PASS OR FAIL?; PLAN TO END SOCIAL PROMOTION DEBATED.

Byline: Paul Hefner Daily News Sacramento Bureau

Forcing students to meet high academic standards before passing them to the next grade would brand most in Los Angeles schools as failures and balloon education costs by billions, educators said Friday.

But others said that abolishing promotions for social reasons is the best way to improve education in California.

The debate crystallized after Gov. Pete Wilson announced Wednesday that he will push for legislation to require students in first, second, third, fourth, seventh and 10th grades to prove their skills on standardized tests before moving up to the next grade.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has proposed a similar plan as part of an education initiative.

Some educators contend that the practice of social promotion - at least in the Los Angeles Unified School District - is too widespread to stop.

They point to recent results of a standardized test in which 43 percent of students did worse than the national average.

LAUSD officials concede that, depending upon the standard needed for students to pass to the next grade, many in the district could be held back a year or more.

``Even if you used 35th percentile, there would be a huge number of kids who wouldn't make it,'' said Brad Sales, a spokesman for LAUSD Superintendent Ruben Zacarias.

Board of Education member David Tokofsky said he welcomes new attention to excellence in education, but he predicted dire consequences from Wilson's proposal. As many as seven students in 10 would end up repeating classes, said Tokofsky, a former high school teacher.

Further, district enrollment - and costs - would mushroom as retained students competed with other pupils for classroom space and teachers, he said.

``You can't stop social promotion in kindergarten through 12th grade. It's just too expensive. We'd need another $4 billion,'' Tokofsky said. ``The people who are talking about stopping social promotion don't know the depth of the problem. It's massive.''

Tokofsky is not alone in believing the issue is ripe for debate and in warning that missteps could have serious consequences, from lawsuits filed by parents to increases in the dropout rate.

``Doing it right, doing it well and in a way that doesn't penalize students, that's tough,'' said Paul Warren, a legislative analyst.

Defending standards

Wilson's advisers on education acknowledge that school districts will need time to change their practices. They said that's why the governor's budget proposal provides money for teacher training and a new remedial summer school program for students with reading problems.

And if legislation ending social promotion were approved this year, schools wouldn't be forced to start flunking students until 1999, said Dan Edwards, spokesman for Child Development and Education Secretary Marian Bergeson.

Ending social promotion ``is not going to be a bomb we drop on people this June,'' Edwards said. ``I think if we did it right now, it would throw the system into chaos.''

He insisted that holding schools and students accountable for their performance, however, is the linchpin in an effort to improve achievement in public schools.

State officials are in the process of adopting academic standards for every grade. Each year, students will take a standardized test aligned to the standards.

``All of it comes up empty if you don't have consequences,'' Edwards said.

And he called predictions that ending social promotion would force schools to hold back huge numbers of students pessimistic.

``I think it's a pretty low expectation to say we're going to have hordes of third-graders who should be in the eighth grade,'' he said.

Social promotion a myth?

Even the extent of social promotion is open to debate.

One San Fernando Valley school principal said she doubts it exists in the district.

``I don't believe Los Angeles Unified does social promotion,'' said Lorraine Mariglia, principal at Canoga Park Elementary School.

She acknowledged, however, that district policies require parents to approve any decision for their children to repeat a grade. In addition, students are required to leave a school that ends with fifth grade by age 12.

Yet Mariglia said she foresees no problem with ending those practices, because communities have become increasingly interested in higher standards and achievement at schools.

``I think it's fine for any school worth its salt,'' she said. ``I think every school is ready.''

Los Angeles teachers union chief Day Higuchi is less optimistic. ``You know darn well the system is rigged, no matter what anybody says, against retaining students,'' he said.

Higuchi said parents are often the main obstacle to flunking students - and their attitudes aren't likely to change.

``Ninety percent of parents are opposed to social promotion when it comes to everyone else's kid, but,'' he said, ``it's not my Johnny; you're not going to hold my Johnny back.''

Higuchi said he believes the school system ultimately could adjust, but the effort would take time and massive commitment to improved teacher training.

``If everybody really stuck to their guns, I think you would have the world's largest third-grade class for about two years. Then people would start getting it,'' he said. ``The whole system would slowly, like a battleship, turn and start moving.''

A legal nightmare

What some fear is that the elimination of social promotion could fill the courts with parents contesting a school's decision to flunk their child.

Many point to a landmark Florida case in which a parent successfully challenged an effort to flunk a girl, Debra P., because the school district couldn't prove it had done everything possible to see that she learned enough to move up.

``What they immediately did was say: How qualified were your teachers?'' said Joan Evans, director of the district's student assessment program. ``Every one of them had to be able to demonstrate competence.''

That could pose a problem for Los Angeles and many districts statewide, which increasingly have hired untrained people as demand outstrips the supply of qualified teachers.

Evans said accountability measures for schools need to precede those placed upon students.

``How can we take the burden of the institution and place it on the child?'' she asked. ``What's wrong with this picture?''

Wilson's proposal calls for using results of the state's standardized tests to determine which students flunk. Critics contend it would be a mistake to fail a student based on a single test.

To have any hope of success in fighting social promotion, districts will need focused, mandatory programs to intervene early when students fall behind, said John Liechty, director of middle schools in the district.

``We're going to have to be able to say, `Yes, Johnny, you are going to come to school an hour longer four days a week' or `You're coming to school on Saturdays,' '' Liechty said.

``For me, the issue is intervention,'' he said. ``But in our school district, intervention is called summer school. Summer school doesn't start until secondary grades, and summer school is voluntary.''

Simply flunking students does more harm than good, he said.

``Youngsters who fail algebra and repeat it have a higher failure rate the second time,'' he said. ``It's kind of a vicious cycle.''

Higuchi also was downbeat on flunking students, but he said discussing the issue out in the open is good for the school system.

``If you don't have standards, if you don't hold students accountable for reaching them,'' he said, ``how do you expect anything to happen?''