Ninth Grade Repeat

High School in the Community (HSC), the teachers’ union-managed school in New Haven, Conn., recently completed the first year of its program aimed in part at ending “social promotion” — the automatic passing of students to the next grade even if they lack the skills and knowledge necessary for that grade. However, officials were shocked to learn that not a single one of the school’s 44 first-time ninth-graders passed the promotion tests (and will have lengthy ninth-grade make-up sessions over the summer or beginning again in September). Several other ninth-graders, who were already repeating ninth grade, were promoted.