Tougher standards lead to more 8th graders held back

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, April 23, 2002 | 11:15 a.m.

Clark County School District officials say a new law aimed at ending promotions based only on age is working -- the number of eighth graders held back from high school in Clark County tripled in the year since the tougher academic standards took effect.

Fed up with social promotions that sent unprepared students to high school and even college, Nevada lawmakers in 1999 voted to raise the academic bar for the state's public school pupils. The new rules, which took effect in the 2000-2001 school year, require students to complete 1.5 credits in mathematics and 1.5 credits in reading or English in the seventh and eighth grades before they can move on to high school.

For the 2000-2001 school year, 3 percent of Clark County School District's eighth graders -- 564 students -- were held back from high school. That's up from a retention rate of just 1 percent in the 1999-2000 school year, Augustin Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction, said.

"It appears the law is taking its intended effect and we're holding kids accountable," said Orci, who will present the figures Wednesday at a meeting of the Legislative Subcommittee on Education.

The tougher law is the work of the Council to Establish Academic Standards, a panel of legislators, educators and community leaders created by the 1997 Legislature and then-Gov. Bob Miller to improve the quality of public education in Nevada.

In 1999 the state Legislature approved the new rules and set aside $7 million to pay for regional training centers to ensure all of the state's teachers were familiar with the revised standards and could incorporate the required material into their lesson plans.

Nevada students regularly fall below the national average on basic skills exams and many enroll in remedial classes at college, said Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, a member of the council since its inception. Tougher standards will ultimately mean more successful students at all grade levels, O'Connell said.

"We're not doing these kids any favors by letting them slide through," O'Connell said. "It's child abuse if you do not prepare these kids for the world they have to live in. It's a sad commentary on all of us that we allowed it to go on for this long."

Bill Arensdorff, director of accountability and audits for the Nevada Department of Education, said the number of eighth graders held back went up last year in school districts across the state. Some students were able to make up the missing credits through summer school, while the majority had to repeat the entire eighth grade, Arensdorff said.

In the past, teachers and principals have often let unqualified students move on to the next grade, leaving the problem for high schools to deal with, Arensdorff said.

Now educators are more aware that while failing to graduate from eighth grade can be embarrassing for a child, it's better than ending up in high school unable to read proficiently or do basic math.

"We're saying to families and children that you are not going to be promoted if you're not qualified," Arensdorff said this morning. "We're being tougher because we have to."