What happens in the long run to third graders who are held back?

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It’s an age-old debate with an emerging conventional wisdom: Third graders should not move on to the next grade if they are still struggling to read.

There’s both logic and evidence behind this policy. Studies have found that students have higher test scores after they’re held back. This practice may also have played a role in helping Mississippi make remarkable improvements in recent years. A chorus of policymakers and journalists have insisted with growing confidence that others should replicate the state’s model.

But a new study offers a warning about the downside risks of retention. Third graders who had to repeat a grade in Texas were far less likely to graduate from high school or earn a good living as young adults, nearly two decades later. The harmful effects were quite large and came despite initial improvements in test scores.

“Retaining low-achieving students in third grade further deepens educational and income inequalities,” writes Jiee Zhong, an economics professor at Miami University. 

The findings are hardly the last word on this topic. But they complicate the evidence base for retention at a time when more states — like Arkansas, Indiana, and West Virginia — are adopting this policy. 

The paper, set to be published in an economics journal, examines an early 2000s Texas policy to hold back struggling readers. Students had three chances to pass the state exam. 

Zhong, the researcher, looked at those who just barely missed the passing score versus those who just reached it. These students were essentially identical — the only difference was a few questions right or wrong on the test. Yet those handful of questions changed the trajectory of many students’ lives by determining whether they would be held back. This also created a natural experiment that allowed Zhong to compare the two groups of students, thus isolating the effect of retention.

Failing the exam wasn’t a guarantee that students would repeat the grade — parents could seek exemptions — but it dramatically increased their chances. Relative to the overall student population, the retained students were more likely to be low-income, Black or Hispanic, and still learning English.

In the short term, the results were promising. By the time retained students finished fourth grade, their test scores were much higher. But there were warning signs. Students missed more school after they were held back. As the years went on, the test score gains, relative to non-retained students, started to fade. In middle school, the students who had been held back were more likely to exhibit violent behavior (although this remained rare).

By the end of high school, retained students were 9 percentage points less likely to graduate, compared to similar students who weren’t forced to repeat third grade. This is a very large effect. Even those students who graduated typically did so a year later, reflecting the extra year from being held back.

At the age of 26, the previously retained students, now young adults, earned less money than if they hadn’t been held back. Again, the effect was substantial: nearly $3,500, a decline of 19%. 

So what happened?

Holding back a student essentially adds a year to the time in school required to graduate. Those students then reach minimum drop-out ages at earlier grades. Zhong notes that retention could have led to “stigma and school disengagement.” Even those who do graduate may be delayed in entering the workforce, which could reduce their earnings.

Prior research has been mixed on the long-run consequences of early-grade retention, with some negative effects found in studies in New York City and Louisiana but not Florida. In Texas, retention did not necessarily come with additional remediation, the paper notes.

That’s a key difference from the Mississippi policy, says Carey Wright, who was state superintendent there. Students who were held back received extra small group instruction. Her focus was never on retention, she adds. “Let's talk about prevention and intervention,” Wright instructed her staff. 

Wright says she’s not sure if there have been efforts to track retained students in Mississippi through high school. She notes that one study found that through sixth grade those students had higher reading scores and comparable attendance to similar non-retained students.

The Texas study should not be taken as decisive against retention. That’s because it doesn’t consider a key part of the policy: motivating teachers, parents, and students to improve reading scores to avoid retention. 

“In theory you wouldn’t have to have retention,” says Brian Jacob, a University of Michigan education professor. “In practice, the stick in the background may make everyone in the system more focused.” This seems very possible, but we should understand that retention may very well be a stick, not a carrot.

Many parents resist having their children held back, and this study suggests there may be good reasons for that. Students from more advantaged families are more likely to receive exemptions from retention, according to some previous research.

For her part, Wright is not sure whether Mississippi would have seen the same gains without the retention law, though some research suggests it did play a role. In Maryland, where she’s now superintendent of schools, students can only be held back if parents agree.

“It’s a different climate here,” Wright says. 

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