When a child is failing in school, discussion often centers on the question whether to promote the child to the next grade or hold her back in the same grade. Neither solution alone is sufficient to help children succeed in school, according to the National Association of School Psychologists in their 2003 position statement, "Student grade retention and social promotion."
Grade Retention Effects
Some children who are kept in the same grade for a second year appear to do better at first, but over time children who have been retained are more likely than students who have not been retained to:
- drop out of school
- develop behavior problems
- have a teenage pregnancy
- use drugs
- have trouble finding employment
- receive low wages
The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) position paper further states that children who are retained are mostly male, from minority groups, have late birthdays, have parents who do not participate in their children’s school work, or are children who live in poverty. The association claims that though research has consistently shown that retention is not an effective strategy, the practice has continued to increase.
Social Promotion
Promoting students who have not achieved grade level expectations to the next grade is also not an effective strategy, according to reading specialist Debra Johnson with Angela Rudolph in a paper titled “Critical Issue: Beyond Social Promotion and Retention – Five Strategies to Help Students Succeed.” The authors claim that children who are promoted without having mastered critical skills in school have many of the same challenges as children who have been retained.
Strategies for Success
In their paper, Johnson and Rudolph list five proactive strategies that they believe should be used to prevent failure.
- Learning should be intensified, meaning that children should be held to rigorous standards, the curriculum should be rich, teachers must be effective, and the learning must be meaningful.
- Teachers should be involved in professional development activities to increase their effectiveness in the classroom.
- Learning options should be expanded for students. Some of these options could be tailoring the curriculum to the child’s needs, year-round schooling, flexible scheduling, multi-age grouping, and looping, a strategy in which students stay with the same teacher for a longer period of time.
- Assessment should be an integral part of instruction so that teachers are continually informed about student progress. The authors recommend the use of rubrics, checklists, anecdotal records, and frequent checks to guide teacher planning for instruction.
- Interventions should be offered early and often. They should supplement classroom instruction, be tied to the curriculum, be based on the student’s individual needs, and should be planned to increase learning speed.
Proactive Education Strategies Needed
The practices of social promotion and grade retention have been shown to be ineffective, and both often result in students dropping out of school, engaging in risky behaviors, having difficulty finding employment, or receiving low wages when they do become employed.
Schools need to reexamine their positions on these ineffective practices and become proactive in offering strategies that can keep students on track for mastering the skills for their age and grade. Children who are falling behind must be identified and given interventions early to avoid the ineffective and harmful practices of social promotion and retention.
 |
