Should we hold back students whose performance falls short of the test scores or other measures schools use to chart achievement? The evidence shows that such a policy may actually backfire, creating schools with a depressed academic culture and low expectations, especially for poor and minority students.

But the practice is snowballing. One out of three eighth graders from low-income families has been held back at least one grade, the National Educational Longitudinal Survey found in 1988, and in 1997 American Federation of Teachers President Sandra Feldman estimated that more than half of all students in many urban districts repeat at least one grade.

In Chicago, a “get tough” retention policy has been in place since the 1996—97 school year, requiring summer school and other remediation for students who fall below a certain score on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Though test scores had risen after two years, researchers from the Consortium on Chicago School Research found that retention rates did not fall. Students held back were struggling in their second time through the policy, and nearly a third of eighth graders retained in 1997 had dropped out by fall 1999. Students retained in 1997 are doing no better than students who were previously “socially promoted,” the researchers found.

Those findings are backed up by a 1999 report reviewing the research on the effects of retention for the National Research Council. Its authors, Jay Heubert of Columbia University and Robert M. Hauser of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, conclude that most students who repeat a grade end up doing worse academically and socially. Discouraged, and often placed in watered-down or special education classes, they continue to perform at low levels. Not only are over-age students twice as likely as on-grade students to be held back again, but they often play hooky or drop out, concluding that school is not for them. Being over-age for grade, the Texas Education Agency found in 1996, predicts a student’s dropping out better than does underachievement.

Sources: Consortium for Equity in Standards and Testing (CTEST) at Boston College (wwwcsteep.bc.edu/ctest); Consortium on Chicago School Research (www.consortium-chicago.org); J. Heubert and R. M. Hauser, eds., High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and Graduation, National Research Council, 1999.