We’re going to listen in on participants in the CanadianTeachers Reddit community as they debate policies variously described as “no-fail” and “inclusion”. This will follow a similar pattern used for my recent post on violence in Canadian classrooms. This time around, I had an AI model summarize around 500 comments to three relevant Reddit threads.
There was some debate as to exactly what “no-fail” actually means. It’s generally understood to describe policies that remove the option of holding a student back in a grade for a second year. But there’s a strong overlap between people who want to ban such retention and those pushing for an end to segregating students by ability and preference (i.e., “destreaming”).
Beyond educational theory, not all of the participants could agree as to what the official policies where in their various school districts. Could teachers assign marks of “F”? Could a student be held back without the consent of the parents? There was neither uniformity nor clarity.
There were disagreements about possible consequences of holding a kid back. Studies where outcomes for “failed” students have been compared unfavorably with their peers were quoted. Although others argued that it’s more important to consider missing academic and social skills will have on growth and professional employment.
Even those who support inclusion admit that the approach will never work without sufficient teacher training and support and intensive intervention when problems are identified. And such conditions are, at best, rare.
Multiple commenters shared the fascinating (and cynical) view that no-fail isn’t really about improving educational experiences or ensuring higher graduations rates. It’s not even driven by ideology. Instead, such policy initiatives are primarily cost saving initiatives.
It’s not hard to come up with a rationale:
When students can’t fail, they’re processed through the system faster (costing less).
When students aren’t failing, the need for expensive in-class support isn’t so obvious.
When graduation rates rise, school districts look better.
Everyone wins. Well, except for teachers and students. And their families. And society.1
Another common concern was that when no one can fail, there’s no reason for students to try. Without consequences, teachers say, effort collapses. There’s widespread consensus that students are graduating without the skills they need for higher education or employment
That might be how teachers themselves see things. But a heavily upvoted comment observed that parents also demand their children are held accountable - but only until their own child is the one failing.
Beyond allowing consequences for failure, many commenters agreed that there won’t be serious progress until students could once again be streamed. That would involve separating grades by skill levels so each level can be properly served by an appropriate curriculum. Alternatively, there could be multiple levels in a single “resource class” as long as the class size is small enough to be manageable by a teacher.
Finally - and perhaps most tellingly - teachers often resent interventions from consultants and administrators. And there’s little trust that the results of mainstream educational research reliably reflects the real world.
In other words, from the inside, the educational establishment is seen as confused, conflicted, and largely misguided.
For-profit private schools have the exact opposite (and potentially equally harmful) incentive: the longer students remain in the system, the more tuition the schools collect.