The Failure of Failure

Abstract

KIDS ALL OVER the country are counting the days until school's out and awaiting year-end report cards, but not too anxiously. After all, very few will fail even if teachers feel they should, leaving some to wonder what lesson that's teaching. So began a story on National, CBC television's evening news broadcast, on June 20 of this year. It went on to include brief comments from two teachers, both concerned that students were getting credits that they hadn't earned; from a spokesperson for the Canadian Teachers' Federation appearing to defend current practices; and from me, about the importance of focusing on student success rather than setting arbitrary lines of The news item was preposterous, of course. No research was done, and no evidence was presented beyond the opinion of one or two people to support any of the claims being made. But there is lots of evidence, easily available, to show that failure remains a common experience for many in Canadian schools. The point of this column is not to criticize media coverage of education; that's a subject for another day. Rather, the CBC News story reminds us of one of the most vexing and hotly debated problems in Canadian education: what to do about students who are not making the grade. It's a topic that illustrates vividly the collision between research results, school practices, public opinion, and political choices. Point 1. The research evidence is clear that retaining students in grade is not a way to generate greater effort and later success.(1) International assessments, such as PISA (Programme of International Student Assessment), show that countries with high rates of retention in grade tend to have lower overall achievement; some of the highest-scoring countries, such as Japan or Finland, have almost no failure. A large body of research, which has been reviewed and synthesized many times, shows that retention in grade is an ineffective policy. It does not improve student outcomes in the long term, even in comparison with social promotion. Students retained in the elementary grades are much more likely to become high school dropouts. In high school, failure of even a single course is associated with increased risk of dropping out. Evidence from psychology also suggests that success generates more effort, while failure tends to lead people to reduce their effort and shift their attention to areas where they can be successful. Moreover, failure and retention are also a poor use of resources, since they increase costs by keeping students in the system longer without producing any benefits in terms of achievement. Everything we know from research tells us that we should be trying to minimize failure in our schools. Point 2. Lots of kids continue to fail (or be failed) in Canadian schools. Ontario's high school graduation rate is about 75%, so at least 25% of kids are failing to the extent that they do not graduate. The highest reported provincial high school graduation rates in Canada are a little over 80%, meaning that even in our most successful jurisdictions, nearly one student in five is not succeeding. Even among graduates, a significant number--about 10% of all students in Ontario and something similar in Manitoba--take at least an extra year to graduate, suggesting that they've failed a course or more along the way. And this does not include other failures in individual courses or students who withdraw from courses. Many school systems don't even know how many students are failing various courses or what this means for their later success. In 2005-06 fully a third of Ontario students were behind at least one credit by the end of grade 10. So it's a reasonable assumption that at least a third of high school students have some pretty direct experience of academic Even in elementary schools, significant numbers of children are held back a year at some point, particularly in kindergarten or grade 1. …