Professor: Holding students back a year doesn’t improve their reading skills
Sep 9, 2014, 6:44 PM
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There seems to be an education theme so far this week.
On Monday, listeners wanted to hear about how some schools are trying out no homework policies.
Another issue that has turned some heads in the academic world is schools’ policies of holding students back a year. Paul Thomas, associate professor of education at Furman University, wrote an essay for The Conversation (an academics- and research-focused website), and it has got educators talking.
Thomas argued that holding students back a year doesn’t help improve their reading skills. He said that as recently as 2012, 14 states plus the District of Columbia had policies of holding students back one year based on their reading levels. He said those states and D.C. were following Florida’s lead, which in 2001 began keeping third-graders back who had inadequate reading skills.
The professor said that reviews of Florida’s program say that results are inconclusive, at best. He also said there are 40 years of research that argue against holding children back a grade.
Research addressing retention in Senegal, in Belgium, and in Lebanon reinforces disturbing patterns about the overwhelming negative long-term consequences and ineffectiveness of grade retention. In the U.K., where the practice is very uncommon, the policy has been assessed as costly and ineffective.
Holding children back a grade is strongly correlated with behavior problems for retained students. Examining the Florida model, CALDER education researcher Umut Özek concluded, “Grade retention increases the likelihood of disciplinary incidents and suspensions in the years that follow.”
Thomas also points to a 2009 study by the Rand Corporation for the New York City Department of Education, which found that any improvements a child shows after being held back are usually short-lived and “tend to fade over time.” Thomas also makes the argument that holding a student back one year can be detrimental socially and emotionally, and that the perceived failure will affect the child into high school and, later, into the workforce as a young adult.
The professor concludes that keeping one group of students back while promoting others becomes a reward-versus-punishment system.
But the National Association of Schools Psychologists asserts that neither strategy — repeating a year, nor promoting the student automatically — is an effective remedy.
Alternatives include addressing the powerful influence of how much access children have to books at home. Other research-supported policies, suggested instead of retention by Shane Jimerson and his colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, include focusing on parental involvement and targeted practices based on student needs.
