Arguments about some educational issues go on forever. Is it a good idea to hold children back if they haven't learned the year's work or should they be promoted with the rest of their class? Will kids learn more if they go to school on a year-round schedule or do they get just as much out of spending a summer with the family or at camp? People battle back and forth on questions like these for years. You'll find, though, that when they do decide on an answer, the decision is often based on economic rather than educational concerns.
Before World War II, high school teachers were paid substantially more than elementary school teachers. Supporters of this system argued that high school teachers required more -- and a more specialized -- education so it was only right to pay them bigger salaries.
People who opposed the system said it created incentives that ran counter to the best interests of the children. It encouraged many of the most successful elementary school teachers to study to become high school teachers, but, opponents maintained, it was just as important for younger kids to have excellent teachers as it was for kids in high school. In fact, they argued, top-notch teachers might be even more important to kids during their early years than later on.
The argument eventually got resolved in favor of a single salary scale. But this was not because one side convinced the other; it was because of the Baby Boom at the end of World War II. Since children go to elementary school before they enter high school, there was a huge shortage of elementary school teachers across the country. Elementary schools had a hard time attracting and keeping teachers so they raised their salaries to correspond with those of high school teachers. The salary issue, then, was decided by the law of supply and demand, not by what was fair for teachers or best for students. The right decision was made for the wrong reasons.
Economics is probably also driving the current movement to promote every child every year instead of holding back children who have not achieved at grade level. People who favor automatic promotion say it is devastating for children to stay behind when friends go on to the next grade. Children who flunk feel defeated, and having failed once, they are likely to fail again. On the other hand, people who oppose automatic promotion point out that children who have not been able to do the work this year will be hopelessly behind if they are promoted into the next grade. What will that do for a child's self-esteem? And how will it help them understand that actions -- or failures to act -- have consequences?
Automatic promotion is an issue that people have very strong feelings about. Nevertheless, as with other issues, decisions are often based on economics rather than the merits of the case. When there is money around and space to accommodate the students, the pressure is on to utilize the space and spend the money. So people decide that it's a good thing to hold youngsters back and "give them a little more time if they need it." But when you've got a baby boom and schools are very crowded or when money is very tight -- as it is now -- the pressure is on to get the kids out of school as soon as possible.
According to a recent federal study cited by the Wall Street Journal (June 16, 1992), one child in five is held back at least one grade before entering high school. In other words, flunking students means spending a lot of extra money at a time when school districts all over the country are desperately trying to cut their expenditures because their budgets have been cut. So whatever the educational merits of automatic promotion, passing everybody makes economic sense. No wonder it's becoming a popular position.
Given our current fiscal problems, we can look forward to lots more educational decisions made for economic reasons. The Republican governor of California, Pete Wilson, recently tried to raise the age at which children are eligible to enter kindergarten. The governor maintained that this was being done for educational reasons. But it's no coincidence that California is burdened with terrible financial problems, and Wilson needs to cut his education budget.
We can also expect to see all kinds of education research pushing the educational merits of changes that would save a pile of money. Maybe we'll hear that children are too young to start school until they are seven or eight -- we could save several years' worth of school and billions of dollars right there. And maybe there'll be other research proving that kids have learned all they are likely to by the time they are sixteen. Or that a whole day in school is just too much for young minds. I can hear it now: "We'll let half the kids attend in the morning and half in the afternoon. Then we'll be able to shut down half the schools and lay off half the teachers."
There's nothing wrong with looking at the economic side of a decision about education. If we'd done more of this in the past, school districts wouldn't still be spending heavily on central office administrators at the same time as they talk about drastic cuts in school personnel who deal directly with kids.
But you can hide a lot of greed behind educational fig leaves. It will be a good thing when we can decide educational issues on educational grounds. Economic issues have determined our decisions for too long.