Jay P. Greene|Marcus A. Winters
Revisiting Grade Retention: An Evaluation of Florida's Test-Based Promotion Policy
Arkansas Department of Education|University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
2002 florida adopted testbased promotion policy third grade attempt end social promotion similar policies currently operating texas new york city chicago affect least 17 percent public school students nationwide using individuallevel data universe public school students florida analyze impact grade retention student proficiency reading one two years retention decision use instrumental variable iv approach made available relatively objective nature floridas policy findings suggest retained students slightly outperformed socially promoted students reading first year retention gains increased substantially second year results robust across two distinct iv comparisons acrossyear approach comparing students essentially separated year happened born regression discontinuity design