What are the cons of grade retention?

Grade retention has a negative impact on all areas of a child's achievement (reading, math, and language) and social-emotional adjustment (peer relationships, self-esteem, problem behaviors and attendance).

What are the negatives of grade retention?

Holding students back lowers their self-esteem and makes them feel inferior, in effect perpetuating their failure. Read more about the Matthew Effect. Retention impairs peer relationships, cutting off friendships made through the year and subjecting grade-repeating students to ridicule and bullying.

What are cons of retention?

Retention does not reduce the range of academic achievement in any particular classroom and, in fact, usually creates even greater differences among classmates. Research on grade retention has shown that this particular practice results in a negative impact on a child's social and emotional development.

Does grade retention make a difference?

The long-run effects of early grade retention are not clear.

Multiple studies have found that holding back middle schoolers increases their odds of dropping out of high school. “The evidence on retaining students in the later grades — I think that's unambiguously negative,” said Winters.

What are the negative effects of repeating grades?

Repeating a grade can be considered an adverse childhood experience (ACE). Research suggests that repeating a grade, at any grade level, is associated with later high school dropout and other long-term effects. It also can affect a child's social and emotional development.

Is Holding Back Your Child Fair?

Is being 13 in 6th grade bad?

Is it okay to go to 6th grade while being 13? It is totally okay, Some people have a later start than others and that's totally fine. You might feel awkward because of your age but hey you're doing your best and that's all that should matter.

What are the pros and cons of repeating a grade?

Take a look at these pros and cons. Kids who've missed a lot of school due to illness, emotional trauma or a move may benefit from repeating a grade. A child who's just been absent often is already at higher risk for dropping out of school. Repeating a grade increases the risk.

Is it good to hold kids back grade retention?

Recent research shows that, for the most part, holding kids back a grade isn't the best practice. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) reports that some kids do better in school the first year or two after being held back.

Why aren t kids held back?

Now at least half of states do. Most of the educators I know don't like grade retention — the term of art for holding a student back. They prefer to help students improve without squashing their dreams and keeping them in place while their friends move forward.

What are the long term effects of grade retention?

Critics contend that retention detaches students from their peers and subjects them to social stigmatization and stress, which might negatively affect self-confidence, motivation, and interpersonal relationships (Anderson et al., 2005; Goos et al., 2021).

Why is retention bad for students?

Most children do not “catch up” when held back. Although some retained students do better at first, these children often fall behind again in later grades. Retention is one of the most powerful predictors of high school dropout; holding a child back twice makes dropping out of school 90% certain.

Is grade retention good or bad?

Outcomes of grade retention

In the last 40 years, multiple studies indicate that grade retention does not fix academic deficiencies. Academic achievement of kids who are retained is poorer than that of peers who are promoted.

Why is retention a problem?

A disconnect between management and employee expectations can cause conflict and even create a rift in team dynamics. Without clear communication on collective objectives and company values, employees may find it challenging to stay engaged with their work.

What are the social effects of grade retention?

Effect of retention on social acceptance

For example, when kindergarten teachers were asked to rate classroom behavior and peer acceptance, they rated retained students as being less well liked by classmates than low-achieving promoted students (Pianta et al., 1997).

What are the benefits of grade retention?

Retaining students based on reading proficiency can produce large improvements in academic performance when compared to grade-level peers. Retention is not an academic death sentence. In fact, it can lead to better preparation when entering high school.

What are the reasons for grade retention?

How many F's does it take to fail 7th grade?

It really depends on your school and what they consider to be failure. There are some schools that will let you pass with 4 Fs, but then there are also schools that will not let you pass if you get more than 3 Fs. The best thing to do would be to talk to your teacher or counselor about it and see what they say.

What grade do most kids get held back?

Most retentions occur in elementary school. Historically, roughly 5 percent of students in the first through the third grade repeated their grade, according to Child Trends.

Does retention help struggling students?

Evidence suggests that grade retention in middle or high school typically leads to worse educational outcomes, with little or no effect on academic achievement and higher levels of student disengagement.

How many kids get held back a year?

Nearly 450,000 first through eighth graders are retained each year.

What age do kids retain the most?

If the kids were between 5 and 7 at time of second interview, they remembered over 60% of events, Bauer tells KinderLab. But the children who were 8 and 9 remembered 40% or fewer of the events, and they had begun to talk about their memories in a different way.

What happens if you get held back 3 times?

States only pay for public school until 21, so if a student is held back more than twice, they won't be allowed to graduate in a traditional program.

Can a child fail 1st grade?

Retention in first grade, the topic of this study, is a clear indicator of early school failure. When a child fails to master grade-level skills, schools have to decide whether to pass the student to the next grade (social promotion) or to retain the student in the grade for a second year.

Is it bad for a child to repeat a grade?

High-profile meta-analyses based on these studies concluded that grade retention was associated with poorer academic outcomes (including higher dropout rates) and greater risk of behavioral issues.

Who has been held back the most in school?

Black, Latino, and Native students and English learners are more likely to repeat a grade than their Asian or White peers ^7,8 . Black and Latino students who are held back are more likely to be disciplined ⁶ and less likely to graduate ^9,10 and continue their education past high school ¹¹ .