This study uses microdata from 12 Florida county-level school
districts and a regression discontinuity design to examine the effects
of early grade retention on the short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes
of English learners.
The authors find that retention in the third-grade
substantially improves the English skills of these students, reducing
the time to proficiency by half and decreasing the likelihood of taking a
remedial English course in middle school by one-third. Grade retention
also roughly doubles the likelihood of taking an advanced course in math
and science in middle school, and more than triples the likelihood of
taking college credit-bearing courses in high school for English
learners.
They also find that these benefits are larger for foreign born
students, students with higher latent human capital in third grade as
proxied by their math scores, students whose first language is Spanish,
and students in lower-poverty elementary schools.
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