Should low-achieving kids be promoted or held back?

Daniel Willingham:

etention of low-achieving kids. It doesn't seem sensible to promote the child to the next grade if he's terribly far behind. But if he is asked to repeat a grade, isn't there are high likelihood that he will conclude he's not cut out for school?

Until recently, comparisons of kids who were promoted and kids who were retained indicated that retention didn't seem to help academic achievement, and in fact likely hurt. So the best practice seemed to be to promote kids to the next grade, but to try to provide extra academic support for them to handle the work.

But new studies indicate that academic outcomes for kids who are retained may be better than was previously thought, although still not what we would hope.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at March 24, 2012 1:40 AM
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