What If We Ended Social Promotion?
Last year, I chaired a study of appropriate uses of testing for the National Research Council. The NRC panel was a diverse group of 15 scholars from all over the country. We wrote our report, "High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and Graduation," in response to a congressional mandate. The study was prompted by the Clinton administration's proposal, in 1997, for voluntary national tests of 4th grade reading and 8th grade math. The panel took no position about the value of voluntary national testing for its stated purposes--to tell American students, parents, and teachers how well they are doing relative to high national standards--but we recommended strongly against such tests' use for any high-stakes purpose. The report, just published, has a lot of useful information about proper test use, and I commend it to readers. One of the strongest recommendations is that "accountability for educational outcomes should be a shared responsibility of states, school districts, public officials, educators, parents, and students. High standards cannot be established and maintained merely by imposing them on students."
Early in its work, the NRC panel decided to consider whether good tests could serve bad purposes. Thus, we evaluated the consequences of high-stakes educational decisions that may be based, at least in part, on test scores. In particular, we found--as American schools presently operate--that decisions to place students in typical lower-level tracks and decisions to hold students back to repeat the same grade are not educationally sound. Those decisions hurt students, and good tests will not improve them. This is not to say that all forms of tracking are bad for students, or that all grade retention is necessarily bad for students. Our findings were based on the actual and typical, not the ideal. But research evidence based on actual experience should inform new policies.
Here, I may leave some of my colleagues on the NRC panel. Although the facts and ideas are based on the NRC report, I speak for myself about the Clinton administration's proposal...
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