Rentation

Retention in Schools

In the 2001-2002 school year there were 6,758 kindergarten students retained in North Carolina public schools (Kindergarten Readiness Issues Group, 2003. p.3). Many people feel that the practice of holding students back is a good thing for the student's future educational needs. Long-term research has shown that students who are retained in the early grades show no major improvements. According to researchers retaining students does not help the student but could possible harm a child's educational future. Retaining students in the early grades does not help the children on a long-term basis and actually hurts both the student and the school systems.

According to the Shane Jimerson, there are more than 2.4 million students retained each year. "It has been estimated that 5 to 10 % of students are retained annually in the United States, representing 2.4 million children each year, (2001, p.1)" Studies have found some similarities in the type of students that are retained. According to psychologist, Pam Dawson:

In addition to the greater likelihood of retention if the child is African-American, Hispanic and/or male, children whose parents are high school dropouts and who are living in poverty are also at greater risk for retention. Surveys which have looked at kindergarten retention specifically have found that those children most likely to be retained were boys who were black or Hispanic, were born in the second half of the year, were developmentally delayed or had a physical or learning disability, or who had parents with no college education. Children from families living below the poverty line were also more likely to be retained in kindergarten. (p.2)

Special-education students are also more likely to be retained (Kindergarten Readiness Issue Group, 2003, p.2).

What causes a teacher to retained kindergarten student? In a survey of 25 teachers conducted in 1989, the teachers all agreed that they are concerned about the student, but the teachers felt that if a child was promoted when not ready that they (the teachers) would be criticized by the teacher in the higher grade. The teachers thought that it would be embarrassing for the student to be sent back because they were not prepared for the higher grade. Many teachers retained students because they thought it would help their maturity level. Many teachers also thought that the children who were retained assumed "more leadership, being more comfortable with the routine, being more cooperative, having greater self-confidence, becoming more a part of the social group, and achieving more academic success."(Anderson, 1998, p.1) There is no way for a teacher to predict what will happen to a student that is falling behind.

What the teacher lacks access to, however, is the information about what that child would have been like had he been promoted. Indeed, these unseen circumstances are hypothetical, they lack reality, and in fact, she may deny the possibility that with some acceptable level of struggling the child would have succeeded in the subsequent grade and later on would be indistinguishable from his peers. (Anderson, 1998, p.2)

Many researchers have found that retaining student has no positive long-term effects. According to many different studies retaining students does not improve achievement long term. According to Jimerson,

* Retaining elementary-age students may provide an achievement "bounce," but gains tend to be slight and temporary; once the bounce tapers off, students either level off or again fall behind their classmates.

* Retaining kindergarten and first-grade students as a preventive intervention is no better for students than retaining them in upper grades (Block, 2004, p.2).

Students may seem to do better for several years but will fall back to the same level as before. According to Linda Darling-Hammond,

grade retention might benefit some students in the short term, but in the long term, holding students back puts them at risk. More often than not, students who are retained never catch up academically. Many eventually drop out, and some end up in the juvenile justice system. (Block, 2004, p.2)

Retaining students without fixing the problems will not help the student, but only hurt them in the long run.

Another study conducted by G.R Gredler in 1984, stated that there was no differences between students were retained and those who were promoted. "Gredler concluded that at-risk children promoted to first grade performed as well or better than children who spent an extra year in transition rooms."(Shepard, 1988, p. 1)

Children who are retained are at risk for other social problems later in school. When children are retained they can suffer from low self-esteem coming from thinking that they are failing. Parents of children retained in kindergarten have noticed that they children can suffer from emotional problems. "Kindergarten retention is traumatic and disruptive for children" (Shepard, 1988, p. 2). Children that are retained have higher occurrences of dropping out of school. "Students who are retained tend to continue their low academic performance, dislike school, and be older than their classmates." (Kindergarten Readiness Issue Group, 2003, p.2). The students feel separated from the other students and tend to drop out. "Dropouts are five times more likely to have repeated a grade than high