Research Paper on:
Connection Between Dropping Out of School and Grade Retention

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
became practice to hold students back unless they mastered certain academic content (1998). By the very early 1900s, promotion to the next grade level based on mastery of content was  common practice (Owings and Magliaro, 1998). The purpose or having a child repeat a grade level was to give that child more time to develop the skills needed for the  next grade level (Owings and Magliaro, 1998). By the 1930s researchers were reporting the negative effects of grade retention and in 1954, Goodlad published a study based on the  data gathered between 1924 and 1948 (Owings and Magliaro, 1998). That data showed retention had a negative impact on academic achievement (Owings and Magliaro, 1998). By about  the 1950s, researchers were looking at grade retention and future student dropout rates (Owings and Magliaro, 1998). More studies followed in the next two decades, most of which attested to  the fact that there was a strong correlation between early grade retention and high school dropout rates (Owings and Magliaro, 1998). In 1990, the Center for Policy Research in  Education reported that about half of all high school students had repeated an early grade (Owings and Magliaro, 1998). Roderick, in 1995, reported that between 1975 and 1995, "overage students  entering high school [rose by] almost 40 percent since 1975" (Owings and Magliaro, 1998, p. 86). The term overage means that they are older than the average student in that  grade level. For instance, youngsters are typically 14 years old when they enter the 9th grade. It must be remembered when reviewing data regarding overage that there are many reasons  for students to be older than grade-level peers, such as beginning school at an older age. These types of data that cite overage must be viewed with caution. School districts