Community festivals allow students opportunities to meet key contact people and investigate local resources. Further, the excitement of the social festival is infectious; it encourages learning among people of multiple ages in a common area. Festivals serve to define the community, transmit culture, and allow the community to participate in…

We examined the nature and timecourse of hemispheric asymmetries in verbal memory by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) in a continuous recognition task. Participants made overt recognition judgments to test words presented in central vision that were either novel (new words) or had been previously presented in the left or right visual…

Students who repeat a grade prior to high school have a higher risk of dropping out of high school than do students who are continuously promoted. This study tested whether standard theories of dropout--including the participation-identification model and the social capital model--explain this link. Although the presence of variables, including…

When students fail courses or drop out of school, it isn't good for them or their districts, which are under federal and state mandates to improve test scores and graduation rates. With those mandates and about 1.2 million students dropping out each year--or one every 26 seconds--there is more pressure today than ever to help students stay in…

We assess factors affecting primary and middle school dropout in rural Punjab and NorthWest Frontier Province over 6 years (1997-2004). These data are unique in a developing-country setting in longitudinally tracking changes in both school and household environments. While grade retention has improved, girls' dropout rates remain fairly high.…

In her Keynote Article, Gathercole (2006) presents a theoretical framework intended to account for evidence regarding the relation between nonword repetition and word learning. This framework stems from an impressive amount and breadth of research on this topic, including findings from adults and children with typical language abilities as well as…

Based on a Phi Delta Kappa/Center on Evaluation, Development, and Research (CEDR) literature search, this article discusses Gregg Jackson's 1975 comprehensive review of 44 studies examining the effect of grade repetition on low-achieving children's performance. Reviews later research identifying effective retention strategies and alternatives to…

Regularly promoted low-achieving children score higher on achievement tests than do similar retained students after they spend an additional year in a grade. (Author)

Describes percentages and characteristics of children who enter kindergarten late or repeat kindergarten, as well as their subsequent performance and adjustment in school. Data are from the National Household Education Survey of the National Center for Education Statistics. (Author/SLD)

This report describes a cohort of first-grade students from the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS). Specifically, we follow the 9,176 students who were first-graders in the district in 1999-00 for seven years. We learn much about patterns of promotion and retention, mobility within BCPSS, transfer out of BCPSS, attendance, and…

This study examines the effects of kindergarten retention on children's social-emotional development in the early, middle, and late elementary years. Previous studies have generated mixed results partly due to some major methodological challenges, including selection bias, measurement error, and divergent perceptions of multiple respondents in…

School systems worldwide respond in particular ways to students' academic heterogeneity, and different countries have developed different strategies to manage such heterogeneity. Whereas some countries separate children according to distinctive educational routes (or tracks) at early ages, others rely on intensive use of grade retention, while…

This case study examines the learning, identity and language development experienced by "overage" 8th-grade students who have been left behind two or more years in their New York City middle school and are participating in an extended-day video documentary program. The students practise a range of literacy skills naturally embedded in…

Recently, Currie and Stabile (2006) made a significant contribution to our understanding of the influence of ADHD symptoms on a variety of school outcomes including participation in special education, grade repetition and test scores. Their contributions include using a broad sample of children and estimating sibling fixed effects models to…

Federal education policy in recent years has encouraged state and local education agencies to embrace data use and analysis in decision-making, ranging from policy development and implementation to performance evaluation. The capacity of these agencies to make effective and methodologically sound use of collected data for these purposes remains an…