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• IDRA Newsletter • February 1999

During a 30-year period, the educational pendulum has alternated between advocating social promotion and supporting in-grade retention. Social promotion refers to the practice of passing students who have failed to master part or all of the grade-level curriculum on to the next grade with their cohort of age-grade peers. In-grade retention, on the other hand, requires students to repeat the same grade a second time in order to master problem material.

The pendulum has changed directions by decade. For example, in the 1970s, social promotion was favored, but with the call for raising educational standards in the 1980s and its attendant minimal competence testing, the favor returned to retention. By 1990, however, two of the largest school districts in the country, Chicago and New York City, were advocating promoting students with their age-appropriate cohort.

As we approach the year 2000, the pendulum clearly indicates in-grade retention as the favored response to ameliorating poor academic achievement. This policy brief by the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) presents an in-depth look at the issue of in-grade retention in Texas, reviews research that finds this practice to be ineffective and outlines alternatives to both retention and social promotion.

Recommendations

Based on the research presented in this policy brief, IDRA recommends the following.

• Enhance the professional development of teachers to ensure they have the knowledge and skills to teach a wider range of students to meet standards.
• Redesign school structures to support more intensive learning, i.e., multi-age classes where teachers stay with students for more than one year.
• Identify as early as possible students who are not achieving at satisfactory levels.
• Publish retention rates along with TAAS scores at the campus and district level as well as the cost per pupil to repeat a grade.
• Ensure that the criteria used to determine “exemplary” and “recognized” school status that include low rates of in-grade retention.
• Re-establish limits on the number of times a student can be retained in grade.
• Use classroom assessment that better informs teaching, i.e., performance-based assessments (rubrics, checklists, anecdotal records) that guide instruction.

Findings at a Glance

The National Scene

• In-grade retention (the practice of requiring students to repeat the same grade a second time to master material) has been a recurrent theme in education during the last 30 years. Policy-makers favor it one decade only to oppose it the next.
• Currently in-grade retention is the favored response to ameliorating poor academic performance and is linked to a call for higher educational standards by politicians.
• Retention is often seen as the only alternative to social promotion (the practice of passing students who have not mastered grade level content to the next grade with their age-appropriate cohort).
• The research on retention is unequivocal – the effects of retention are harmful. Retention does not benefit students academically or socially. Out of the 66 studies done on retention during 1990 to 1997, 65 found it to be ineffective and/or harmful to students.
• Fifty percent of students who repeat a grade do no better the second time, and 25 percent actually do worse.
• The threat of retention is not a motivating force for students to work harder.
• Retention is strongly associated with dropping out of school in later years. A second retention makes dropping out a virtual certainty.
• Retained students suffer lower self-esteem and view retention as a punishment and a stigma, not a positive event designed to help them.
• African American students and Hispanic students are retained at twice the rate of White students.
• Forty percent of repeaters come from the lowest socio-economic quartile as compared to only 8.5 percent from the highest quartile.
• Retention is expensive. It costs the country an average of $10 billion annually to have students repeat a grade a second time.

The Texas Scene

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is required by the Texas Education Code to produce an annual grade level retention report. This report has been produced for the 1993-94 through 1996-97 (the most recent year for which data are available) school years and presents annual retention rates by grade and ethnicity. The following highlights are based largely on these TEA reports.

• In the 1996-97 school year, it is estimated a total of $694,351,834 was spent on school retention.
• The total number of retained students in Texas has increased steadily from 125,959 in 1993-94 to 147,202 in 1996-97.
• Consistently, significantly more males are retained than females. Male students made up over 60 percent of all retained students during 1993-1997.
• Retention rates for Hispanic students (25.5 percent) and African American students (23.9 percent) are over two and a half times higher than the rate for White students (9.4 percent).
• Economically disadvantaged students (5 percent) are more likely to be retained than are non-economically disadvantaged students (3.5 percent).
• Special education students (6.1 percent) are retained about twice as often as are non-special education students (3.8 percent).
• Contrary to the national pattern that shows the highest number of students are retained in first grade, retention in Texas occurs most frequently in ninth grade. One out of six ninth grade students repeats that grade every year. This rate is twice as large as any other grade and continues to rise. The 1993-94 ninth grade retention rate of 16.5 percent rose to 17.8 percent in the 1996-97 school year.
• When the district and campus characteristics are analyzed, the highest retention rates are found in districts located in urban areas and in districts with large percentages of minority and low socioeconomic status students.

• In the 1996-97 school year, it is estimated a total of $694,351,834 was spent on school retention.
• The total number of retained students in Texas has increased steadily from 125,959 in 1993-94 to 147,202 in 1996-97.
• Consistently, significantly more males are retained than females. Male students made up over 60 percent of all retained students during 1993-1997.
• Retention rates for Hispanic students (25.5 percent) and African American students (23.9 percent) are over two and a half times higher than the rate for White students (9.4 percent).
• Economically disadvantaged students (5 percent) are more likely to be retained than are non-economically disadvantaged students (3.5 percent).
• Special education students (6.1 percent) are retained about twice as often as are non-special education students (3.8 percent).
• Contrary to the national pattern that shows the highest number of students are retained in first grade, retention in Texas occurs most frequently in ninth grade. One out of six ninth grade students repeats that grade every year. This rate is twice as large as any other grade and continues to rise. The 1993-94 ninth grade retention rate of 16.5 percent rose to 17.8 percent in the 1996-97 school year.
• When the district and campus characteristics are analyzed, the highest retention rates are found in districts located in urban areas and in districts with large percentages of minority and low socioeconomic status students.

For a copy of “Failing Our Children: Finding Alternatives to In-Grade Retention” ($7) contact the IDRA Institute for Policy and Leadership, Dr. Albert Cortez, director, at 210/444-1710 or view the policy brief and related tables on-line (free).

Comments and questions may be directed to IDRA via e-mail at feedback@idra.org.

[©1999, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the February 1999 IDRA Newsletter by the Intercultural Development Research Association. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]