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.

What are the negative effects of student retention?

Retention also has a direct cost to the students themselves: Many are delayed a year from entering the workforce because they have to spend another year in school. That can reduce their short- and long-run earnings. Plus, requiring students to take an extra year to graduate may cause more of them to drop out.

Why students should not be retained?

Jimerson looked at 20 studies published between 1990 and 1999, and concluded that they “fail to demonstrate that grade retention provides greater benefits to students with academic or adjustment difficulties than does promotion to the next grade.” In many studies, students who were retained had worse academic ...

What are the cons of grade retention?

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. [2] However, the studies included in these meta-analyses were mostly correlational rather than causal.

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.

Why e-learning is killing education | Aaron Barth | TEDxKitchenerED

How does retention affect learning?

Learning retention is a person's ability to transfer new information into their long-term memory so that it is easy for them to recall and put that knowledge to use in the future. In simpler words, learning retention is all about making new knowledge stick for a long time.

Why is low teacher retention bad?

Poor teacher retention has been shown to negatively impact students' educational achievement, according to the Learning Policy Institute.

Is grade retention ineffective?

Research has found that for most students, grade retention had a negative effect on all areas of achievement (e.g., reading, math, and language) and social and emotional adjustment (e.g., peer relationships, self-esteem, problem behaviors, and attendance).

What are the social effects of grade retention?

Effect of retention on social acceptance

The results have been inconsistent. 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).

Should struggling students repeat a grade?

Ideally, no. Repeating a grade―also known as "grade retention" ―has not been shown to help children learn. Children won't outgrow learning and attention issues by repeating a grade. In fact, repeating a grade may contribute to long-term issues with low self-esteem, as well as emotional or social difficulties.

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).

What is student retention and why does it matter?

Put simply, schools measure the student retention rate as the number of students who re-enroll from one year to the next. The practice of student retention encompasses all the things the school does to influence this rate, working to prevent students from leaving school before completing their degree.

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.

What causes you to repeat a grade?

There are a variety of reasons why a child might repeat a grade, including academic struggles, emotional or behavioral issues, and learning disabilities.

What is the argument for retention?

The argument for retention is that students who have not met grade-level criteria will fall further and further behind as they move through the grades.

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 is teacher retention a problem?

High turnover undermines student achievement

Research shows that high teacher turnover rates in schools negatively impact student achievement for all the students in a school, not just those in a new teacher's classroom.

Who is most likely to be retained in school?

Characteristics of Children Who May Be Retained

In addition, a retained child is more likely to be male and to have minority status, a high activity level, low socioeconomic status, and parents who are unwilling or unable to intercede for the child.

Why is retention important in school?

Staying enrolled benefits students and universities

If they lose them before they graduate, they also lose their tuition dollars. Plus, they have to spend money on recruitment to make up for the loss. Similarly, students also benefit financially by remaining enrolled.

What factors influence student retention?

Why is low retention bad?

2) Low employee retention leads to decreased productivity.

Actively disengaged employees are “more likely to steal from their companies, negatively influence their co-workers, miss work days, and drive customers away.”

Is low retention good or bad?

When it comes to employee recruitment and retention, turnover is definitely bad for business. Right? Not so fast. While a high employee retention rate is often a top priority, an atypically low turnover rate is a good indicator that there may be underlying issues your organization needs to address.

Does retention repeating a grade help struggling learners?

A child who's just been absent often is already at higher risk for dropping out of school. Repeating a grade increases the risk. Kids who are much younger than grade-level peers and who have a history of struggling academically can benefit from repeating a grade. It can be a better fit emotionally and age-wise.

Does retention help dyslexic students?

Dear young dyslexic,

Because it is an easy fix, grade retention surfaces about every 10 years as a "solution" for our academic problems. However, grade retention has been researched in dozens of studies over the last hundred years and it is consistently failed to show any lasting improvement in student's performance.

How does teacher retention affect students?

It should come as no surprise that, most of all, high rates of teacher turnover harms student achievement. One Vanderbilt study found that “losing a teacher during the school year is linked with a loss of between 32 and 72 instructional days,” which equates to one sixth to nearly half of the school year.