For a middle school with a thousand students, that is a lot of money. The principal, and the school advisory committees that primarily include parents, decide how that money is spent. If schools continue to show progress, they continue to receive additional funding. Fourth, as we raised expectations for our students, we also eliminated social promotion, the practice of advancing students to the next grade level without regard to their academic achievement. The argument has been made that ending social promotion will hurt Little Johnny s self esteem.
Self esteem is very important in a child s development.
But learning a year s worth of knowledge learning to read, write and to calculate math is a whole lot more important for Little Johnny. In the long run, Little Johnny s self image is going to be far stronger if he gains the power of knowledge. The idea is to enable third graders to acquire the remedial help that they need in order to gain a year s worth of knowledge in a year s time. We believe in these changes and are financially committed to making them work. It is time for schools to organize for the benefit of children and not allow them to fall behind.