Third Grade Retention: What Harm Could it Do?
In a comment on my recent post posing Critical Questions about the Common Core, one reader wrote: "I don't see any harm in requiring all students to be able to recite their multiplication tables from memory up to 12 X 12 by the end of third grade or they don't go to fourth grade."
In some ways this represents the epitome of standardization. Determine a standard that all students must meet, and make it into a "high bar" that they all must clear before they move on. This reader has suggested the times tables be used as that bar. Florida made reading proficiency the key criterion, and has held back third graders who did not meet the benchmark for the past decade. There is some research that suggests there have been gains as a result, leading other states to consider the policy.
If we begin using BOTH times tables AND reading proficiency as benchmarks that could result in retention, we
In some ways this represents the epitome of standardization. Determine a standard that all students must meet, and make it into a "high bar" that they all must clear before they move on. This reader has suggested the times tables be used as that bar. Florida made reading proficiency the key criterion, and has held back third graders who did not meet the benchmark for the past decade. There is some research that suggests there have been gains as a result, leading other states to consider the policy.
If we begin using BOTH times tables AND reading proficiency as benchmarks that could result in retention, we