'Left Back' and the Age-Grade System: Problem Creation Through Problem Solution

This article discusses stark racial and ethnic disparities in student retention especially in elementary and middle school. Various hypotheses implied that the data on retention were further evidence of the failure of the public school system to educate all children. There are many severe critiques that demonstrate that the educational crisis the reports decry is much exaggerated. The recommendation for rigorous examinations has had two long-term effects. With high-level political support, many states have adopted high stakes tests to determine eligibility for high school graduation. The other long-term effect has been an emphasis on accountability, manifested in the prominence assigned to annual academic achievement tests of reading and math. The recommendation for greater rigor was indirectly responsible for renewed concern about social promotion, the practice of moving children to the next grade level at year’s end to keep them with age mates, regardless of their mastery of the current grade curriculum. Over the years, the American public educational system has produced a decidedly more educated population. The system is now in danger of being destroyed by those who claim they are reforming it. The maltreatment of children retained in grade is an example, not of the failure of teachers, but the failure of the age– grade system and achievement testing that does not take into account profound individual differences in abilities, resources, and opportunities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)