I have never understood the logic of holding children back. While the "end
of social promotion" may score political points, holding back (the effect
of high stakes testing) has the opposite effect. It is real telling, for
me, that the students did so much more poorly on the same test three months
later. We could always spin the fact they failed the test at the end of
summer school as it was not a mistake after all. As House mentioned in a
post by Ken some time ago that this (holding back) was tried in the early
80's and scores and grades declined rather than rose. Maybe it is not only
multilougues that have a short collective memory.
Nate
----- Original Message -----
From: Ken Goodman <kgoodman who-is-at u.arizona.edu>
To: CELT, <celt-l who-is-at coe.missouri.edu>; Catenet
<catenet who-is-at bullets.cybercon.com>; xmca <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 20, 1999 10:29 AM
Subject: [Fwd: Fwd: Testing, 1,2,3]
>
> For your information - New York, California, and Indiana students among
> others are the victims of the latest test abuse. This is one the test
> company, McGraw-Hill has had to admit to causing.
> Ken Goodman
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Fwd: Testing, 1,2,3
> Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 21:48:15 EDT
> From: Nextsteped who-is-at aol.com
> To: undisclosed recipients:;