Cons Of Grade Retention

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Grade retention, also known as “being held back” or “repeating”, has been a controversy within the educational system. Grade retention is requiring a student who is in a given grade, return to that grade for further education, because they did not demonstrate a knowledge of the skills. Rather than follow social promotion traditions, schools should retain students who score low on state assessments, daily homework, and test scores, has little parental support, or shows a lack of maturity. The country will face many problems with sending ill-equipped students out of school without the necessary skills needed to survive. Along with many people, educators view that students need to be retained if they do not know the material. The retention process …show more content…

Principals argue that parent support is needed for the retention process to be successful. Parents need to agree to be there for their retained student and help them more with the subjects the child is struggling in. As with any student, retained or not, “parental support [attitude towards education and willingness to help] is an important component to student success” (Renaud 9). The parents of the student can also affect if the student is retained. Parents of students that are retained are more likely to have “lower IQ scores, lower educational levels, lower occupational levels, less commitment to parenting responsibilities, lower expectations of their children’s educational attainment, and less involvement in school” (Xia x). Parents need to realize that they are looked up to by a lot of students and not just their children, so parents need to be a supporting factor to the educational …show more content…

If students are promoted without knowing the information, “it send a message to students that they can get by without working hard” (Xia 2). If children work hard, they can achieve anything they set their mind to. Retention can allow a gain in multiple subjects in the repeat year. “Students who repeat the first or second grade can achieve meaningful gains,” in reading and math improvements (Cannon 10). Gains from the student, will show up within the repeated year and in some cases last up to high school years. The strongest gains will be seen the first three to four years after being retained.
The gains from retention all start with the threats and incentives to do better. Children most likely will work harder because they do not wish to be retained again. Parents will begin to watch the child’s progress more carefully. Parents will have threats and incentives to have their child catch up academically. The gains and incentives would all lead to an increase in student academic

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