Alternatives
One alternative to promoting within the social promotion system is a policy of grade retention, where students repeat a grade when they are judged to be a low performer. The aim of retention is to help the student learn and sharpen skills such as organization, management, study skills, literacy and academic which are very important before entering the next grade, college and the labor force.
In the US simple social promotion was not held to be an adequate alternative to grade retention. Current theories among academic scholars prefer to address underperformance problems with remedial help. Students with singular needs or disabilities require special teaching approaches, equipment, or care within or outside a regular classroom. Since students with intellectual disabilities are handled separately, schools may treat two students with identical achievements differently, if one of the students is low-performing, but typically developing, and the other student is low-performing due to a disability.
An alternative to the social promotion system is merit promotion, either by mid-term promotion or by using a course-based curriculum with a directed acyclic graph of prerequisites similar to college curricula. This alternative is unique in allowing each student to advance at their own pace. It would also save school districts money by ending the practice of warehousing "talented and gifted students" and allowing those students to graduate early.
Read more about this topic: Social Promotion
Famous quotes containing the word alternatives:
“The last alternatives they face
Of face, without the life to save,
Being from all salvation weaned
A stag charged both at heel and head:
Who would come back is turned a fiend
Instructed by the fiery dead.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“The literal alternatives to [abortion] are suicide, motherhood, and, some would add, madness. Consequently, there is some confusion, discomfort, and cynicism greeting efforts to “find” or “emphasize” or “identify” alternatives to abortion.”
—Connie J. Downey (b. 1934)
“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)