Schools remain on antiquated calendars built around the agricultural year in spite of the majority of students no longer living on farms. Students advancing from grade to grade based on age is also a tradition based on convenience and not on research. Some large school districts are abandoning social promotion and choosing mastery.
Schools are Placing Students in Classrooms on Antiquated Practices
Social promotion is often mentioned as one of education’s great failures. Thirty students enter 4th grade and thirty move on to 5th grade. Are all thirty students truly mastering information that is necessary for 5th grade? Absolutely, not. But, the system moves them on to the next level. The top 50% will handle this well. The bottom half will become increasingly frustrated and get more and more behind each year. Because they have not achieved mastery, self-esteem decreases and the ability to succeed shrinks. These students are the potential dropouts.
Brains develop differently just as bodies develop at different paces. No two students are the same so why do schools place 30 students in a room and expect them to learn at the same pace? Convenience. It is the way it has always been done. Schools have limited budgets and it is getting worse with today’s economy. There is another way.
Mastery is the Goal of Kansas City Schools
Kansas City is going to group students by ability for next year. 17,000 will be switched to the new system this fall with the hope that student achievement will improve. Superintendent John Covington states, "The current system of public education in this country is not working. It’s an outdated, industrial, agrarian kind of model that lends itself to still allowing students to progress through school based on the amount of time they sit in a chair rather than whether or not they have truly mastered the competencies and skills." [1]
Advocates of this new system believe that discipline problems decline when students learn on their own level and experience success at their own pace of learning. Students that perform at higher levels are not bored because they are not waiting for classmates to master the content. Proficient students progress as their speed of understanding. Students that need more time to master a concept receive the time they need.
Kansas City is not reinventing the wheel. Representatives of the Kansas City district have made visits to Denver to see how they made the transition from social promotion to mastery. The state of Maine is also making the transition into the mastery mode where six districts with 11,248 students are making the switch.
Marzano Research Laboratory Evaluates Mastery Methods
An educational research and professional development firm, Marzano Research Laboratory, evaluated state testing data. Researchers found that students that learned through the mastery approach were 2.5 times more likely to score well. Marzano’s group found that 3,500 students from 15 school districts in Alaska, Florida and Colorado had a better grasp on exams in reading, writing and math when taught by the mastery method. [1]
Alaska schools that have adopted the controversial mastery model believe in it. "The most die-hard advocates for our system are our teachers because, especially the ones who were back with us before the change, they saw where things were then. They see where things are now and they don’t want to go back," says Greg Johnson, director of curriculum and instruction for the Bering Strait School District in Alaska. [1]
Teaching students on the mastery method could be the answer to urban schools that are struggling with student achievement. It has worked for Alaska, Florida and Colorado. Missouri is hoping it works for them.
[1] Hollingsworth, Heather. "Forget grade levels, KC schools try something new," The Associated Press, July 3, 2010.
Barbara Pytel - Email me Experience Although I was never particularly fond of going to school as an ELL student, I ironically became a teacher, ...
