February 11, 2004
Advocates for Children and Class Size Matters released a letter today, signed by over 100 academics, heads of organizations, and experts on testing from throughout the nation, in opposition to the Mayor’s announced policy to hold back 3rd graders on the sole basis of their scores on standardized tests. This proposal will mean the retention of approximately 15,000 children next fall.
Among the letter’s signers are Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, renowned pediatrician and author of numerous works on child care and development, Robert Tobias, former head of Division of Assessment and Accountability for the Board of Education and now Director of the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning at NYU, and Dr. Ernest House, who did the independent evaluation of New York City’s failed “Gates” retention program in the 1980’s. Other signers include four past presidents of the American Education Research Association, the nation’s premier organization of educational researchers, as well as three members and the study director of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Appropriate Use of Educational Testing, and two members of the Board on Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council.
As these eminent researchers point out, assessing a child’s actual level of achievement solely on the basis of one or two tests is inherently unreliable, given the large statistical margin of error and the inherent variability of student performance. Even the two companies that produce the 3rd grade standardized exams, Harcourt and CTB-McGraw, are on record that the decision to retain a child should never be made on the basis of test scores alone.
Moreover, in the 1980’s, New York City attempted a similar policy of large-scale retention during its “Gates” program, which failed miserably to improve student achievement and was later rescinded. Indeed, the research is overwhelming that holding back low-achieving children harms rather than helps their educational prospects, and instead leads to higher drop out rates. Finally, the Mayor’s proposal will likely have a disproportionate and damaging effect on poor and minority schoolchildren, further diminishing their chance of success.
As Jill Chaifetz, executive director of Advocates for Children, stated, “This is a policy doomed to failure. Studies have clearly demonstrated that a blanket retention policy not only does not work, it actually harms student achievement. Additionally, there is a real question about whether implementing this policy mid-year is a denial of due process rights for third graders at risk of being retained. The Mayor and Chancellor need to retract this policy immediately and instead provide meaningful assistance to those children who are struggling.”
According to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, “As a pediatrician with more than fifty years of practice, I am very concerned about what this policy will mean in terms of its emotional impact on New York City children. Research shows that the experience of retention is traumatic. When a test shows a deficit, it should trigger a more complete evaluation, including an assessment of the child’s emotional and cognitive capacities. Retention to allow maturing is merely one option; but making such a decision requires a more thorough evaluation to know whether it will help. Otherwise it's cruel to make the child repeat a grade.
We also know that retention doesn't always help students reach higher levels of achievement, but in fact often retards their progress by making it more likely that they will eventually drop out of school. Rather than pursue a strategy that has been shown to damage children's emotional health and academic success, the Mayor and the Chancellor should provide them with opportunities that will foster their growth and help them succeed, including greater access to high-quality pre Kindergarten, and smaller classes, where they can receive more of the attention and support they need from teachers who care."
According to Dr. Shane Jimerson, professor of Child and Adolescent Development at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of over 20 publications on the subject of retention, “The continued use of grade retention constitutes educational malpractice. It is the responsibility of educators to provide interventions that are effective in promoting academic success, yet research examining the effectiveness of retention reveals lower achievement, more behavior problems, and higher dropout rates among retained students. It is particularly disconcerting that a disproportionate number of students of ethnic minority and low income backgrounds are retained. Moreover, children's experience of being held back is highly stressful; surveys indicate that by sixth grade, students report that only the loss of a parent and going blind is more stressful. The proposed policy to hold back large numbers of third graders in New York City is likely to harm those very children who need our help most."
Robin Brown, President of the United Parents’ Associations, says: “While we acknowledge that low-achieving kids need more resources in order to improve academically, I’m appalled that the Mayor would make such a blatantly political decision, without consulting parents, teachers, administrators, or experts in the field. This is unfair to our children, who will lose ground and will have their life chances irreparably harmed. As a parent, I’m especially outraged that this policy has been announced without warning in the middle of the year, with no extra services or help of any kind offered to those children at risk of being held back.”
Beverly Falk, Program Head of Graduate Programs in Early Childhood Education at City College and co-author of "Using Standards and Assessments to Support Student Learning: Alternatives to Grade Retention" (1997) prepared for the NYC Chancellor's Committee on Grade Transition Standards, says: “Grade retention decisions should not be based on the scores of a single test. Standardized tests, as they currently exist, are problematic because their norm-referenced structure is designed for ranking students, not finding out what they know and can do. Their multiple-choice format is confusing to many children and is designed to contain “distractor” questions that purposely draw them away from the “right” answer. Moreover, mistakes have often been found in test questions and scoring, which in the past have caused thousands of children to be denied promotion or graduation. They commonly contain assumptions and references to the dominant culture that discriminate toward cultural and language minorities. For all these reasons and more, tests frequently misrepresent the actual abilities of students.”
“But aside from the numerous problems with making decisions to hold back students based upon their test scores, retention is a flawed policy because it places the blame for low achievement on our children, when, in reality, it is the system that has failed to teach them successfully. If we want children to achieve high standards, we need to provide greater supports for them, their teachers, and their schools.”
Manuel Wally, a parent of a third grader at PS 212 in Manhattan is concerned about how this will affect children like his: "My daughter Cora was born in October, 1995, and when she first enrolled in PS 212 in the fall of 2000, we were told she had to begin in first grade, based on New York State's cut-off date -- even though we would have preferred at the time to start her in Kindergarten. Now they are telling us that she might be forced to repeat third grade.”
“The stricter promotional guidelines are putting children who are first generation immigrants like my daughter at a disadvantage. The tests often have questions that are badly written, with a number of possible answers, and this makes them especially difficult for third graders who are still learning the language. Children also perform differently on different days; and some third graders even make mistakes filling out bubbles, as has happened with many of those in my daughter's class. In any case, there should never be a policy that leads to so many of our students being held back. Failure is not something that should be arbitrarily imposed on the fragile psyches of eight year old kids."
“This policy is not only unfair and ineffective, it will also be extremely expensive, costing at least $195 million per year,” says Leonie Haimson of the parent advocacy group Class Size Matters. “This fall, for the first time in eight years, class sizes went up in every grade K-8, and for the past two years, the percentage of 3rd graders in classes of 29 or larger has increased. Why does the Mayor insist on wasting money on policies that have shown to be damaging to our children and our schools, rather than investing in programs that have been proven to work? As George Santayana wrote, ‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ Let’s not make our children suffer from our failure to learn from the unsuccessful policies of the past.”
For more information please contact Jill Chaifetz at 646-765-6125 or Leonie Haimson at 212-674-7320.
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