NEW YORK�Just one day before the start of the 1999-2000 school year, the New York City Board of Education voted to end a practice known as social promotion�the policy allowed failing students to advance to the next grade level.

The vote comes just one week following an announcement by the board that 21,000 students will have to repeat their grades.

School Chancelor Dr. Rudy Crew, appointed five years ago, has stated he is not surprised at the large number of students who will have to repeat grades 3, 6 and 8 because of tough new promotion standards.

Meanwhile, two student advocacy groups, Advocates for Children and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Board of Education from holding the students back. A hearing on the suit has been set for Sept. 14. School board member Irving Hamer Jr. questions the quick-fix retention program. "The problem of students repeating a grade in the same class, same school, with the same teacher that failed to guide the student to high achievement in the first instance shows a flaw in retention strategies," he said.

The actual number of students held back, 21,807, is a 68 percent increase compared to the 1997-1998 year when 12,980 students failed to advance. The number of retentions for 1996-1997 was 8,983.

Dr. Crew had initially proposed holding back failing students in the fourth and seventh grades, beginning the 1999-2000 school year. The mayor insisted social promotion end in all grades immediately. The Board of Education adopted a policy of ending the controversial promotions in the 2000-2001 school year, sending some 362,000 students, nearly one-third of the 1.1 million pupils to mandatory summer school in June 2000.

Dr. Crew has projected that as many as 88,000 of them will fail and be forced to repeat the grade.

"The research doesn�t really support that leaving kids back works," said Jan Atwell, associate director of the Education Priorities Panel, a think-tank that studies board policy and initiatives. Ms Atwell, speaking to The Final Call, accused Dr. Crew of "preaching from a bully pulpit," and pandering to policy pressure.