This article is part of a series that examines Minnesota’s recent early literacy education reforms and compares them to successful early literacy education reforms throughout the country. Today’s focus is on student retention policies.
Florida, Mississippi, and Indiana. What do these states have in common?
Each one has dramatically improved their NAEP early literacy scores recently by a powerful cocktail of legislation, science, and dedication.
Minnesota passed the READ Act in 2023, which appropriated more than $70 million for a comprehensive reform of Minnesota’s early childhood reading system. Yet, some lawmakers, like Representative Patricia Mueller, claim that the act doesn’t go far enough. Mueller’s critique is that the bill should have included the term “science of reading,” but it’s possible that the bill falls short in other ways, too. Is this true? The READ Act represents Minnesota’s first step towards early literacy education reform—but where will the next strides be directed?
There is no such thing as a “magic bullet” in life or in education reform. Reforms are difficult, complex, and vulnerable to failure. Halfhearted or uninspired visions often create tepid results. As seen in Mississippi, progress necessitates scientific, multifaceted reforms and years of implementation. But progress is very, very possible.
This article will examine just one of those proven facets of early literacy reform: student retention policies.
Minnesota, as of this writing, has not created any statewide policies regarding third grade retention based on literacy.
What are healthy student retention policies?
No one wants to be held back. Friends move forward, old class material is seen again, and the sting of perceived failure can rankle. Indeed, studies show that children who experience grade retention after elementary school are less likely to graduate high school or attend college. There can be strong negative impacts like social comparison issues.
Yet almost all documented negative effects of student retention occur if the student is retained after sixth grade. For elementary students, and particularly young elementary students, studies of recent reforms paint a different picture.
Healthy retention policies come as a combo meal, served with strong scoops of multi-stream testing, consistent student intervention, and robust professional development for teachers. The Foundation for Excellence in Education has identified three major policy principles that operate in tandem to create robust early childhood retention policies:
- Retention with increased intensive intervention in addition to a highly effective teacher and other supports for 3rd grade students severely below grade level who do not meet promotion requirements
- Multiple opportunities to ensure one test on one day is not the sole determining factor for promotion to 4th grade (state test, alternative test, portfolio)
- Good cause exemptions for students meeting established criteria
In simpler words, best practices include using student retention as a very last resort for struggling third graders, coupled with incredibly robust teacher and parent resources.
The third grade benchmark isn’t arbitrary. After third grade, coursework tends to change dramatically, taking literacy as a given — illiterate fourth graders are more likely to drop out of high school, earn less money over their lifetime, and struggle with future coursework. Ensuring that a child moves into fourth grade with confidence is essential for their future success.
When a child tests poorly enough that it seems likely that they will not pass through the promotion gate, the threat of third grade retention is meant to trigger a flurry of activity. The Fordham Institute highlighted Florida’s policy, noting that every piece of research that found positive effects for retained students studied policies that included supplemental instruction.
Florida’s third-grade retention policy, which has provided the blueprint for early grade-retention policies in many other states, requires schools to (1) develop academic improvement plans for students that specifically address their learning needs, (2) assign these students to high-performing teachers, (3) provide at least ninety minutes of daily reading instruction, and (4) offer summer reading camp at the end of the year that facilitates intensive reading intervention lasting between six and eight weeks for all students who scored below the retention cutoff.
Some commenters have argued that these interventionist practices for literacy, not student retention policies, are the reason for student success and should begin in kindergarten. In a better world, the argument goes, students who score so catastrophically poorly in reading should receive intensive, all-hands-on-deck support as soon as their weaknesses become visible. A third grade promotion gate creates a relatively arbitrary benchmark and puts the onus on the student, parent, and third grade teacher to clean up a mess caused by poor K-2 intervention measures.
Proponents of retention argue that interventionist policies alone miss the most important element in the equation: human nature. A student who is reading below grade level might, in the abstract, be leisurely expected by parents and teachers to improve as they age. A student in danger of retention faces a concrete outcome, forcing parents, teachers, and the child themselves to put their efforts into high gear. Policymakers, faced with the institutional headache of retentions, will funnel money towards scientific reading training for teachers in the lower grades and targeted reading tutoring services. Choosing a goal with consequences, in other words, reminds everyone that the target is essential.
And the threat of retention may have a bark larger than its bite: In Florida, so many students either raise their scores or receive exemptions that only a fraction of the children identified for retention are actually retained. (Research suggests that this phenomenon is due to well-educated mothers championing for their children in the face of retention.) Advocates of the retention policy insist that a low final number of retentions is a sign of a policy that has successfully identified struggling students, engaged parents in the situation, and delivered corrective interventions.
So, the current consensus is that a successful student retention policy will include 1) robust teacher training on reading pedagogy and curriculum support within all grades, 2) consistent and frequent testing to identify only the students who would benefit the most from intervention, and 3) additional targeted support programs like afterschool tutoring and summer reading school to help students avoid retention.
But that’s just an idealized policy package. Does it work?
