The Effects of Grade Retention in Indiana Schools

Authors: Abigail Francis, Marcus A. Winters

Project Summary

Many states require third graders to pass a gateway reading test before moving on to fourth grade, making test-based promotion one of the most consequential and contested early literacy policies in the country. Several states have recently softened or repealed their retention requirements, and the debate has largely centered on a single question: does holding students back help or harm them? That framing misses the nuance of how these policies work in practice. Far more students are threatened with retention than are ever retained, and students, families, and schools can respond to that risk over the course of months. New work from WEPC examines Indiana’s third-grade reading policy to show how test-based promotion affects students both before and after a retention decision is made. It draws on two new working papers using statewide administrative data from 2011-12 through 2023-24.

Key Findings

• The threat of retention alone produces rapid gains. Students who narrowly failed an early, non-binding attempt at Indiana’s gateway reading test scored higher on the state ELA assessment just 4–6 weeks later, a gain equal to about 10% of a typical year’s growth. These gains appeared even among students with little realistic chance of ever being retained.
• Retention itself leads to large, lasting improvements. Even the most conservative estimate shows retention raised fourth-grade by the equivalent of roughly a year of learning, with benefits persisting through eighth grade in ELA and at least seventh grade in math.