Social Promotion - Arguments Against

Arguments Against

Opponents of social promotion argue that it cheats children of education. When socially promoted children reach higher levels of education, they may be unprepared, may fail courses, and may not make normal progress towards graduation. Or they may not have needed the "preparation" being forced on them, may independently learn material for which the public school only offers classes years after, if ever, and, because they were not allowed to progress towards graduation at their pace, may waste valuable years in elementary school which they could have better spent in advanced studies at a university or college.

Opponents of social promotion argue that it has the following negative impacts:

• Students who have to wait for the end of the school year to move on to more advanced studies are denied present success.
• Students promoted to a class for which they are known to be unable to do the work are positioned for further failure.
• Students can have so many easy successes during subsequent years that either their study skills deteriorate or they become so frustrated with banal lessons that they drop out.
• Students can have many failures during the subsequent years, which is frustrating for them and may increase the risk of dropping out.
• Their frustration at sitting through "baby classes" can lead to classroom disruptions or the humiliation of others.
• Their frustration can lead to classroom disruptions, which can diminish the achievement of others.
• It sends the message to all students that they can get by without working hard.
• It forces the next teacher to deal with already-prepared and under-prepared students while trying to teach the prepared
• It gives parents and students a false sense of their children's progress.
• It creates social fiefdoms of same-age peers, their consequent peer pressure causing bullying and drug abuse.

Some hold that most students at the elementary school level don't take their education seriously and therefore retention is most likely not to be effective. Since most middle school students value their education more, retention should be used if they are judged not to have adequate skills before entering high school.

It can also be argued that social promotion, by keeping most students at the elementary school level from advancing at their own pace, is the reason they don't take their education seriously. Eliminating the social promotion system would then make the incentives of merit promotion more effective at the beginning of each student's academic career.