The results of early childhood retention
As discussed above, retention policies must be a part of a package deal that includes interventions, teacher training, and policy support. The threat of retention should be concentrated in the lower grades, ideally with a third grade promotion gate. While there are many states that have implemented versions of this policy, let’s examine three states that have implemented cohesive early literacy programs with strong success and one that implemented piecemeal reforms and saw piecemeal results.
In Mississippi, where a robust early literacy program includes a third grade promotion gate, score improvements have made waves. In 2013, Mississippi was 49th in the nation in fourth grade reading— in 2024, ninth. Between 2013 and 2019, average fourth grade reading scores on the NAEP increased by 10 points in Mississippi, handily beating every other state. Mississippi had a much lower passing threshold than states like Florida, and then lowered the passing threshold in 2019, meaning that very few students had a probability of being actually retained. Since the average age of fourth graders in the state hasn’t risen, the rise in reading ability is actually due to the strong policies, not an additional year of schooling. The policy was found to create strong reading gains in students and even dramatically narrow racial achievement gaps.
One study found that Mississippi retention had no major impact on other factors like math scores, student behavioral issues, or likelihood that a student would be identified as needing special education. Another found that the grade retention policy was responsible for 22 percent of the overall learning gains created by the program, implying that retention is a significant piece of the puzzle.
Mississippi spends less on its students than most of the country, and the early literacy program costs $15 million, or $32 per student.
In Florida, which led the charge by adopting an early literacy reform package that included retention in 2002, NAEP fourth grade reading scores gained the equivalent of one and a half grade levels in the following decade. Florida has a high passing threshold, but research suggests that Florida’s tactics, which include many exceptions to the retention rule, successfully identify the students who are most likely to benefit from retention.
In Indiana, third grade retention was adopted in 2012, with similarly dramatically positive results, but was ultimately dropped. After a seven year mandatory retention hiatus and struggling literacy rates, lawmakers brought it back in 2024 within a robust early literacy program that used Mississippi as a model. It came back with a vengeance. The promotion gate required third grade reading proficiency, meaning that almost one in five of Indiana’s third graders were at risk of retention. The high standards led to skepticism. But they worked. The state’s third graders saw an almost unparalleled leap of a nearly 5 percentage point rise, with 87.3% of students now reading proficiently. Such strong gains in such a short amount of time has raised eyebrows nationally.
In Ohio, the story of third grade retention is more complex. Retention mandates were passed in 2012, and included a low threshold for promotion. The political environment grew raucous as fights broke out every time the school board had to decide when, and how much, to raise the score. In 2023, lawmakers edited the requirements by allowing parents the ultimate authority of deciding whether or not their child should be retained. They also passed science of reading reforms that more closely mirror the packages put forth in Mississippi. Ohio’s fourth grade reading National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores declined from 2011 to 2022, implying that retention policies alone will not raise literacy. Time will tell if the recent policies that included comprehensive literacy reforms reverse this trend.
The benefits of careful student retention policies, it seems, outweigh many of the harms.
In other locales, including Chicago and New York City, research suggests that retention can increase test scores through middle school and reduce the need for future remediation. Retention in elementary school may also increase the likelihood that students take advanced courses in middle and high school.
But what about the impact on the students themselves who are retained? As far as social impacts go, the Fordham Institute reports that
evidence from descriptive surveys indicates that students retained in elementary school reported a greater sense of school connectedness, lasting several years beyond retention, than comparable students who were promoted. However, research on the effect of grade retention on disciplinary outcomes is skimpy and mixed, with one study finding a short-lived increase in suspensions and the other finding a similarly short-lived decline.
Advocates for retention policies argue that the policies help create whole-system reform, which dramatically helps more students than the relatively small number of students who might be hurt socially by retention; they ultimately also create better support systems for retained students.
Wider positive social outcomes are documented. Parents of students at risk for retention are likely to reallocate their resources (either time or money) to support not only their struggling children, but also their siblings. Research suggests that these benefits of early grade retention (which also include movement to a higher-performing school) spill over to the younger siblings of identified students.
From a policymaker’s perspective, it can be more financially efficient to retain students at third grade. Allowing struggling students a “do-over” year at third grade compassionately safeguards against more costly failures in the future. Retained students are less likely to be retained again or identified for remedial assistance, and conversely, at-risk students who manage to gain a promotion are more likely to take more than four years to graduate high school.
Conclusions
Successful states show that retention policies are devastatingly effective when paired with appropriate reform packages. While retention can affect a child’s emotional health, and should not be taken lightly, many students and families show positive effects from early literacy reform packages that include retention.
The real instigator for change, however, is the threat of retention. The threat of retention sparks a fire underneath policymakers, administrators, teachers, parents and students, motivating them all to ensure that a child is literate. Retention is a powerful social motivator that can reform entire educational systems.
As Minnesota searches for solutions to improve its very low third grade reading scores, it should take inspiration from what has worked in different states. Mandatory retention policies can be an effective part of the next upgrade to the READ package.
