Flawed, ideological, non-peer-reviewed studies should not rebut decades of anti-retention research
Iowa Governor Terry Branstad's recent remarks about retaining 3rd gradersconfirm both the potential positives and the many negatives of in-grade retention in elementary school.
First, the potential positives: in-grade retention sometimes leads to short-term (1 to 2 years out) - and maybe even mid-term (3 to 5 years out) - academic gains. The peer-reviewed research shows that these test score gains occasionally occur when you force kids to repeat 3rd grade, partly because 4th grade test scores look better when low-achievers have been removed from the grade cohort and partly because retained students have had an extra year of schooling by the time they actually are tested in 4th grade. That said, the Greene & Winters study that Gov. Branstad mentioned in his guest essay