{"id":3919,"date":"2010-09-20T14:35:20","date_gmt":"2010-09-20T18:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=3919"},"modified":"2015-02-24T15:41:53","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T19:41:53","slug":"should-we-always-say-no-to-retention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/should-we-always-say-no-to-retention\/","title":{"rendered":"Should We Always Say NO to Retention?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Should%20We%20Always%20Say%20NO%20to%20Retention%3F\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin: 5px; float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/nltr\/img\/par.vol.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"113\" \/>Social promotion\u00a0 never works for anyone.\u00a0 But is retention always harmful?\u00a0 If the school is going to give the child extra services which were never given before, wouldn&#8217;t retention be a good idea?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We get hundreds of emails about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/info\/retain.index.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">retention<\/span><\/a> every year. I don&#8217;t recall one in which the school proposed to provide <em>more<\/em> intensive services.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Pete and I teach a special education law and advocacy course. One of our law students is typical.<\/p>\n<p>The school proposed to retain his daughter in the 1st grade. The school would not change her program, but said retention would give her &#8220;more time to learn 1st grade material.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When the parents met with school officials and requested that the school evaluate her to determine if she has a learning disability or another problem that is contributing to her reading problems, the school refused to evaluate. On the prior written notice (PWN) was this statement:\u00a0 &#8220;student is making some progress in one-to-one Reading Recovery sessions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So they want to retain because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>she needs &#8220;more time to learn the material&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But they won&#8217;t evaluate her because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>she is &#8220;making some progress&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We know how this story usually ends. <strong>Evaluation for special ed in 3rd or 4th grade &#8211; reading skills still at the 1st-2nd grade level.<\/strong> Most special ed teachers don&#8217;t know how to remediate or don&#8217;t have time to provide remediation. So there is a good chance this youngster will become another <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/advoc\/articles\/Carter_The_Untold_Story.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Shannon Carter<\/span><\/a>, illiterate when she enters 10th grade.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ve heard us say before, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=3341\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Reading Recovery is not designed to be used for children who may have a learning disability<\/span><\/a>. There is very little research that supports its use with any population. If a child drops out or is withdrawn, that child is not counted in the success rates. If children make gains in the program, most or all disappear by 3rd grade.<\/p>\n<p>We also get emails that are somewhat pro-retention from parents whose children have more severe disabilities and are very far behind their peers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I don&#8217;t believe in one-size-fits all solutions to problems.<\/strong> I think there are children for whom retention may not be harmful. I also think these kids are a very very small minority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Social promotion\u00a0 never works for anyone.\u00a0 But is retention always harmful?\u00a0 If the school is going to give the child extra services which were never given before, wouldn&#8217;t retention be <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/should-we-always-say-no-to-retention\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,1275],"tags":[1300,106,659],"class_list":["post-3919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading","category-retention","tag-reading","tag-retention","tag-social-promotion"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3919"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12467,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3919\/revisions\/12467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}