Middle-school students will have to pass two tests and four core subjects next year before they can move on to high school, under a new policy approved last night despite objections from two borough presidents and a crowd of rowdy parents who said they spoke on behalf of 5,000 city residents.
Mayor Bloomberg proposed the policy in his State of the City address in January as a way to extend his ban on so-called social promotion, but the Panel for Education Policy had to approve it before it could become official.
The group, which has not vetoed a mayoral plan since it was created to replace the Board of Education in 2002, voted 11–1 to pass the policy last night.
The Manhattan president's representative, Patrick Sullivan, voted against the plan. The representative of President Adolfo Carrion of the Bronx originally proposed delaying the vote, saying the panel had not had enough time to review the decision. He then appeared to oppose the plan, but quickly changed his vote to a yes, citing a misunderstanding. The other 10 members, eight people appointed by Mr. Bloomberg and two appointed by the presidents of Staten Island and Brooklyn, voted for the plan. (The president of Queens currently has no appointee on the panel.)
The schools chancellor, Joel Klein, applauded the decision. He cited data on previously installed retention policies for third-, fifth-, and seventh-graders, which he said show retention helps students improve.
Mr. Sullivan called that data "statistical malpractice," asking: "If these programs were so effective, why do we have 18,000 children in eighth grade you are proposing to hold back?" He referred to the number of eighth-graders the city estimates would have been affected by the retention policy had it been in place last year.
About 85 community members who had filed into the Department of Education headquarters at Tweed Courthouse to protest the policy booed and chanted against the vote, creating such a disruption that Mr. Klein decided to adjourn the meeting prematurely.
The group, organized by the Coalition for Educational Justice, presented Mr. Klein with 5,000 ballots in support of its position, which is that retaining eighth-graders who do not pass standardized tests does nothing to help them succeed, and indeed could move them to drop out of school. Speaking to reporters later, Mr. Klein said he believes the new policy has "widespread support throughout the city." "There's always going to be a small group of people who don't like the policy and feel the need to express it," he said
