This booklet examines ways to promote student success in a California standards-based system. It reviews the history of social promotion and retention in the United States and suggests why it is time to move beyond the "either/or" mindset. The booklet suggests that neither social promotion nor retention solves the basic problem of…

This Digest reviews the historical background on grade retention and promotion and examines research, criteria, and policies concerning these options. The historical overview points out changes in attitudes toward mastery-based promotion and social promotion practices in the schools. Valid and invalid approaches to research on grade retention are…

This digest highlights major research findings about social promotion, retention, and programs that identify and assist students at risk of retention. Research findings indicate that, overall, neither social promotion nor retention offers lasting advantage nor leads to high performance. Some evidence supports, and little evidence disputes, the…

This policy brief presents an in-depth look at the issue of grade-retention in Texas, reviews research that finds this practice to be ineffective, and outlines alternatives to both retention and social promotion. In-grade retention has been a recurrent theme in education over the last 30 years, and it is currently linked to calls for higher…

The potentially contradictory effects of high-stakes testing on dropout rates both through rising retention rates and improving achievement, further complicate the question of the effects of high-stakes testing-based retention on dropping out. There are no studies that have tracked students over a number of years to determine the effects of this…

Survey responses of 407 elementary school principals revealed that the factors most influencing principals' decisions to retain students include lack of mastery of material, local and state accountability standards, and the student's maturity level and chronological age. Principals also believe children should be retained in the early years.…

Shows how multiage grouping in the primary grades can support school improvement. Acknowledging chronological age as a crude indicator of learning readiness, multiage programs emphasize grouping children within classes based on readiness, interest, and/or acquired knowledge. This article explains program benefits, disadvantages, implementation…

Ending all social promotion is ill-advised. A responsible decision on grade retention should be based on factors such as a child's age, health, maturity, testing readiness, previous academic performance, and available emedial services. Many retained children do not show enough improvement to justify the practice. (MLH)

This article reports a new debate on mayoral control over New York City schools. Mayoral control of the N.Y.C. schools was at the center of renewed debate, after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg replaced two members of the city's education policymaking board to ensure enough votes for a controversial plan he backed to end social promotion. The shakeup…

Using John Kingdon's (2003) multiple streams approach to agenda setting, I analyze how key actors within the state of Wisconsin understood the need to construct and implement the state's No Social Promotion statutes to improve students' academic performance. Policymakers within the state focused their standards-based reforms on the issue of…

To make a case against recently passed legislation in Georgia banning social promotion, one must start by examining the state's rationale for the decision that based on the perceived views teachers have on the issue. Research suggests, however, that teachers hold contradictory opinions concerning the use of standardized tests for high-stakes…

A central focus of this report is estimating whether retention had a positive impact in students' achievement growth. Evaluating the effect of retention means that the researchers have to find a comparison group of low-achieving students who might represent what would have happened if those students who failed to make the promotional cutoff had…

Social promotion is accomplishing what it was intended to do; it is relieving the various grades of over-age, floundering students. If we are to help these potential failures, we must devise new educational systems. (Editor)

Studied the effects a high stakes test designed to end social promotion would have on poor black students in the 39 Georgia counties characterized as "declining rural counties." Findings suggest such tests would have a disparate impact on African American children, limiting their educational attainment. Illustrates the argument with the…

In the spring of 1995, the Chicago Public School system, the nation's third largest and, arguably, one of the most troubled, made national headlines when it was taken over by Mayor Richard M. Daley, then starting his third term and the most popular mayor since his father, Richard J. Daley, held the office for 21 years. By far the biggest reform…