Flunking, horse whipping and other bad ideas for promoting learning

[rall...@utk.edu]

It is that time of the year! Time to decide whom gets promoted to the
next grade and who gets held back, flunked, a life of illiteracy,
unemployment, and very possibly incarceration! In some truly depraved
localities that state or district will tell you who must flunk. In
most cases though it will be left up to you to make this decision.

If we look at the longer term effects of flunking the decision to
socially promote low achieving kids becomes no brainer. If we look at
the financial costs of flunking compared to other, better options, we
socially promote and provide expert tutorial support. Don't tell me
you cannot afford it because you don't have the money! Flunking costs
whatever another full year of schooling costs, or $10,000 per kids
give or take $3000 depending on whether you live in state that funds
schools well or not.

Schools (and states) that support (or worse mandate) flunking are
simply showing their ignorance of what 100 years of research has shown
-- flunking does not solve any problems or improve achievement.
Everyone seems to remember someone who seemed to "benefit" from being
a flunkee. But that is because the flunkee wasn't them.

So, work with the folks in your school (district) to eliminate
flunking and to, instead, spend the same amount of money on high
quality and intensive remediation.