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Ann Wilson of Northampton, who also has a special needs child at PVPA, said this means if a student doesn't get a B average in a course, that student will have, in essence, failed. And these grades are arbitrary and depend on the teacher giving out the grades, Wilson said.

Having different standards and benchmarks for student achievement has been a long-standing policy at the school. "It's the same grading structure we've had all along," Brick said.

Ciano-Boyce said many special education children are now living under the stress that they may be forced to stay back and repeat a grade.

"This policy discriminates more against special needs children," Ciano-Boyce said.

Brick doesn't agree with that assessment, and said that a higher proportion of regular students are likely spending a fifth year at the school than special education students.

"The fact that we have kids stay longer is a tradition of PVPA," said Brick, pointing out this year there will be 10 to 12 fifth-year seniors graduating.

Wilson said the grading system also affects parents, who may need to hire private tutors to do work the school should be doing.

The policy of retaining students, Ciano-Boyce said, also seems to be a means of giving the school higher MCAS scores. Brick, though, said there is no incentive to keep children behind to gain an advantage on the MCAS tests.

Grading

Grading is not a science. It's not even an art. It's a jury-rigged system which produces numbers to differentiate students. Grading plays a part in motivation, but not without some negative effects on learning. Every teacher has a different method for grading, and grades vary widely between teachers. For some teachers a 89.5% is a B+; for others, it's an A-Some students who have receive C's in a course with one teacher while friends in the same course with another teacher receive B's. Grading isn't going to vanish any time soon, but schools and teachers owe it to their students to look at grade clearly and rationally. With its requirement that students receive 80% to pass a class, PVPA is putting more faith in grading than reason dictates.

Retention

Research is pretty unequivocal that keeping kids back, or retention as it is called, doesn't help the student. Why? Because, in many cases, it doesn't address the problems with that originally led to student failure. Kids who "stay back" almost always do so because they have learning problems or problems at home. Proponents of retention tend to see failure to make progress as a result of unmotivated kids. Social promotion, or passing students on to the next grade, doesn't necessarily solve the problem either, but it doesn't tend to damage kids psychologically like retention often leads to kids dropping out. Kids who are held back have a much higher rate of dropping out.

Holding kids back also assumes that there is specific information in each class that must be learned to move on. In sequential courses, passing pre-requisites are important for students to take the next course. Taking Spanish II without taking Spanish I, for example, makes no sense. Taking Alegbra II without the knowledge gained from Algebra I would clearly be a mistake. English, on the other hand, isn't really sequential. Neither is history. A student doesn't need to pass Ancient World History to understand American History. Aside from excessive absences and outright failing of classes, there is no legitimate reason to keep kids back. PVPA, however, wants to keep average students back.

Monetary Benefits

Forcing students to stay back when they get less than a B- in a course benefits PVPA and penalizes students' home schools. PVPA often retains a significant portion of its student body for 5 years. This costs students' home communities and taxpayers an extra $10,000 a year. That student would have graduated in four years at a regular public high school. I don't know if PVPA has a cap on its enrollment. If it does, retaining a kid doesn't make them more money, if it doesn't, it's an easy way to come up with an extra $10,000.

Possible MCAS Benefits

State law requires all sophomores to take the MCAS test. Freshmen who fail their first year of high school often fail to move up to sophomore status until they've accumulated enough credits. These kids don't take the MCAS test until they make it to sophomore year. This happens with only a handful of students in East Longmeadow or Granby. Holding students back for too many C's, however, means that kids who should have been sophomores won't take the MCAS test. When the student eventually takes the test, he will be a sophomore, but he belongs in junior year. His C average just kept him back. In other words, PVPA's B- or Fail policy gives the school an unfair advantage over public schools. According to FairTest, an high-stakes testing watch dog group, holding kids back in 9th grade is an increasing trend in Massachusetts. I don't know of any public schools, however, keeping kids back a grade for getting too many C's.

--Mb