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.
Read more about this topic: Social Promotion
Famous quotes containing the words arguments in, arguments and/or favor:
“Yesterday the Electoral Commission decided not to go behind the papers filed with the Vice-President in the case of Florida.... I read the arguments in the Congressional Record and can’t see how lawyers can differ on the question. But the decision is by a strictly party vote—eight Republicans against seven Democrats! It shows the strength of party ties.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Argument is conclusive ... but ... it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment.... For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns ... his hearer’s mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it ... that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.”
—Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1294)
“The favor of a drop of water should be repaid as an overflowing spring.”
—Chinese proverb.