Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Negative Aspects of Grade Retention

Amy Stevenson
April 22, 2010

Grade retention is a policy requiring students who have failed to achieve satisfactorily, to repeat their current grade the following year instead of moving on to the next grade. It is based on the belief that students will be able to master the material they could not master previously and be better prepared for the next grade. Over the past 75 years, educators and researchers have been looking for knowledge to support if grade retention is beneficial or harmful to students. Initial studies shed a positive light on grade retention stating that students were given the chance to experience the learning material for a second time and master it before moving onto the next grade level. As these students progressed through school (about six years later) researchers started coming across some startling news. They noticed that these students developed different attitudes and behaviors that began to prove their initial theories wrong.

The three major studies conducted were by Holmes, 1989; Holmes & Matthews,1984; Jimerson, 2001; Shepard & Smith, 1990 and have provided the most important information about the effects of grade retention. The conclusions from nearly all of thee studies are the same: repeating a year does not improve academic performance, social competency or general behavior for students. They also noticed it creates low self-esteem and a negative attitude to school and places students at risk of further failure, increased anti-social behavior and eventually dropping out of school. The key points made in each abstract were as follows:
• Most students who are held back do not catch up academically.
• Grade retention contributes to a negative attitude to school and learning.
• Some students do better at first, then fall behind in later grades and are repeatedly retained.
• Students are more likely to become alienated from school and eventually drop out.
• Shame and embarrassment of being held back and separation from age mates.
• Students are more physically mature in Jr. /Sr. high than younger students.
• Retention contributes to poor mental health and social outcomes.
• Repeating decreases the likelihood that a student will participate in post-secondary schooling.
• Repeated students demonstrate higher rates of behavioral problems.

Some parents and educators truly believe that grade retention is beneficial when statistics show that it is not effective. Parents often believe that their child will get to spend another year with the same teacher therefore; the teacher will overcompensate for this child because of their previous year. These studies have found that the teacher with student that has been retained will move the student to a different teacher if possible or the student is treated as a “new member of the class”. Some schools assume that repeating will motivate a low achieving student to try harder. Others assume that being retained will raise a student’s self-esteem because they will be the oldest student in the grade, already have some grade level skills and take on a leadership role with younger students. It is more common to find that their loss of self confidence results in their being out-performed academically and socially by their new younger classmates.

Grade retention is not beneficial to students academically, emotionally or socially. It creates negative attitudes towards school, learning, their peer and ultimately themselves. By retaining students, you are creating a negative learning environment for a student who ultimately should be inspired to be a “life-long learner”. Alternatives to grade retention vary according to education resources but are widely available to all educators and school districts. Successful schools use a combination of specific evidence-based intervention strategies and approaches that enhance and support the achievement and adjustment of individual students. Some alternatives are:
• Early identification and intervention
• IEP’s and learning support specialists
• Differentiating curriculum, tasks, and assessment
• Multi-age classrooms or 2 years with one teacher
• Behavior plans and motivators
• Providing compensatory structures, scaffolding and assistive technology
• Whole-class social skills and resilience programs
• Peer tutoring

These alternatives to retaining students will provide school districts with options n how to educate the struggling student. The results from the three research studies conducted fail to support the use of repeating as an intervention to improve academic achievement, socio-emotional and behavioral adjustment. In some cases, there may be an occasional student who succeeds but for most students, providing them with more of what didn’t work for them the first time is just a set back. As an administrator, provide your staff with support and resources to educate struggling students continuously and monitoring progress frequently to reduce the number of students retained in school.

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