On the Success of Failure (2nd ed.)

A Reassessment of the Effects of Retention in the Primary Grades

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by Karl L. Alexander, Doris R. Entwisle and Susan L. Dauber

Cambridge University Press

Due/Published November 2002, 328 pages, paper

ISBN 0521793971

This study is about the practice of grade retention in elementary schools; a particularly vexing problem in urban school systems. The book describes the school context of retention and evaluates its consequences by tracking the experiences of a large, representative sample of Baltimore school children from first grade through high school. It addresses the complex question of whether repeating a grade is helpful or harmful when children are not keeping up with their coursework.

"Should not only provoke new research but open the minds of policy analysts and educators to the value of clear, rigorous standards. It should also help shatter the assumptions that city kids can't be expected to learn and that little can be expected of them." Herbert J. Walberg, University of Illinois, Chicago and the Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Contents

Preface to the second edition; 1. Grade retention: lingering questions; 2. Research on grade repetition: strong opinions, weak evidence; 3. Retainees in the Îbeginning school studyâ; 4. Children's pathways through the elementary and middle school years: retention+; 5. Characteristics and competencies of repeaters: who is held back?; 6. Achievement scores before and after retention; 7. Adjusted achievement comparisons: the need for controlled comparisons and the multiple-regression approach; 8. Academic performance as judged by teachers: report card marks before and after retention; 9. The stigma of retention; 10. Retention in the broader context of elementary and middle school tracking; 11. Dropout in relation to grade retention; 12. The retention puzzle: problem, solution, or signal?; Appendix: authors meet critics, belatedly.