Events at CERGE-EI

Jan Bietenbeck

CEMFI (Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros), Madrid, Spain

Author: Jan Bietenbeck

Abstract: Grade retention rates in kindergarten and the early elementary grades have risen steadily over the past few decades in the United States. While many studies document that retention impedes skill accumulation among retained students, little is known about the impact of retention policies on the outcomes of non-retained students. This study estimates the causal spillover effects from retained students on the cognitive and non-cognitive skills of their non-retained kindergarten peers. It draws on data from the Tennessee STAR experiment, which randomly assigned students to classes, and documents three sets of impacts. First, students exposed to retained classmates score lower on a standardized mathematics test at the end of kindergarten, an effect that fades out in later years. Second, exposed students score higher on a variety of measures of non-cognitive skills that are first observed about three years after kindergarten, and they seem to be able to retain these non- cognitive gains over time. Third, students benefit from kindergarten exposure to retained classmates in the long run, as they are more likely to graduate from high school and to take a college entrance exam. I argue that these favorable long-term effects are driven by greater non-cognitive skills such as improved discipline, which students acquired as they learned to cope with the initially adverse situation of being in class with an underachieving and potentially disruptive retained student.

Full Text:  “Learning from Adversity? Short- and Long-Term Spillover Effects from Grade Retention in Kindergarten”