Others say retention provides an example, and often a threat to all students. He said his grades are in the 80s and 90s this year. Fourth-graders interviewed by the New York Times in Philadelphia last month had mixed feelings about retention. You've got to learn. You've got to get an education.
Many experts agree.
Lorrie A. Shepard, the interim dean of the education school at the University of Colorado at Boulder found this to be true when she conducted three large-scale studies in the 1980s. Shepard found that among students with poor achievement records and similar background characteristics, such as race, ethnicity and gender, those who repeated a year were 20 to 30 percent more likely to drop out of school. While social promotion has few public supporters, research shows that some promoted students will catch up if kept in their peer group. But critics maintain social promotion sets bad precedent. Students are fooled into thinking they have knowledge and skills they don't possess, parents think their students are ready for the real world and teachers' demands for hard work lose credibility.