Learning Disabilities: The Tragedy of Retention
From Reading & Other Learning Disabilities
A Blog by Dr. Gary G. Brannigan and Dr. Howard Margolis
At this time of year, teachers and parents think about retaining children with academic problems. Those who support retention argue that these children will benefit from repeating a grade. Retention will give the student an opportunity to review the material, or mature socially and emotionally. It will motivate the student to do better, to avoid future retention. Educators, politicians and parents who support “standards” and attack “social promotion” (automatically advancing students from grade to grade, despite poor achievement) vigorously support retention. They argue that retention sends students the clear message that they must master what was taught to advance to the next grade. In one sense, retention advocates have been very successful—almost 50% of students are retained by grade nine. In another sense they have failed—these children do not improve academically. Moreover, retention is extraordinarily costly. It hurts children and wastes untold dollars.
The Research
A large body of research, collected over many decades, has documented the deleterious and counterproductive effects of retention. Retention negatively effects academic achievement and self-concept. Retained children view themselves as failures, who cannot succeed, no matter their efforts. They suffer from heightened stress. They are ashamed of their public failure and suffer the ridicule of their peers. They often give up, or react to continued frustration in troublesome ways. Retention produces older underachievers, dramatically increasing the probability that they will drop out of school.
Retention’s effects are so destructive that Shane Jimerson, a leading researcher on the subject, called it educational malpractice:
The continued use of grade retention constitutes educational malpractice. It is the responsibility of educators to provide interventions that are effective in promoting academic success, yet research examining the effectiveness of retention reveals lower achievement, more behavior problems, and higher dropout rates among retained students. It is particularly disconcerting that a disproportionate number of students of ethnic minority and low income backgrounds are retained. Moreover, children’s experience of being held back is highly stressful; surveys indicate that by sixth grade, students report that only the loss of a parent and going blind is more stressful. (Haimson, 2009)
A Better Response
The productive response to academic problems is neither retention nor social promotion. It is promotion, with intensive, focused, highly personalized, carefully monitored academic instruction, that improves students’ critical reading, writing, and mathematical abilities while directly supporting the instruction these students receive in regular classes. This requires ongoing extra help from highly skilled reading and mathematics specialists who know how to get students to believe in themselves. These teachers need adequate time to work with classroom teachers, and very small tutorials of one to three students, to personalize instruction and to get to know the students as individuals.
Remedial intervention may require after school tutorials, or small group instruction over the summer months. It absolutely requires intervening when the problem is identified. By February most first grade teachers can accurately identify which students will have reading problems. The earlier remediation begins, the more successful it is. As the early intervention research shows, first grade is not too early.
The remedial interventions described are different from special education. First, all students with academic problems should get these services. Many retained students with academic problems are ineligible for special education. Second, special education teachers often have minimal education in remediating reading and mathematics problems. Third, special education classes are often too large and special education teachers rarely have adequate time to coordinate programs with regular classroom teachers. Similar arguments can be made against “basic skills instruction,” from which many of these children have gained little.
Wasted Billions
Cost is the main argument against providing intensive, focused, thoroughly personalized academic instruction, in tutorial or small group situations. This should not be a strong deterrent if America wants well-adjusted, successful learners and a nation of productive, highly responsible citizens, who value education. Conservatively, it costs about $13,000 a year to retain a student, not to mention, in many cases, direct and related costs for special education, testing, counseling, truancy, and crime. This is $13,000 if a student is retained one year, $26,000 if retained two years, and $39,000 if retained three years. Multiple retentions are not uncommon. We waste more than 29 billion dollars annually retaining some 2.3 million students. Over a decade this costs more than 298 billion dollars. Yes, over 298 billion dollars.
These billions would be well spent if they produced significant academic achievement, enhanced self-esteem, lowered dropout rates, and created more productive, better adjusted citizens. Clearly, they do not. Retention exacerbates rather than improves a terrible situation. As a society we should invest our money in services that improve our children’s lives rather than turning them into failures.
