A former colleague of mine, a math teacher, used to say, "Don't even teach primary students math. Just teach them to read. By the time they get to me, if they can read well, I can teach them all the math you want."
That was many years ago, long before the rise of third grade reading retention laws. But those laws, while (usually) well-intentioned, are a terrible, rotten, no good, really bad idea.
Sixteen states require third graders to pass a standardized reading test in order to be promoted to fourth grade. Most of them allow for some exceptions, but not all, and not all the time. It's long been conventional wisdom that fourth grade represents a new style of learning--that primary students learn to read, but once they hit fourth grade, they read to learn. But why turn that into a testing barrier.
Matt Barnum, the Chalkbeat reporter who occasionally decides to track down sources of conventional wisdom, traces the big push to some research from 2011. Authored by Donald J. Hernandez (Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and Foundation for Child Development) on behalf of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, "Double Jeopardy" ties third grade reading proficiency (more or less as defined by NAEP) to high school graduation as well as tying both to poverty.
Without getting into too detail, the report finds that students who are not reading proficiently in CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Third Grade Reading Retention: Still A Bad Idea