As he struggled with the very first sentence, it became clear to the reading specialists that even two-syllable words were giving him trouble while his overall comprehension of the subject matter barely registered.
The results were deeply disturbing. He was a sixth-grade student at West Side Middle School reading on a first-grade level.
Sadly, he was not alone.
Fully 70% of the entire middle school reads on average at the third-grade level.
This may come as a shock to those outside of the educational system, but below-level reading aptitude and comprehension are, to varying degrees, prevalent in our state’s school system and effectively accepted as the status quo, year in and year out.
How can that be?
The answer lies primarily with “social promotion,” whereby underperforming students advance to the next grade with their same-age peers despite their lack of preparedness for learning at the next level.
The obvious solution, on the face of it, would be to simply hold back these failing students until such a time they can perform the required schoolwork mandated by state standards for each grade.
But many education experts point to the negative impacts of grade retention no matter how ill-prepared they may be for the next level, especially in elementary school.
They maintain that holding back a student affects their overall wellbeing and that having them repeat a grade carries with it a social and psychological stigma that can last well into secondary school and beyond.
The belief is so widespread that social promotion has become de facto education policy as retention is now the rare exception rather than the rule in West Virginia’s schools.
Unfortunately, over the years, this policy has yielded not only profoundly undereducated students but also an adult workforce hamstrung when entering the national labor market for an ever-diminishing number of blue-collar jobs.
And for those socially-promoted graduates who manage to be accepted into trade schools or even college, remedial coursework requirements oftentimes stand as a barrier to matriculation.
Social promotion, and its underlying causes, is the primary reason why West Virginia has the lowest adult education levels and college attendance rates in the country.
Educational professionals and classroom teachers are well aware of the literacy gap with their students and, in the case of West Side Middle School, make concerted efforts to remedy their academic shortcomings with daily guided reading programs tailored to the level of the individual student.
However, in the same school day they are also mandated to deliver state standards of learning for science, economics, history, geography, civics, mathematics and English — but on the sixth- through eighth-grade levels.
Accordingly, best teaching practices under these circumstances are extremely challenging, given that most students read on average at the third-grade level, and bridging the achievement gap on such a broad scale requires far greater resources than those currently provided.
To be sure, West Side Middle School has a strong cadre of extremely dedicated, tenured teachers and administrators who resolutely choose to be at that school with those very schoolchildren year in and year out and have dedicated their careers to making a difference.
But with every new year, they inherit more below-level students from their elementary feeder schools and must start anew on fundamental, remedial work.
For new teachers fresh out of college that enter the Title 1, historically underserved school, the myriad challenges they face often prove to be too great resulting in a high transfer rate.
For at-risk students, teacher turnover exacerbates scholastic underperformance as consistency within the school system itself often serves as the greatest source of stability in many students’ lives — especially those that lack a strong family structure.
Indeed, socioeconomic factors at home are a contributing cause of social promotion as many children simply enter elementary school ill-prepared for learning, despite concerted family engagement and social worker intervention efforts.
Hence, there are no easy, one-size-fits-all solutions such as simply setting aside nightly reading time at an early age or expanding to a year-round school schedule.
But according to economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, there may be the next best thing as they report, “the return on investment from early childhood development is extraordinary, resulting in better working public schools, more educated workers and less crime.”
In fact, they list early childhood development programs as the single greatest economic development measure available, far outpacing traditional initiatives such as tax increment financing and industrial recruitment programs that consistently rank low on overall return on taxpayer funding.
If West Virginia policymakers want to improve our state’s economy, they should focus first on our children and the quality of education that we provide for them as it translates directly to workforce readiness and college preparation.
We need to invest heavily in early intervention programs that target at-risk children as well as expand the scope of early childhood development programs so that all children can achieve literacy at the earliest age possible.
Until that bears fruit, our lawmakers should also institute mandatory after school programs for remedial reading, and even summer school if necessary, replete with the student-teacher ratio required to bring all children up to level, with participation in team sports a condition.
West Virginia owes it to our children to finally eliminate the de facto policy of social promotion that has been allowed for far too long to undermine our educational system and weaken our economy.
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Howard Swint: Social promotion undermines education - Charleston Gazette-Mail
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