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Exercise 3: Early Demotion

Assume that a school district implements an an electronic grading system that uses a forecasting model to predict whether or not a student will receive a proficient rating in the annual state accountability test. About a month before the test the school uses the forecasting model to find students for whom the probability of a proficient score is less than a given threshold (say 5%). The policy is then that those student meeting not meeting the threshold are demoted to the previous grade and will be forced to repeat their current grade in the following academic year.

Unsurprisingly, this district's scores on the state accountability test go up. By using this policy, are they cheating on the intent of the accountability requirements?

RGA There is no right answer to this question, only interesting arguments.

Personally, I think it is not cheating. If the student has very little chance of meeting the proficient standard by the end of the year, there is little reason to think that remaining in the current grade will do the student any good. Moving the student to a class that is teaching that student at a more appropriate level is probably a good thing. However, this answer ignores the social costs of demotion as well as what do with students who after demotion still do not master the required material.