Some struggle, some soar in complex classroom

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, May 20, 1999 | 11:40 a.m.

Teacher John Pendry takes stock of what his students have learned.

"They're right on in reading, but some of their math scores are significantly lower than they should be," Pendry said. "I've been concerned about math since day one."

Ultimately, teachers like Pendry are concerned about one question: Are the students learning what they need to know this year?

For Pendry, the answer is yes and no.

Clark County teachers follow a detailed guidebook that outlines what material children are supposed to learn -- and when. The guidebook, called the "Curriculum Essentials Framework," is a road map for teaching.

For instance, the framework says that Pendry's fourth graders should be learning the following material.

In math:

* Rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000.

* Reading and writing symbols and words for proper and improper fractions and mixed numbers.

* Dividing a two- or three-digit number by a one-digit number, with or without remainder.

In reading:

* Responding to reading selections, summarize a passage.

* Building vocabulary; using synonyms and antonyms; conjunctions.

* Writing a well-organized paragraph; writing to tell a story.

Pendry has been covering the material this school year. But in a class of 30 students, some keep up and some don't. For instance, Pendry's brightest students, among them Ramon, Molly and Hannah, can easily summarize reading passages and add and subtract fractions with the same denominators.

For Pendry's slower pupils, that work is much harder. They lag behind.

Pendry has watched in frustration as Armand, who has been in and out of schools in Las Vegas, has struggled with the simplest of single-digit division problems. Nick has found himself baffled over fairly simple vocabulary words.

Fourth grade teachers like Pendry struggle with issues like teaching long division to students who left third grade without learning basic multiplication tables, or how to sound out words.

"Therein lies the challenge," Pendry said.

Pendry has never held a student back during his eight years of teaching. He does not expect to hold any students back this year, although Armand and a few others probably will not master fourth grade material by the end of the year.

"To hold a student back he would have to be struggling in all areas and not be learning disabled or qualify for (special education)," Pendry said. "You have to weigh a lot of factors -- social, emotional, academic."

In Clark County, 1,864 of 189,231 students in the 1997-98 school year were required to repeat their grade (slightly less than 1 percent). That's lower than an estimated 5 to 7 percent of students who are held back nationwide.

"Our position is that in some cases we do retain students and that is a cooperative decision made by the parent, the teacher and the administrator," Superintendent Brian Cram said. But Cram said that in most cases, "It's not a very effective thing to do."

The controversial issue of social promotion -- allowing failing students to go on to the next grade -- has become a hot-button issue nationwide.

Prominent leaders including President Clinton and presidential hopeful Gov. George W. Bush of Texas have attacked social promotion.

Clinton points to a 4-year-old policy that says Chicago eighth graders must attend summer school if they fail reading and math tests. Two summers ago, 65 percent of the eighth graders who went to summer school did well enough to begin ninth grade. The rest were held back.

Four states -- California, Delaware, South Carolina and Wisconsin -- last year passed bills that curb social promotion, at least in certain grades.

But educators nationwide favor social promotion, despite politicians who do not.

"All but drowned out by the furor surrounding social promotion, however, is the cautious voice of education research, which generally has found that holding students back is no guarantee that they'll eventually catch up," trade publication Education Week noted in its Jan. 11, 1999, issue.

Educators cite reams of studies that indicate students who are retained fall further behind because they fail the same material again.

One synthesis of 63 studies concluded that students who were held back "performed more poorly on average than if they had gone on without repeating," according to a 1990 issue of the trade publication Educational Leadership.

"If we look at evidence about kids retained, they don't get better over the long term. They fall further behind," Arthur J. Reynolds, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in Education Week. "All things being equal, social promotion is better than retention."

Local education officials say they would rather put struggling students in remedial programs. For instance, five of Pendry's students are in the school's Reading Improvement Program.

"To stigmatize a child by retaining them in a classroom where their peers are younger, where they are physically different from them, accomplishes what?" asks Clark County assistant superintendent Kay Carl, who oversees elementary schools. "Children just don't stand still. They continue to grow and socially change and continue to be emotional human beings."

The district also runs summer and after-school programs, as well as "inter-session" programs at year-round schools. The programs are aimed at helping students who might otherwise be held back.

Last year the district helped 2,485 students in such programs at 44 elementary schools.

"Some of them just need that extra boost," said Kim Dupuis, an assistant principal at Ruth Fyfe Elementary, who runs the programs.

Jydstrup Principal Nadine Nielsen said that teaching a large, diverse class like Pendry's can take "a lot of fancy dancing." Teachers must carefully study the abilities of each student, the veteran principal said.

"What makes us think that each brain is going to understand everything at exactly the same age?"