Grade Retention and Social Promotion in Texas 1994-99: An Assessment of Academic Achievement among Elementary School Students

Abstract

To make schools more accountable for the performance of students, many school districts as well as entire states have proposed more rigorous standards to help ensure that pupils have the basic skills necessary to be successful in school. Many public and private sector decisionmakers have criticized the common practice of social promotion; that is, allowing students to progress to the next grade level without having already learned the material required for the current grade. The public in general views the practice of social promotion or grade placement as detrimental to low-performing students who are promoted without requisite skills because such students are presumed to fall further behind their more academically proficient classmates. Consequently, some states and school districts have proposed or adopted strict policies of retention that require a low-achieving student to remain in the same grade until meeting a specified level of proficiency.1 Although these newer standards for promotion may vary across