Talk:Social promotion/Archive 1

Note: this covers September 26, 2003 – July 19, 2006

"Loading" the article

I am so strongly against social promotion that I suspect I am "loading" the article to reflect my bias. Please help. --Uncle Ed 19:53, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

May 2006 reversion

Oahc - I significantly revised the article, including extensive use of one of the sources already listed in the article (ERIC digest). You reverted it without any further explanation. I would hope that my changes added SOME value to the article; if you think parts are wrong, please change those, rather than discarding everything.

I'm going to put the page back the way it was; please either make CHANGES to it (explanations in the edit summary are appreciated and reduce misunderstandings) or post something HERE about why you think that everything I did is wrong. Thanks. John Broughton 12:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Oahc - thank you for posting a note to my talk/discussion page. However, you shouldn't have reverted the article. I've explained (on your talk/discussion page) what I did to improve the article, and why it's not an either/or ("Your" version/"my" version) choice. I'm going to revert the article back to the last version I edited.

Please note that you have reverted the article twice already; doing so again would violate the Three-revert rule. John Broughton

---

Hmm - seems to be problems posting to your talk/discussion page. I'm going to put the text here.

Oahc - you asked What is wrong with the social promotion article that I wrote? I wrote all the sides to it. I don't understand..Don't you agree with what I wrote?

I don't think those are the right questions. An article isn't finished when all the sides are presented. Nor should someone not edit an article because he/she agrees with what it says.

If I had SHORTENED the article, then I could see an argument being made that the version that you last edited might be better, and a simple revert is appropriate. But that isn't the case.

(As I remember - I didn't take notes -) I didn't ignore what was in the article (which had a dozen other editors, so I'm not sure why your refer to it as "your" article). Rather, I used the existing article as a starting point. I added a lot of text that I thought wasn't in the article, or was better written, and then removed text that I thought weren't necessary, either because I'd found better wording elsewhere or because it was redundant to begin with.

In particular, I tried to emphasize in the article that there are numerous STUDIES out there that provide hard facts about social promotion, and thus the debate should NOT be one of "common sense". (I didn't say that in so many words; that would be editorializing.) I also added what I thought was clearly a new argument - that while social promotion clearly has problems, retention may well (in many cases) have MORE problems, and that money could be better spent elsewise than on keeping students back. And I provided additional references as well as additional information.

At this point, you might want to do the following:

• Look at the existing article and see if it has redundant/duplicated information, or information that you consider trivial. If so, shorten it, and so comment in the edit summary. Also, where the wording or grammar is poor, or sentences or paragraphs are illogical, fix those.
• Look at the version that you last edited, and identify the half-dozen (or dozen or whatever) major points that you think should be made. Check the existing article to make sure they are in the article. For each point, decide whether the wording in the existing article is best, or could be improved. (Alternatively, print out the version you last edited, and go through it, checking off the points that should be made.) Where the last version you edited was superior, make changes to the existing article.

Hope this helps. Thanks for posting the note to my talk/discussion page. John Broughton 15:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Content deletion

I noticed that an anonymous editor recently removed quite a bit of content, apparently believing that a shorter article is better. This deletion removed a great deal of information about the history of social promotion, studies about it, and more. This information should definitely be added back, as shorter but less comprehensive is definitely not better. This looks like a textbook case of the common mistake of deleting rather than editing. If the content was unclear, then it should have been clarified rather than deleted.

I would add this information back myself, but I have not been involved in editing this article so I'm not terribly familiar with it. Someone who is more familiar with it will be better able to ensure that all useful information is kept. --Icarus 06:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Icarus - I appreciate your taking the time to post a comment, and particularly your citing a relevant wikipedia article.

I thought that Oahc and I had reached a reasonable compromise on this, and I'm going to revert the article to a previous version. John Broughton 11:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Edits by Xtremeruna21

Xtremeruna21 - I briefly looked through your edits; I'm not going to go through and decide what to keep and what to discard (see below as to why), so I reverted them in their entirety. If you do want to make edits, please consider the following:

