The Opposite of Social Promotion...
...is social demotion. In other words, public humiliation. Failure, writ large.
Flunked. Held back. Retained. It's failure, no matter what you call it. Imposed by adults, some of whom honestly believe they're instituting a kind of academic tough love. Suffered by children who struggle with learning, for any one of a galaxy of reasons.
And it seems to be all the rage, part and parcel of the Invisible Hand School of education policy which promotes technocratic carrot-stick solutions, from merit pay to performance evaluations based on student test data. Three
