Student Retention Policy: The Gap Between Research and Practice

Experiences with grade repetition : a narrative inquiry using a resiliency lens

“…Grade repetition as a practice appeared effective and beneficial to teachers because repeaters made progress in the repeat year (Shepard & Smith, 1985;Tanner & Combs, 1993). Research reported that the majority of teachers believed grade repetition was most effective when it occurred in kindergarten, as opposed to the other grades (Range, Yonke, & Young, 2011;).…”

“…Teachers' common sense tells them that grade repetition helped students academically and emotionally, allowing them to become more confident in themselves and their abilities (Tanner & Combs, 1993). However, most often the retained student is the student who spent the repeat year with a teacher possessing a positive attitude toward grade repetition, making it feasible that bias played a role in teachers' positive view of the grade repetition practice (Tanner & Combs, 1993).…”

“…However, most often the retained student is the student who spent the repeat year with a teacher possessing a positive attitude toward grade repetition, making it feasible that bias played a role in teachers' positive view of the grade repetition practice (Tanner & Combs, 1993). Teachers' and the public's positive opinion of grade repetition is intuitively appealing (Kamal & Larsen, 2004;; however, these teachers do not look ahead to the benefit of future comparisons for the repeated child (Schnurr et al, 2009), and to the fact that years of empirical evidence do not support the practice .…”

“…While practitioners believe grade repetition raised students to grade level standards, often this intervention resulted in short-term academic achievement gains, followed by a fade in progress, and a negative student attitude toward school .Research shows that grade repetition does more academic, social, and emotional harm than good & Dalton, 2002;Parker, 2001;Rouse, 2007;Shepard & Smith, 1990), and political policy (Martin, 2009;Murray et al, 2010;Penfield, 2010;Shepard & Smith, 1990;Tanner & Combs, 1993;Van Breda, 2011). Recent data further supported that there is a potential disconnect between research and practice, and given that practitioners continue to repeat students, it might be advantageous for researchers to evaluate students' lives post-retention (Gottfried, 2012).…”

Retention and special education referral practices before and after the implementation of high-stakes testing

“…These beliefs are largely based on anecdotal experiences (Smith, 1989). By giving children an extra year at grade level, teachers believe that they will have the opportunity to master curriculum content and become more mature (Tanner & Combs, 1993). Teachers usually have personal knowledge concerning the academic achievement of children the year following a retention decision.…”