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Friday, January 28, 2011
Concerns on Retention Aren't About Self Esteem
By Tom Sullivan
New Mexico Coalition of School Administrators
Last month I wrote an article for our state's school administrators' newsletter in which I personally indicated support for certain aspects of the "vaunted" Florida Model of school reform. I specifically mentioned their practice of retaining students at third-grade for reading deficiencies, along with the A-F report card for rating schools among things we should be willing to seriously consider here in New Mexico.
More recently I met with Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera and told her that our administrative organizations would welcome opportunities to work together on some of these very topics. And the New Mexico School Superintendents' Association, for which I serve as executive director, actually voted last week to support legislation which would implement these very practices.
So I was shocked and confused by the tone of a recent Journal editorial implying otherwise.
I participated in two interviews — one for print; one for television — in which I was asked about the legislation pre-filed by Rep. Mary Helen Garcia (now HB 21) dealing with " social promotion" vs. retention. Both times I was very clear in stating my respect for Garcia's background as both an elementary principal and district-level reading program administrator in Las Cruces, as well as her sincerity in proposing changes to the existing statute which allows parents to override school personnel's professional recommendations up though seventh grade.
I further stated that even with the uneven research data surrounding the practice of retention in general, I agreed that any retentions would likely be most effective in the primary grades when for the right reasons.
At no time in either interview was the subject of a student's "self esteem" even discussed; nor that of the teacher or parents! I do believe I was correctly quoted by the Journal reporter about foreseeing "some difficult conversations, and... conflict," but those comments were made in the context of saying educators would prefer that such decision ideally be reached through collaboration and a forged understanding between the school and the family that such a determination was truly in the child's best interests; as opposed to being based solely on legislative language that vested 51 percent of the "vote" with one side; and to be based on what? A one-day test snapshot? Some of those important details have yet to be fleshed out.
I don't at all regret raising that concern, especially since I know everything else that was said during fairly extensive interviews — as do the journalists involved; but I am disappointed to have had my views on an important education issue deliberately and callously misrepresented without context.
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