Social promotion is promoting students to the next grade level without demonstrating sufficient knowledge, but it can lead to academic and social problems. Schools should end social promotion by testing students early and providing intervention. Retention may also have downsides, but support systems can help students succeed. Exit exams may be contested as discriminatory and need improvements.
Social promotion is the act of promoting students from one class to another even if they have not demonstrated sufficient knowledge of grade level standards. The impetus behind social fostering is that it is considered harmful to hold a child, called retention, from a social point of view. In social advancement, the key is to allow the child to continue to develop relationships with their current peer group. Retention is seen as negative and corresponds to a higher churn rate.
Many schools have ended social advancement by conducting standardized tests at certain grade levels in order to ascertain that the student can progress academically to the next level. In particular, matriculation exams, while frequently contested, should be a way to be certain that a student has mastered basic skills during K-12 education and can demonstrate those skills in test form.
However, a student who has been subject to social promotion in the past may not be equipped to take the exit exams. Therein lies at least part of the problem. If a child has not acquired the basics in his school career, he can attend school for 13 years without being able to obtain a high school diploma. The continued inability to move on to the next level of education tends to snowball, creating both academic and social problems.
As some schools now advocate for conservation, strategies must be put in place to end social promotion. One of the problems with retention is that a student often takes the same class from the same teacher the following year. This means that the teaching methods and material remain the same. If the student is not the type of student who responds to the teacher’s particular methods, repeating a grade in school may not promote greater mastery of the skills.
Schools attempting to end social fostering do best by testing children early and providing intervention or assistance for students who repeatedly seem to demonstrate difficulty with grade-grade material. Reducing class sizes, having well-funded special education programs, and identifying problem areas for specific children can also minimize social advancement.
When students are retained, they must have support systems in place to help them successfully master grade-level material. Educational testing, changing curricula, and switching the student to a different teacher can be useful tools. With no support available for the child in detention, or for those who have experienced social advancement, success in subsequent grades is minimal.
Loyalty still has its downsides, as does social promotion. Students who are retained are more likely to continue to perform poorly in school and have a much higher dropout rate. Conservation also costs more money, as it will take longer for a state to educate a student.
Despite the intervention, some children may not perform well on exit tests and may not receive the necessary modifications that would allow them to do so. Many exit exams are contested as discriminatory, and many feel that significant improvements need to be made to these tests to accommodate students who can demonstrate mastery of basic skills in one form, but perhaps not another.
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