This past year, schools across the country undertook a massive endeavor: reopening buildings to students during the middle of a global pandemic. Back-to-school plans focused on everything from the number of kids in classrooms and PPE supplies to class changes and outdoor learning. This past fall, reopening plans have been further complicated by battles over mask and vaccine mandates. One of the unexpected casualties of school reopening plans, though, might be school cafeterias — and the rushed, stressful lunches that happen within them.

This is part two in a two-part series about social promotion in American schools. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated a fundamental flaw in the American educational system. Every year, many students are moved on to the next grade through a system of formal policies and informal pressures. In the context of the Coronavirus pandemic, when many school districts have formally banned failing grades, students will enter into the next school year at drastically different levels. Part one discusses the origins and causes of this system. This second part will consider more recent history and alternatives.

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, students, teachers, and families have gone through one of the toughest academic years ever. Many students struggled to keep up with course loads, while families struggled to keep their kids focused on Zoom-school while managing their own jobs and dealing with changing expectations about when and how schools would reopen. As a result, many schools and districts formally banned holding students back to repeat a grade. While promoting all students to the next grade has been an explicit expectation for many students and teachers this year, it has actually been the de facto norm in many American schools for decades. Every year, students are moved on to the next grade not because their work has merited progress but simply because they have aged another year. And the Covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this problem.