• Since retention and social promotion are exactly opposites, the sections on "positive results of retention" and "negative results of social promotion" are essentially the same thing and, if you look at the wording, there is considerable overlap (not surprising). The point of two sections is?
• The "negative results of social promotion" are not prefaced with "critics argue" or anything that indicates that these "results" are in fact ARGUMENTS.
• The "sends a message to all schoolchildren" argument is STUPID. Six-year olds don't decide NOT to learn; six-year olds aren't mature enough to have long-term reasoning.
• The sentence "The law clearly states that a child can legally remain in high school until they are 21" is, on its face, BOGUS. Laws on education are done at the STATE level, not at the federal level. I sincerely doubt that you can produce a source that says that EVERY state in the U.S. allows individuals (if they want?) to stay in high school until age 21.
• The sentence "Since social promotion doesn't exist at the high school level, students have no choice but to attend summer school in order to try and graduate on time or repeat that grade" is also BOGUS. If you'd read the article, you'd have seen that various cities have changed the policies on social promotion; if you know of a LAW (at the federal level) that FORBIDS social promotion in any state in the U.S., then produce it for the article. Otherwise, stop making things up. (Also, for what it's worth, not all school districts offer summer school; that also is something NOT required by federal law - and again, I invite you to provide evidence that EVERY high school in the country has such a program, if you believe that.)

John Broughton 21:25, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

You should look at all the edits before your revert. Not briefly. (Xtremeruna21)

See below. John Broughton 21:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[Note: the following was posted on my discussion page. For sake of keeping the thread together, I'm posting a copy here. -- JB ]

Who says you can change things? I'm a wikipedian...and I have a right to...You don't have knowledge of it....I've done research...and all you do is reject it..it makes sense too. And I'm putting it back...you already violated the 3 revert rule. (Xtremeruna21)

Xtremeruna21: Here's a homework assignment: actually READ the three-revert rule, then come back here and explain why I didn't violate it. (Alternatively: agree that if I show you that I didn't violate the rule, you'll stop editing this page - take that as a challenge?)

Second, if you've done research, then CITE SOMETHING. You added NO references or external links; were the ones in the article ALL that you used for your edits?

Third, I've pointed out specific errors (see above). Are you going to refute those? As a wikipedian, you're supposed to work with other editors to improve the article as a whole, not to get into fights about whose version is better. Failure to respond to specifics isn't going to help your case.

I'd be happy to ask an administrator to get involved, if that will get some cooperative behavior. John Broughton 21:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've done a bunch of individual edits, with explanations. Hope that helps. John Broughton 22:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Multiple identities?

Xtremeruna21: you posted this in your edit summary: why can't you ever think my side? This article is supposed to be neutral!

Have you posted under some other name, or under an IP address? Your edit summary ("ever") seems to imply that I've reverted your edits more than once; if so, they were under multiple names. What might those be? John Broughton 21:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

New discussion

I want to start a new discussion about this article. I want to say thank you to all those Wikipedians who contributed to this article. This article is pretty interesting. After reading it, I am strongly against social promotion. There seems to be more reasons against social promotion than for. Anyone agree? What do you think about this article? Would you promote your child if he/she was behind? I know I wouldn't. It's just wrong. I can't believe that the school I went to supported social promotion. Do you guys think that I should say something to the school district? That would be so cool...I'll be like making a difference...like Rosa Parks when she stood up for her right...After all it is a controversial topic. So please comment on what you think. I would appreciate it if you comment on this page rather than on my page. It would be a lot easier for everyone to read. thanks! ♥ Edicius

Please do NOT delete prior discussions on this page. They can be very useful to newcomers to the article.

Also, I suggest that you find another forum (outside of wikipedia) to discuss what you should or should not say to your school district. Wikipedia talk/discussion pages are for discussing questions or possible improvements for the ARTICLE. Please do NOT ask others to comment on your personal situation.

And, for what it's worth, I think there are strong arguments AGAINST retention for very young children (say, 8 years and younger), particularly where English is a second language. If you haven't read all of the external links, I suggest you do - you'll find a lot of well-reasoned arguments about the problems of retention. John Broughton 22:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Retention

This article says that about one third of all Americans get retained at least once in their K-8 period. How about getting retained at least once in their K-12 period?? Georgia guy 20:21, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

If I understand the situation correctly, in the U.S., once a student reaches high school (grade 9 in some places, grade 10 in others), there is no such thing as retention (being kept back an entire grade). Rather, like college, one either has enough credits (and required courses) to graduate, after four (or three) years, or one does not. And if you do not, then you don't get a diploma. You may end up repeating a course (or courses) that you failed, but you continue to move along with your peers (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and finally former high school student). John Broughton 20:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a thing called retention in high school. I failed 11th grade and I had no choice but to repeat that grade. I guess I could of gone to summer school but that cost money. I didn't continue to move along with my peers. All of my peers are now going to college while I am stuck in high school. I wish social promotion existed at the high school, then I wouldn't have to be repeating a grade. I have learning disability which makes it hard for me to succeed in school. I guess it's good that they are retaining me. Sometimes I feel that they should of retained me in my middle school years, that way I wouldn't have failures in high school. (207.156.201.242)