Picture this.


A third-grader who is 8 years old does not know how to read. Perhaps his teachers didn’t push him hard enough in school, or maybe because of problems at home, he didn’t really go. He fails both his English Language Arts and math standardized tests, exams that third-, fifth- and seventh-graders are required to pass to be promoted to the next grade, according to New York City Department of Education standards. He is held back and repeats the third grade, relearning the exact same curriculum without extra help to understand the material he couldn’t understand before.


The second-year third-grader, who is now 9, still has trouble reading, but his parents want him to go on to fourth grade so he can get through school. He fails his standardized tests again, but his parents file an appeal, allowing his teachers, the principal and the parents to sit down and evaluate his work. The school grants the appeal, and he moves on to fourth grade. Now, after five years of barely passing his way through elementary school and middle school, the student is 15 years old and in the eighth grade, but he still can’t read.


“This hypothetical example is very true to life as to what can happen,” said Susan Crawford, an advocate for non-profit organization The Right to Read.


The above scenario is one I could not use in my story, but Crawford painted the picture quite clearly. My final piece focused mainly how middle-schoolers are pushed through the system, despite that they are unprepared, and now that they are in eighth-grade, the system wants to hold them back. The story addressed the question: Is it too late?


What I found was that middle schools need to put supports in place for students if they have any chance of making it to high school and graduating. Several of the overage middle-schoolers I spoke with seemed confident that they would get there. Even despite their low test scores, the students wanted to get to high school and had serious goals and dreams for themselves. This type of motivation -- which is certainly not found in all overage students -- is good, but is it good enough? Middle schools must revamp the curriculum or bring in more supports -- like teachers, tutors, etc. -- so that when students repeat the eighth grade, they are not simply failing again. It is a vicious cycle and, certainly, there must be a solution.