Resisting Test-Based Grade Retention

In March 2001, the Georgia legislature passed the Georgia Promotion, Placement and Retention Law, requiring students in grades 3, 5 and 8 to pass the state’s then-named Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests to be promoted to the next grades.

The state’s law stipulated that 3rd graders pass the reading test while 5th and 8th graders pass both the reading and math exams.

Georgia was just one of several states to pass such legislation in response to a push from the Clinton administration in the late ’90s to end social promotion. Since then, approximately 22 states plus the District of Columbia have established similar policies. Georgia has since renamed its state test the Georgia Milestones End of Grade Assessment.

Responses to the Georgia policy have varied among school districts. Some, such as Gwinnett County, exceed the policy’s requirements by mandating students pass the language arts, mathematics, science and social studies end-of-grade tests in grades 4 and 7, in addition to state-required gateway exams, for promotion.

Resisting Retention

However, in one semi-rural school system in north Georgia, where we conducted our research, attitudes toward grade retention differed considerably. The teachers and administrators in Plains County (a pseudonym granted by the researcher to protect the school district’s identity) strongly believed retention was not in the best interest of their students, and the educators actively worked to ensure students who failed the state test were not retained.

In our study, we followed 10 students in 5th grade, all of whom had a history of struggling with the reading test. We interviewed their parents, teachers and the school’s administrators as they navigated the test-based retention policy at Plains Elementary School, which served a diverse student population of about 800 students.

The district’s educators supported various aspects of high-stakes testing in predictable ways, narrowing the curriculum to tested objectives and using tangible rewards, such as class parties and pep rallies, for taking the test-prep skill and drill seriously.

However, the Plains educators also believed in undermining the test-based retention component of the same policy.

A Research Grounding

The basis of their resistance was their knowledge of the research on grade retention. The principal at Plains, Martha Mathews (a pseudonym), largely opposed grade retention, citing research by Gabrielle Anderson and colleagues in the Journal of Applied School Psychology that grade retention ranks among the most severe stress factors for young children, equal to the fear of losing a parent or going blind.

Mathews, a second-year principal at Plains, was supported by the central-office administrators in her opposition to grade retention, and she repeatedly reminded teachers and parents on both sides of the practice to first and foremost keep the students’ best interests in mind. “What’s the best thing for the child? … That’s the question I ask myself when I have maybe an upset parent or upset teacher,” she said.

On occasion, the staff at Plains did retain students in the early elementary grades — those whom they believed would benefit from an additional year in the same grade. However, Mathews and her assistant principal, Sheila Tate (a pseudonym), required teachers first to complete the Light Retention Scale to identify students who might benefit from retention. They also expected students to be receiving Tier 3 interventions through response to intervention, RtI, before considering students for retention. These parameters served to limit the number of students who repeated a grade.

Additionally, the teachers and administrators at Plains Elementary took special care to explain to parents throughout the year that grade retention does not produce long-term academic gains, according to research, and retained students experience a higher likelihood of later dropping out of school.

Appeals Process

Fearing these unintended consequences, the teachers and administrators at Plains used an appeals procedure to ensure most students were promoted to the next grade level. In Georgia, those who fail the first administration of the competency test in April are offered intervention before retaking the test in May. Those who fail the second administration are automatically retained, although the law does allow parents or teachers to appeal a retention.

Under an appeal, a grade placement committee meeting is convened, involving the school’s assistant principal, the classroom teacher and the student’s parent. A vote determines whether the retention will stand, and the student may only be “placed” (actual promotion requires a passing test score) in the next grade if the committee unanimously agrees.

The policy requires that letters be sent to the parents of students who fail both administrations of the competency test, informing them their child will be retained. At Plains, Tate, the assistant principal who sat on the grade placement committee, was responsible for mailing these letters and scheduling the committee meetings. Tate carefully followed all legal requirements of the policy, but she intentionally added an extra step by calling the teacher and parents of those students being considered for retention before the meeting.

Through this additional communication, Tate essentially ensured the appeal would be pursued. She called the teacher first to understand the child’s strengths and weaknesses and to schedule a time for the appeals meeting. When she then called the parents to get a sense of their thinking, she did so with the teacher’s backing and offered possible meeting dates.

“I get the feel for what the parents are even wanting,” Tate explained during an interview, “and really what they want to hear is ‘You know I’ll say this is a committee decision.’ We’re going to decide whether to retain or promote them, and at that point they’ll usually go, ‘Well, I really want him promoted; I just don’t think this is what’s going to be best for him,’ and usually even at that point in the phone call, I’m like well, ‘I just got off the phone with (the teacher), and she feels the same way so I don’t want you to feel stressed about this meeting. I think we’re all on the same page.’”

By skillfully educating parents about the retention research and making strategic phone calls to teachers and parents, the administrators at Plains ensured the appeals option was already in motion when the parents received the letter about the upcoming meeting. Placement of the student in the next grade essentially had been settled. Students who were placed in the next grade but still considered at risk of failing received intervention both through RtI and a state-funded intervention program that provides additional teachers for small-group tutoring.

Prioritizing Students

The story of Plains is one of hope. It demonstrates how a school district quietly worked within the limits of state policy to ensure students did not risk the negative effects of retention. These teachers and administrators made a difference in students’ lives by protecting them from what they believed to be a harmful practice.

This finding is important because, while the number of test-based retention policies has rapidly increased in the past decade, almost all of these policies, despite the tough rhetoric, have an appeals process.

The story of Plains also leaves us with an important question: Why did the teachers and administrators resist the retention portion of the policy but not the high-stakes testing? The difference, according to our study, is that the staff was well-versed in research regarding grade retention but not research on the unintended consequences of high-stakes testing. Recognizing the latter effects, notably the narrowing of the curriculum to tested standards, might have helped the Plains staff rethink its approaches to test preparation and prioritizing the needs of students.