Executive Summary: “Race-Ethnicity, Social Background and Grade Retention” by Robert M. Hauser, Devah I. Pager, and Solon J. Simmons

            In response to the high numbers of American grade- and high-school students forced to repeat a year of schooling, or who are promoted with low skill levels, education policy reformers in the U.S. seize upon standardized testing as the solution.  In their paper, Hauser, Simmons and Pager revisit research on retention and testing remedies as well as national trends in age-grade relationships in elementary and secondary school.  Then, Hauser and his co-authors undertake new assessments of grade retention while accounting for race, ethnic, socio-economic and geographic factors. They use data from the October Current Population Surveys from 1972 to 1998 for ages 6, 9,12,15, and 17 (when the modal grade levels are 1,4,7,10,and 12).

            One of the achievements of this paper, is the way in which the link between socioeconomic background and rates of age-grade retardation is highlighted. According to Hauser et al., nine-year-old African-American and Hispanic youth have a 50 percent greater chance of being held back a grade when compared with white students. Racial, ethnic and gendered trends in school completion also seem to become more entrenched over time.  For example, once students enter high school, white girls are the most likely to graduate in 4 years, while African-American boys face the greatest likelihood of being held back at least one year. However, race-ethnic differentials in age-grade retardation are almost entirely explained by other differences in social and economic background.

The authors offer compelling evidence of a link between family income and school completion that strengthens over time. For example, parental home-ownership is used as marker of family income and wealth. Twelve year-olds whose parents own their home are 48 percent less likely to be held back a grade. For 15 year-olds with home-owning parents, the percentage is 54 percent, and for 17 year-olds, the percentage is 61 percent. The authors also tested the effects of having a single parent on grade completion.  For the same age groups, the researchers found that having a single parent at 12 years of age can increase the probability that the student will be left back by 51 percent. In addition, 15 year-olds and 17 year-olds can expect their odds of being held back to increase by 69 and 88 percent, respectively.