Essay on Social Promotion VS. Retention

In their article, Levin and Rouse say that in the United states the dropout rate has fallen since the 1970s. They state that programs should be enforced to promote dropout prevention. While these programs may be expensive, more high school graduates benefit the economy in the long run.

Obtaining an education is essential in today’s society. Most students who attend school on a regular basis usually succeed in life. On the other hand, many students fail to attend school every day which can lead to problems in schools. However, some students have acceptable reasons for dropping out. As a result, a student’s punctuality can ultimately alter his or her education. On that note, dropping out of high school can affect an individual in many ways throughout the years. Schools are facing challenges dealing with high dropout rates, high rates of truancy, and low graduation rates because students are failing to attend school.

In viewing our school data one of the first things that caught my eye was the fact that in third grade we had a 19.8% retention rate (Texas Education Agency, 2014). That particular grade level had the highest retention rate in the entire school. Looking further at the data, I discovered that during the 2013-2014

There are other factors associated with early school leaving. Researchers have focused on three different topics. First topic, student and family factors identified as contributing to dropouts is gender, racial, and ethnic minority status, low socioeconomic status, poor school performance, low self-esteem, delinquency, substance abuse, and pregnancy. In addition to this research has also gathered the impact of certain family characteristics, such as single-families,

Kurt Wiesenfeld's article, "Making the Grade," presents the social issue of grades. The author explores the extent of this problem by examining the social environment in which these students were raised. Wiesenfeld also addresses the changing attitude towards what a grade represents and the true value of a grade. The author effectively uses several writing strategies to engage the reader, influence the audience and illustrate how much thought he has given this issue. The essay is organized by a logical progression from thesis to individual claims and the author provides real-world examples for the issues. With those real-world examples, Wiesenfeld explains how serious the problem can become and demonstrates why the issue should be addressed.

Many researchers have been interested and have conducted different experiments on whether retention causes positive or negative effects. One group of college professors followed two groups of students in Florida: the first group barely passed the reading test and got to continue to fourth grade, the second group barely missed the mark and had to repeat third grade. The researchers continued to watch these students for the following eight years; they saw that the major effects started to fade, but after a few years the kids that were retained had fewer remedial classes and higher GPS’s when they got to high school (Kamenetz, 2017). The common belief is when a kid is retained, there is an increased risk of them falling behind in higher grades

Department of Education, 2015). One study by Alspaugh looked at the relationship between schools and community characteristics and how those affected high school dropout rates (Alspaugh, 1998). This study looked at 428 Missouri school districts and their average dropout rates over the past five years. Alspaugh examined previous research and concluded that socioeconomic status was the most important factor in student dropout rates. Other related factors that were found to be important factors in student dropout rates were “family background, personal problems, and school-related factors” (Alspaugh), but found that all of these would be difficult to address directly.

Students who were retained in elementary school hold a low high school graduation rate because of it. Retention can affect a students education up until college, without them knowing (Andrew, 2014). Despite the negative outcomes, most teachers retain students because they think it is for their academic or social benefit. However, retaining students held the opposite affect; students who were retained did not benefit. They could have used exposure to the next environment as an achievement gain while benefiting from next level education strategies, achieving the same outcomes as their peers. Keeping children in age appropriate classrooms hold higher benefits than retention, by avoiding students re-learning the same curriculum again when schools do not have the proper funding to adequately reach the needs of struggling students (Hong & Yu, 2007). Promoting students to the next grade exposes them to learning strategies that might reach their need that could not be met in the previous grade. Grade retention as an education intervention plan holds no significant positive affects to student

The authors in this article looked at many factors that lead to retention in the United Sates. The authors look at environmental factors and socioeconomic factors that have caused high retention rates in our schools. These authors broke down the rates by looking to see if boys or girls are more prone to being retained more. They broke the data down by race and location. It was described that students from low income homes have a higher chance to produce to retention. It was also discussed that policy changes at the local, state and national level can have an effect on these numbers. The article also mentions how a student’s persistence towards self-empowerment and the completion of their academic goals was a strong factor according to the article.

The focus of this article is to see if early grade retention, based on low achieving academic or social skills, influences the outcome of completing high school. Due to the recent implementation of educational accountability, new policies state elementary school students have to reach specific performance outcomes in order to avoid retention. The authors found that early grade retention, likely, does not impact the student’s completion of high school.

Many colleges and universities throughout the United States and several other countries face a common problem. Student retention is a growing problem across the nation for all ethnic groups and all ages. Each individual who chooses to drop out of school has their own personal reasons as to why they do. However, many drops out can be completely avoided. When students drop out they are not clearly thinking about how it’s going to affect their future, the future of their children and even grandchildren. Although there are several reasons as to why students drop out of school, we will be exploring a few as it relates to why student retention is a growing problem.

A student can be excluded from their peer groups because they have a bad grade. Being left out can make a student not want to improve academically. If they get bad grades others will see them as a poor student and will expect them to do poor in life. The process most schools use to evaluate student performance is grade point average and class rank. The academic recognition programs that exist in the United States are driven by a student’s grade point average and class rank. Those measures serve as the primary method in establishing student recognition. If this ranking is not the sole factor in the recognition program, it is always included in the student’s assessment. The school culture recognizes individuals that are in the top one-third of the school’s class rank

To counteract the discouraging data about grade retention, many school systems have instilled the policy of social promotion. The recent negativism surrounding the tradition of repeating a grade portends a return to social promotion. Social promotion, the antithesis of grade retention, is the automatic passing of a student on to the next grade at the end of the school year, despite his or her

Grade retention which is better known as ‘staying back’, ‘repeating’ or ‘being held back’, refers to the practice of having a student return to a particular grade level for a subsequent year after having been at that level a full school year. (Wu et al, 2010). The purpose of this paper will be to answer the research question “What are the effects of grade retention?” based on high schools in the United Sates of America. Statistically, with as many as 15% of all American students held back each year and 30-50% held back at least once before ninth grade, the rate of retention has increased by approximately 40% in the last 20years (Wu et al, 2010). This paper will give the reader an overview of the effects grade retention has on

Due to these and possible more reasons the idea of social promotion was implemented in some areas. Social promotion is the passing of students who fail to meet the criteria for passing. It’s called “social” because it is often used with the student’s social and psychological well being in mind not achievement. Unfortunately, this solution caused just as many problems as retention. The first problem is if people are passed without mastering one material how can they do well in the grade above if the material is harder and based on previous material. “Students who are promoted without regard to their achievement or are