Report of the Working Group on Student Learning

^[1] See Appendix A
^[2] By equitable we mean that disparities in educational quality, accomplishment, or choices can no longer be predicted by a student’s race, ethnicity, gender, economic status, age, disabling condition, or other identifiable group characteristics.
^[3] Dozens of studies have found that retaining students actually contributes to greater academic failure, higher levels of dropping out, and greater behavioral difficulties rather than to success in school. Students who are held back actually do worse in the long run than comparable students who are promoted, in part perhaps because they do not receive better or more appropriate teaching when they are retained, and in part because they give up on themselves as learners.
^[4] See Recommendation 6 for a discussion of what we mean by support.
^[5] As noted below and in Recommendation 8, we also recommend that, to keep the state’s content standards current with the changing context, the State establish an ongoing, intersegmental process of review and revision of this curriculum to ensure its quality and relevance to students and to the needs of California.
^[6]We refer here specifically to the competencies agreed upon by the three postsecondary segments in mathematics, and to similar competencies in other academic fields that are under review or in development.
^[7] See Appendix F for the California Department of Education’s definition of learning support. Our emphasis here is on the provision of additional instructional time, rather than reducing the barriers to learning, although we do not deny the value of the latter.
^[8] Many diagnostic assessments linked to appropriate curriculum materials are available online or can be accessed as part of a web-based tool.
^[9] If norm-referenced tests remain part of the assessment system they should comprise only a small part of the system, consist of a constricted test, and restricted to no more than three grade levels.
^[10] Student sanctions based solely upon the tests (grade retention, graduation by test only) violate the testing standards of the American Psychological Association/ American Educational Research Association.
^[11] Data from the state NAEP would provide some of this kind of information to augment School Quality Review data and much enriched forms of assessment information.
^[12] This legislation was an attempt to reduce the number of social promotions. It was part of the accountability agreement reached regarding the Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA) but was not contained in the legislation. The California Education Code section is 4870.5