BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- Under the watchful eye of teacher Lisa Marie Schifano, the drive to toughen school standards and end social promotion took a big leap forward this week in a second-floor classroom at Public School 172.
More than 60,000 low-performing New York City third-, sixth- and eighth-graders began a mandatory month of classes, and those who don't pull up their reading test scores won't be allowed to advance in the fall. It is the largest of the growing efforts by school systems across the nation to hold students accountable.
"I've got four weeks to help them improve," says Schifano, walking among the half-dozen pupils assigned to her for the summer.
The time of reckoning will be Aug. 4 and 5, when 8-year-old Alexis Sandoval and tens of thousands of pupils across New York City retake their reading and math exams. "I hope I do OK," confides Alexis, one of Schifano's students. "I don't want to do third grade again."
In the past, such pupils often would have been passed on to the next grade, moving ahead without being able to do the work. But not any more, here in New York -- and perhaps, within two years, not in Maryland either.
Across the country, educators, school boards and state legislatures are increasingly requiring pupils to prove they can meet standards -- particularly in reading -- or be forced into summer schools. Those who refuse to attend, as well as those who don't make the grade during the summer, are more and more being kept behind.
"School districts are saying that if 180 days weren't enough to teach students, thenit's time to use the summer for those who are behind," says Harris Cooper, a psychology professor at the University of Missouri who recently completed a comprehensive review of 39 summer learning studies. "What's clear is that kids can learn during the summer. And with an intensive program, many can even catch up to grade level."
In Chicago -- now into its fourth year of mandatory summer school -- 40 percent of all third-graders and a significant share of sixth- and eighth-graders are being required to take six weeks of summer classes. That percentage could increase to half of all first-, second- and third-graders by next summer under a proposal from Chicago's mayor.
"I think it's having a tremendously good impact," says Barbara Buell, executive director of the Chicago Panel on School Policy, a nonprofit agency. "I think the jury is still out on what they're doing with those kids who are being held behind, but for a lot of kids, the extra attention during the summer is really helping them achieve more."
On the West Coast, almost a third of the 51,000 pupils in Oakland, Calif., are enrolled in mandatory classes this summer because of low performance -- a preview of what will take place in California next summer under its legislature's recent ban on social promotions.
Under that law, California students below standards at the end of second through fifth grades -- as well as when they're entering high school -- will be held back. Districts will be urged to hold classes in the summer and after school to help those who are failing.
Mandatory summer school is not limited to big, urban districts.
By next summer, for example, school systems across rural Idaho will have summer reading camps, with struggling young readers strongly encouraged to attend or risk being forced to repeat the grade. Ohio legislators also have required that, by the summer of 2002, fourth-graders who fail the state's reading test will be sent to summer school or held back.
In Maryland, state educators are beginning to consider similar requirements for all 24 of the state's school systems. A plan before the State Board of Education would force all low-performing eighth-graders to attend summer school or be barred from entering high school.
Educators estimate perhaps half of the 62,000 Maryland pupils entering seventh grade this fall could end up in mandatory summer school in two years. Under the plan, local school systems also would have to set up standards for third-, fifth- and seventh-graders to be promoted -- and require summer school or after-school help for those behind.
"There needs to be consequences for students," says Margaret Trader, Maryland's assistant superintendent for instruction. "But in retention or summer school, it's just not enough to run kids through a program that they already failed once. You have to try to do something new."
In New York City, Chancellor Rudy Crew had proposed putting social promotion standards in place for the summer of 2000. But the popularity of the idea -- and pressure to toughen standards and fix sagging reading scores -- prompted implementation to be pushed up.
So this month, more than 60,000 third-, sixth- and eighth-graders who scored below the 15th percentile on math and reading exams began mandatory summer reading classes. City school officials estimate that another 130,000 or so pupils of all grade levels are also enrolled in summer classes. Many are low-performers -- scoring below average but not as poorly as those threatened with being retained -- and were encouraged by teachers to attend.
For Brooklyn's District 15, mandatory summer school sent educators scrambling -- especially for teachers.
Throughout New York, the "holdover classes" -- those with third-, sixth- and eighth-graders in danger of being kept back a year -- are limited to 10 students. Classes for other low-performers are typically limited to 20. Summer teachers are being paid $32 an hour for four hours of morning classes.
"It's enough so that we were able to fill every opening, but we didn't have any extra teachers," says G. Jack Spatola, P.S. 172 principal.
Officials of the 21,000-student Brooklyn school system known as District 15 estimate they're spending at least $2 million on summer school this year for about 5,000 elementary and middle school students. The citywide cost is estimated to be about $70 million.
If New York City moves forward with tentative plans to increase the crackdown on social promotion, as many as 320,000 pupils -- about one of every three -- will be in mandatory summer school next year. Finding enough teachers, even at increased pay, will be tough.
While District 15's enrollment ranges from the poor, Latino and Asian communities of Sunset Park and Red Hook to the upscale, brownstone neighborhoods of Park Slope, almost all of its three dozen schools share one characteristic: They're old.
P.S. 172 just celebrated its 85th birthday. Nearby Public School 94 -- a grand old building that sits high on a hill overlooking the New York Harbor -- opened in 1906. Like 80 percent of the classrooms throughout the city, the schools lack air conditioning.
District 15 officials hope to distribute a fan to every summer teacher, though they discovered none of the ones delivered this week oscillate -- so they cool just a portion of the pupils. "If it's so hot that the kids can't concentrate, then they won't learn," says Eileen Jones, District 15's curriculum director.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this summer's mandatory program is that it won't be just a condensed rehash of the past school year, educators say. A new curriculum guide was developed, particularly for reading -- the focus of three hours of the four hours of classes each day.
"They need to learn in a different way this summer," says Larry Saunders, P.S. 94's principal. "If you just try to do it all again over 20 days, why would it be any more successful than during the regular school year?"
So seated at a desk in P.S. 94 -- in a classroom offering a distant glimpse of the Statue of Liberty -- 10-year-old Millie Rodriguez intently tries to decipher a relatively simple book about plants and animals, reading sentences and jotting down notes.
"I wanted to be here in summer school, because it's fun, but I want to be in fourth grade next year, too," Millie says. "I hope I pass. I don't want to be in third grade for another year.
Few parents say they're opposed to the city's new policy. "I was upset at first, but then I felt better because he'll get to learn," says Reina Rivera, whose son Christopher didn't know he was going to be held behind at P.S. 94 until his older brother spilled the secret. "My son got upset, too. But I want him to get the help now, or else he'll fail when he gets older."
The bigger question is what will happen in another year or two, when the city school system toughens its standards even more. But many New York educators are ready for it.
"It's about time," says Spatola, the P.S. 172 principal. "We need to raise our standards. We can't let kids get through here any more without making sure they've learned."
Teacher Schifano adds: "We know they can do this. Now we have more time to teach them to do it."
Pub Date: 7/15/99