Rebroadcast of Episode 028 Is it Time to Stop Promoting Social Promotion? with BETTER audio

<p>When initially released, the audio volume was sooooo low that listeners had to turn the sound way up even to hear it and then got their ears blasted when the interlude music played. I'm sure that was annoying enough to cause people to stop listening, which is a shame because there is a lot of great information in this episode! So I decided to figure out how to correct the audio so that one can listen at a reasonable volume minus the frustration. I'm happy to announce that I was successful! I hope you will give this episode another go because the topic is definitely one that needs attention, especially since the reports coming from the latest NAEP tests are so dismal.</p> <p>According to an article in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/us/national-test-scores-math-reading-pandemic.html"><em>New York Times</em></a><em>,</em> "This year, for the first time since the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests began tracking student achievement in the 1970s, 9-year-olds<strong> </strong>lost ground in math, and scores in reading fell by the largest margin in more than 30 years. " This begs the question, <em>What do we do now? Promote these kids to the next grade, or do we retain them to catch up?</em>&nbsp;</p> <p>I don't think there's any one good answer. We just need to figure out what protocols will give students the most bang for the taxpayer's buck. Why do we look at 9-year-olds' scores so closely? Well, they are third graders. That is the year when education makes a massive shift, from learning to read to reading to learn. <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/pre-kindergarten-third-grade-literacy.aspx#:~:text=Third%20grade%20has%20been%20identified,be%20taught%20will%20be%20incomprehensible.">If students are not at grade level by the end of the third grade, they tend to struggle to catch up, if they catch up at all.</a></p> <p>Listen and see where you stand on this issue. Then leave us a comment or answer the poll questions to give your opinion. We'd also love feedback on how w