I have decided to do this more often...again.  For some time now I've been caught up in trying to get a a job and not working on the kind of job I want to have. 

This year I've been a substitute teacher.  I've had more students this year than most teachers will have in a fifty year career.  I admit that I don't know these students as intimately as their teachers do.  However, not knowing them as intimately as their teachers also should afford me greater authority on the whole of education.  Shouldn't it?  I mean if we say I can't say things about any teachers kids that they can refute because they 'know them better.'  Shouldn't I be able to say things about the entire education system because I, 'know it better?' 

So this year I substitute taught at over 25 schools.  I spent more than one day at about 10.  I spent over two weeks at three.  One of the three long term jobs was kindergarten generalist.  One was Essential Academics (read severe disabilities), and one was as Educational Assistant (read teacher's aide for classrooms with a lot of special ed students at a high school.  All of my jobs span two districts and one private school.  I would have gone to Austin ISD, but at the time I told myself I should specialize so that fewer administrators got to know me better.

So hopefully I'm going to write several things I've learned about school.  Several meaning if I'm not lazy or forgetful than several others will follow.  I've learned them to be true from my experience.  Some other people could refute my experience with metadata.  And the first thing I've learned is...

1. Social promotion doesn't work.

I was with a teacher in her class.  It was a class for students who failed Algebra I and Algebra II.  We received to standardized tests from the district over the period of three weeks.  They were to diagnose low performance.  In one class of twenty.  Three worked on the test.  In one class of 25 three worked on the test seven or eight copied it with a level of stealth that I would describe as elephant ninja.  It didn't matter. 

The teacher took me through there scores from years past.  What she was doing was probably less than legal.  She showed me that they had all been failing math since the fifth and sixth grade.  They had kept failing and kept on moving on to the next section. 

Now they were taking this coarse to help them buff up their math skills to help them pass the STAAR exam to get their diploma.  The teacher felt like that was impossible.  How was she supposed to teach them Algebra I and II in a year when they couldn't learn it in two?  How could she get them to work when they hadn't worked, but had still been promoted?  How could she get them the skills they needed when they didn't know their times tables?  There was a hole of knowledge she couldn't get back to and around and catch up before their time was up and if she had the will the students didn't.

One day the teacher wasn't their.  I became normal substitute instead of just aide.  Homework was assigned.  The teacher told me to give it out and pick it up at the end of class.  With her permission I did ALL the problems on the board.  I wrote out all the problems and how to do them on the board.  I told them to copy.  The assignment wasn't worth a lot to their final, but it did affect it so why not copy.  In a class of 20, ten students handed in the assignment.  Only two got a hundred on the assignment.  In another class of 25 almost 20 turned the assignment in.  Ten got hundreds on the assignment.  I'm not sure which is scarier.  That so few could copy, or that some didn't even copy.  I didn't do this on the board because I wanted to know if they could copy.  I figured they'd retain some of the process if I did a lot of step checking and understanding checks.  It didn't.

A lot of these students will graduate.  I taught three sections of this class with the same teacher.  There were 65+ students.  The school graduates over 75% of the students who go all four years.  That means that some of the students who couldn't even be bothered to copy will walk the stage.  The school is graduating a lot of students so that it won't appear to 'leave children behind.'  But they're being left behind anyway.  Now they're left behind adults. 

Social promotion doesn't work.  It doesn't incentivize kids to achieve.  It doesn't incentivize them to work hard.  They just go to school and collect attendance (Which the school still cares deeply about because that's how they get paid).  The talk with their friends.  The don't learn.  If possible, a sport might pressure them to succeed, but how difficult is achievement in classes where all you have to do is copy the stuff off the board?

Now, there is also a lot of evidence that failing students doesn't work.  Did you know that?  There are white papers about it.  There are randomly selected test subjects in pools of thousands.  There are data sets and control groups and PhD's.  Wow! I'm convinced.  I read this for the first time in an Education Week article.  I did a double take.  Most of the teachers that I know don't think so.  I did a triple take.  I started doing some online research.  It's true.  There is evidence that this doesn't make students work harder.  Except for me.  And you.  And like every other kid of a particular generation before social promotion.  It isn't true.  Studies like this may have been done without polling.  But I studied harder to make sure I didn't fail.  I heard other students, friends and acquaintances say this.  These studies may be saying that it didn't work because some students still failed, but how many didn't because they feared failing.

And now the numbers are skewed.  There is no way in my mind that I can believe high schools are graduating only students who have achieved a satisfactory understanding of Texas essential knowledge and skills.  Colleges are agreeing with me since most have increased or invented for the first time remedial programs on campuses of higher learning.  Can you get the results that social promotion is working?  Yes, if you graduate students who haven't achieved.  My question for those schools is that diploma.  It is a certificate of achievement.  And how can we in good conscience certify that students have achieved all the requisite knowledge and skills if they haven't?

So.

Stop passing those who fail.  Maybe not all at once.  Maybe schools should for a very short period of time one to two years only fail the students who make below 50 rather than 60.  Later, when children will skip on party a month or one Netflix binge a week in order to not fail then you can reorder the amount of failings.  Give teachers a free pass to give to one student who they can certify tried but didn't succeed.  Let Principals give some out for extenuating circumstances.  Let kids go to summer school.  My way out is that you tailor the way out to each individual student.  I hate a solutions that are supposed to fit every student in every school in every city in every state.  I'm willing to admit failing doesn't always work as a disincentive.  If we can all admit that not leaving any child behind pushes some adults way too far ahead.

There's a very old quote, "If I advance, follow me.  If I retreat, cut me down.  If I fall, avenge me." Source unknown, but I've heard it was Napoleon.  This seems to me to be the single solution voice when the problems are legion.  There is no one size fits all.  There is not cookie cutter solutions.  We need all the tools.