Flunking a grade may be failing a child

In spite of President Bush and Congress proclaiming "No Child Left Behind," we all know that a few might be. With higher standards, teachers and parents alike are anxious about children who struggle.

Should the child be sent on to the next grade or held back? The answer is not simple.

First a couple of definitions:

Grade retention refers to the practice of holding a child in a grade for a second year. Social promotion means sending a child on to the next grade when they are not academically ready. Both policies are meant to meet the needs of a child who has not yet met the required standards.

Now a few facts:

-- Nationwide, as many as 15 percent of students are retained each year. 30-50 percent of ninth graders report that they have been retained at least once. Carson City and the state of Nevada retain less than 5 percent of the student population.

At highest risk for retention are poor, African-American or Hispanic boys with delayed development and/or attention problems, as indicated by research cited in a 1998 report issued by the National Association of School Psychologists.

Although some academic gains may be seen, those gains generally wash out by the second or third year after retention. The long-term statistics are particularly frightening.

According to the NASP report, by high school retained students are more likely to drop out than their non-retained, "socially promoted" peers, even after controlling for achievement levels. Retained students are at increased risk of tobacco and alcohol use, drug abuse, driving while drunk, suicide and violence. In adulthood, grade repeaters are more likely to be unemployed, living on public assistance or in prison than adults who did not repeat a grade.

Besides being ineffective, retention is expensive. Providing one extra year of education costs the Carson City School District more than $6,000 per student. For the forty-six retained in 2001-2002 in Carson City, that means nearly $300,000. But we're small potatoes compared with Texas; in 1996 they spent $578 million holding students back. The extra year costs U.S. taxpayers over $14 billion annually.

In addition, holding a child back may actually delay the child's access to services he or she may be entitled to -- services that may have prevented the retention in the first place.

Some solutions:

If we don't hold children back, how do we hold them accountable? For one thing, we certainly don't wait until the end of the year to know whether a child has made satisfactory progress. We track that progress throughout the year with informal observations and curriculum-based assessments that guide our instruction. As parents and teachers, we must take responsibility and believe that if a child isn't learning, we can teach them differently.

-- Our school culture must become one that expects every child can learn, not on the same day or in the same way, but every child can learn. Age-appropriate and culturally sensitive instructional practices that accelerate progress must be in place in all classrooms. Even Bart Simpson appreciates the irony when he's assigned to a slow class to help him catch up.

Other ideas include multi-age groupings in classrooms where teachers have been trained to work with mixed-age and ability populations. Transitional programs such as prekindergarten or pre-first grade may be successful because of the specially designed curriculum. Effective early intervention programs such as those provided by "Reading Recovery" and "Success for All" need to be in place. Extra help must be built into every school system, every day.

Finally, if every teacher is equipped with the skills, flexibility, time -- and of course, small class sizes -- they can and will make adaptations for struggling children.

-- Have I retained students? Yes. Will I in the future? Perhaps. However, I will likely lose sleep as I wrestle with my conscience over my reasons. Yes, there are some good reasons for retention. Here are a few:

-- Born in the last few months before the Sept. 30 cut-off date for kindergarten.

-- Excessive absences. This presumes, however, that the reasons for the absences are no longer present.

-- Family trauma such as homelessness, death or abuse that may have impeded the child's ability to focus on learning. That year of school may have simply been lost.

-- Developmental delays. Some little bodies and brains mature more slowly than others; they walk and talk later than average.

Each situation needs to be considered on an individual basis. The decision should never be based on the results of a single test score or piece of information, such as limited English. Or not reading at grade level. The whole child must be considered, not simply his or her academic skills.

The decision to retain should be agonizing. Retention is risky at best and we must be mindful that we may be literally failing our children.

Lorie Schaefer is a reading specialist at Seeliger School. She urges you to use your search engine to find research on "social promotion" and "grade retention."