested

to know how well their child is doing in school and how well their child's

school is doing, wonder if high stakes testing isn't putting too much

pressure on their children.

Administrators have to address

the logistics of testing as well as assuage the anxieties of the teachers,

students and parents.

There are some great lessons

to be learned in this move to end social promotion. One is that much of

the stigma associated with repeating a grade will have to be rethought,

partly because retention will be more common than probably any of us have

ever experienced, and because stigmatizing those whose pace of learning

is slower than others is cruel.

The second lesson is that the

people who probably will have to "change" their thinking the

most is not teachers or students, but parents. In this county, some of

the staunchest sources of "pressure to perform" are parents.

Thirdly, we need not assume

that high stakes testing necessarily means high academic standards. There

has been quite a bit of critical commentary over the course of the standards-based

education reform movement on the low level of standards. One of the first

things that happens after a state implements high stakes testing is that

they come right back and lower the bar for what constitutes a "passing"

grade.

Why? Economics and logistics.

When states like Texas and Massachusetts faced the sheer volume of students

recommended for grade retention, they simply couldn't provide remediation

and intervention services on that grand of a scale, so they renormed the

tests.

The most important lesson is

the realization that we do no favors for children by passing them along

to the next grade if they haven't mastered the objectives of the previous

grade.

But repeating a grade has a

human face. Children aren't statistics. They're probably not as fragile

as we adults like to assume, but they are impressionable, sensitive and

unsure little people. How we as adults deal with the end to social promotion

will have everything to do with how they deal with it.

Education First Watch:

Clayton Carmack has requested a rezoning from A-R to R-72 for 40.55 acres

to develop an 18-lot single-family residential subdivision. The rezoning,

if passed, will add an additional 28 students to the Spring Hill, Whitewater,

Fayette High cluster. To comment, call the Fayette County Zoning Department

at 770-460-5730.

[Your comments are welcome

at [email protected].]