Grade retention

Grade retention or grade repetition is the process of a kindergarten through twelfth grade student repeating the same grade due to failing it the previous year, these students can only repeat for one year Repeaters can also be referred to as having been 'held back'. Students do not necessarily repeat in the same classroom, only the same grade. Grade retention or grade repetition is the process of a kindergarten through twelfth grade student repeating the same grade due to failing it the previous year, these students can only repeat for one year Repeaters can also be referred to as having been 'held back'. Students do not necessarily repeat in the same classroom, only the same grade. The alternative to grade retention due to failing is a policy of social promotion, with the idea that staying within their same age group is important. Social promotion is the obligatory advancement of all students regardless of achievements and absences. Social promotion is used more in countries which use tracking to group students according to academic ability. Academic scholars believe that underperformance must be addressed with intensive remedial help, such as summer school programs in contrast to failing and retaining the student. In most countries, grade retention has been banned or strongly discouraged. In the United States, grade retention can be used in kindergarten through twelfth grade, however, students in grades seven through twelve are usually only retained in the specific failed subject due to each subject having its own specific classroom rather than staying in one classroom with all subjects taught for the entire school day as it is in grades kindergarten through sixth grade. For example, in grades seven through twelve, a student can be promoted in a math class but retained in a language class. Single classroom grades kindergarten through sixth grade are confined to one room for the whole day, being taught all subjects in the same classroom usually by one teacher with the exception of art and gymnastics conducted in the art room and the gymnasium respectively. In these grades the student must generally fail or score well below the accepted level in most or all areas within the entire curriculum to be retained. The student will then again repeat the entire school year within a single classroom and repeating the same subject matter as the previous year. Where it is permitted, grade retention is most common among students in early elementary school. Students with intellectual disabilities are only retained when parents and school officials agree to do so. Children who are relatively young in their age cohort are four times more likely to be retained. Different schools have used different approaches throughout history. Grade retention or repetition was essentially meaningless in the one-room schoolhouses of more than a century ago due to limited access to outside standards and the small scale of the school with only a few students in each age group, was conducive to individualized instruction. With the proliferation of larger, graded schools in the middle of the nineteenth century, retention became a common practice and only one century ago, about half of all American students were retained at least once before the age of thirteen. Social promotion began to spread in the 1930s with concerns about the psychosocial effects of retention. Social promotion is the promoting of underperforming students under the ideological principle that staying with their same age peers is important to success. This trend reversed in the 1980s as concerns about slipping academic standards rose, and the practice of grade retention in the United States has been climbing steadily ever since. The practice of making retention decisions on the basis of the results of a single test called high-stakes testing is widely condemned by professional educators. Test authors generally advise that their tests are not adequate for high stakes decisions, and that decisions should be made based on all the facts and circumstances. There is conclusive evidence that grade retention is significantly helpful, and much of the existing research has been methodologically invalid due to the selection bias in the group allocation phase. The three different types of studies that exist or have been proposed have inherent pitfalls to overcome before the resulting data can be deemed as accurate. '”Non-academic outcomes:”'Retention is commonly associated with poor social adjustment, disruptive behavior, negative attitudes towards school and low academic attendance.' Retention is a 'stronger predictor of delinquency than socioeconomic status, race, or ethnicity,' and is also a strong predictor of drug and alcohol use and teenage pregnancy.:54–55 Australia uses grade retention, although in 2010 the New South Wales Department of Education and Training enacted a policy that states that student retention will no longer be allowed at any school. For example, as of 2010, students will not be repeating eleventh grade or twelfth grade due to the abundance of post school services available to them after they complete twelfth grade, services such as TAFEs or college universities.