User talk:Stuart Strahl

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[edit] Merge?

Stuart - nice article on grade retention. The problem I see is that social promotion and grade retention are (almost) flip sides of the same coin - what to do with an underperforming student. So if both articles remain separate, there will be large amounts of overlap.

I'd be happy to merge the social retention article into your grade retention article (discarding a lot of stuff), and put a redirect on the social promotion article, if you're amenable. (And, by the way, if you look at the retention disambiguation page, you'll see a pointer to the social promotion article; you might want to change this.) John Broughton 18:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, John. As you probably saw I'm new to Wikipedia. I read the article on social promotion. I was hesitant to make changes too large to other people's work, and it struck me as not quite right to spend large amounts of "social promotion" article space talking about what's wrong with "grade retention." But, as I say, I'm new.
Thank's for the tip on the retention disambiguation page, too. I'd searched under "grade retention" and it hadn't turned up, and it hadn't occurred to me to search under "retention" until just before I got your message. I'd just fixed it.
I'm amenable to a merge. Another option would be to trim the "arguments against" and link. As I said, I'm hesitant to delete material myself until I'm more established. Either way.
Stuart Strahl 15:22, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm probably going to remove a lot of the verbage in the Social promotion article. Why don't we try this merge (I'll do it), and see what we think? It's easy to revert an article [put it back the way it was - you just look at the history page, click on the last version you like, click on "edit" and then save it with a brief explanation in the edit summary of why you're reverting it], so if the merge/redirect turns out to not be a good idea, two reverts will put things back the way they were for the two articles. John Broughton 17:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good. Stuart Strahl 18:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ARTICLE

Grade retention is the practice of having a child repeat a grade level of schooling. A retained child is sometimes referred to as having been "held back." Extensive research has found short term gains but little to no long-term improvement from grade retention, and significant harmful effects.

[edit] History

During the 1970s, grade retention fell into disrepute, and the practice of Social promotion gained prominence. Social promotion is the promoting of underperforming students under the principle that maintaining with their peer group is important to success. This trend reversed in the 1980s as concern about academic standards rose. Since then the practice of grade retention has dramatically increased.

The implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act has resulted in an upsurge in the retention of children who score poorly on achievement tests.[1] The practice of making retention decisions on the basis of the results of a single test — called “high-stakes testing” — is widely condemned in scientific literature.[2] Test authors generally advise that their tests are not adequate for high-stakes decisions. [3]

[edit] Outcomes

Some research shows improvement in the year following grade retention, particularly if additional instruction is provided. However, these gains are invariably lost in two to three years. Comparisons between students retained and students promoted who performed equivalently prior to retention decisions show the promoted students performing better. [4] Further, retention impacts poorly on measures of “social adjustment, attitudes toward school, behavioral outcomes, and attendance.”[5] It is a “stronger predictor of delinquency that socioeconomic status, race, or ethnicity,” and is also a strong predictor of drug and alcohol use and teenage pregnancy. [6] Retained students are 2 to 11 times more likely to drop out of school than underachieving but promoted peers. [7]

[edit] Anxiety

The possibility of grade retention has been shown to be an extreme stressor for children at risk. In one study of childhood fears performed in the 1980s, the top three fears for sixth graders were 1) loss of a parent, 2) going blind, 3) being retained. After two decades of increasing retention practices, a repeat of the study in 2001 found that grade retention was the single greatest fear, higher than loss of a parent or going blind.[8]

[edit] Alternatives

Simple social promotion did not prove to be an adequate alternative to grade retention. Current theories among academic scholars prefer to address underperformance problems with remedial help. Students who qualify for Special education can receive such remediation through that program. Addressing the needs of underperforming students who do not qualify is a problem that remains to be solved. Ironically, the current system (see also: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) can result in a student with an IQ of 82 being retained, while one with equal performance and an IQ of 78 is promoted.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Leckrone, M. J. & B. G. Griffith. (2006) “Retention realities and educational standards.” In Children & Schools 28(1) p53-58
  2. ^ Goldberg, M. (2005) “Losing students to high-stakes testing.” In Phi delta kappan 86 p389-395;
    National Association of School Psychologists, & C. Lehr. (2002) “Large scale assessments and high stakes decisions: Facts, cautions, and guidelines.” Fact sheet, at http://www.naspcenter.org/factsheets/highstakes_fs.html
  3. ^ Goldberg
  4. ^ Leckrone & Griffith p54
  5. ^ Mims, K., R. Stock, & C. Phinizy (2001) “Beyond grade retention.” In eJournal of education policy. At http://jep.csus.edu/journal2001/paper2.htm ¶2
  6. ^ Leckrone & Griffith pp54&55
  7. ^ Anderson, G. E., A. D. Whipple, & S. R. Jimerson (2002) “Grade retention: Achievement and mental health outcomes.” Position paper, National Association of School Psychologists. http://naspcenter.org
  8. ^ Anderson, Whipple, & Jimerson p2

Stuart Strahl 20:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)