In 2023, the governor signed a law eliminating a state requirement that third grade students who can’t read at grade level be held back. Academic experts generally agree that third grade is a make-or-break point for reading proficiency. A student who is not reading at grade level but still advances to the fourth grade is highly unlikely ever to catch up. That disadvantage makes all future learning harder, usually causing lifelong damage, especially in careers. Retaining students in third grade also strengthens school accountability by encouraging a comprehensive effort to get them reading when it matters most.
Mississippi shows how much this reform matters. The Magnolia State has made national headlines for turning around its educational outcomes in recent years, and as I show in a paper published Tuesday, the Mississippi Miracle is built on a foundation of third-grade retention for students who are not reading at grade level, which the state mandated in 2013. Mississippi has since gone from 12 points below the national average to four points above in fourth-grade reading performance.
Michigan, on the other hand, moved in the opposite direction. The third-grade retention policy that Whitmer repealed in 2023 was a dead letter even before that. Schools could bypass retention requirements if parents requested it, which is largely what happened when the law went into effect. In the 2021-22 school year, with students reeling from pandemic closures, only 42 percent of third-graders passed the state’s English language arts test, but only one-tenth of students who should have been retained were.