References
Haimson, L. (2009). Mayor Bloomberg Commits Educational Malpractice Once More. Retrieved 5/18/2010, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/mayor-bloomberg-commits-e_b_257548.html.
Additional Resources
Jimerson, S. R. (2004). Is grade retention educational malpractice? In H. J. Walberg, A. J. Reynolds, & M. C. Wang (Eds.), Can Unlike Students Learn Together: Grade Retention, Tracking, and Grouping (pp. 71-95). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Jimerson, S. R., & Kaufman, A. K. (2003). Reading, writing, and retention: A primer on grade retention research. The Reading Teacher, 56 (8), 622-635.
Howard Margolis, Ed.D. © Reading2008 & Beyond
We found with our son that we were able to dramatically help his retention through summer school. Where we live the summer program runs morning sessions through the month of July. If we didn’t send him to the summer program it would take him the first 3 months of the school year to figure it out. Retention is a big issue for most adhd children and it really doesn’t take much to make a big difference in their grades. He’s gone from being on an IEP to off the IEP getting A’s and B’s.
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How about getting rid of the concept of “grades” as in 7th grade. Instead why not have specific, measurable goals and achievement of those goals. Then there is no need for “retention.”
Many thanks for your comment.
Your have a good idea. Your idea has been around for many years and, in many cases, has proven successful. Variations of it have two names: ungraded schools and competency-based education. In my experience, the biggest problem these programs faced were widespread public complaints like these: “That’s not how it was when I was in school. And when I was in school, we didn’t have all these learning problems. Everyone learned to read, Everyone did well.” Unfortunately, my experience is that many boards of education gave in to these complaints.
HM
We find that many students with reading problems and learning disabilities have underlying neurological problems that need to be addressed first. Tutoring and additional classes will simply re-introduce information that the struggling student can’t process effectively. The brain is the hard drive of the human learning apparatus and the academic material is the software; if the hard drive isn’t properly wired, the software will never operate. Brain training, combining brain exercises with physical movement, creates new pathways in the brain and can improve the child’s ability to learn in all classes. More importantly, the student’s self-esteem and confidence increase as well. Students who are candidates for retention may very well be candidates for cognitive training.
I’m publishing this comment about brain training because I believe in the free exchange of ideas. HOWEVER, until a substantial body of independent research supports these claims, and the research is published in well-respected, peer reviewed journals, I strongly recommend that parents SHUN such programs. For example, I recently reviewed the research on the Arrowsmith program (from the Toronto, CANADA area), a form of neurological training, and was alarmed by its poor quality and exaggerated claims. Programs that make exaggerated claims, claims unsupported by a solid body of independent research (including replications), can harm children. — HM
Retention is a costly and ineffective approach to learning on many levels as discussed in the article. It does not allow for the individual to see themselves as successful and lowers their sense of self. Many of the research has proven that with a more effective approach to advancement in grades is learning through skills assessment to determine the learning style of the individual, and matching that style with the most appropriate assistive technology tool. Many of these tools: Kurzweil 3000, Classroom Suite, Inspiration and other forms of assistive technology could allow students the opportunity to address the areas of learning concerns and begin to work within them with the use of technology. What we encourage to do as advocates is look at the assistive technology as not special education tools but as universal tools to support any learner with an area of concern, moderate or severe. These learning challenges, be it writing, reading, comprehension or otherwise could benefit from putting the most appropriate assistive technology in place based skills level. This could take away from the billions of dollars we are wasting to retaining a student in the same grade trying drill the same conventional method into their brains when their brain is wired differently, where another approach could be utilized to foster success in school. We need to take into consideration the skills of the student and deploy more innovative methods to try and tap into, stimulate and capture the level of that individual and work from that point. There is so much to say on this issue and would welcome an opportunity to contribute more from a consultant standpoint.