Social Promotion - Arguments in Favor

Arguments in Favor

Supporters of social promotion policies do not defend social promotion so much as say that retention is even worse. They argue that retention is not a cost-effective response to poor performance when compared to cheaper or more effective interventions, such as additional tutoring and summer school. They point to a wide range of research findings that show no advantage to, or even harm from, retention, and the tendency for gains from retention to wash out.

Harm from retention cited by these critics include:

• Increased drop-out rates of retained students over time
• No evidence of long-term academic benefit for retained students
• Increased rates of dangerous behaviors such as drinking, drug-use, crime, teenage pregnancy, and depression among retained students as compared with similarly performing promoted students.
• Feeling left out with kids from different age groups, which means that being too old may lead to bullying, having fewer friends, and being ridiculed.

Critics of retention also note that retention has hard financial costs for school systems: requiring a student to repeat a grade is essentially to add one student for a year to the school system, assuming that the student does not drop out.