Study Finds Florida Schools' Ban on Social Promotion Effective

Study Finds Florida Schools' Ban on Social Promotion Effective

Manhattan Institute
Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004

Florida policy requiring students to pass a standardized test to be promoted to fourth grade leads to substantial academic improvements for low-performing students.

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A new study released today by Manhattan Institute researchers Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters finds that Florida’s policy requiring 3rd grade students to pass the reading portion of the state’s standardized test in order to be promoted to the fourth grade has led to significant improvements for low-performing students after its first year.

Florida is one of many large school systems, including eight other states and the cities of Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, to have adopted standardized testing mandates intended to end “social promotion” – promoting students to the next grade level regardless of their academic proficiency. These school systems encompass 30% of all U.S. public school students. This study provides evidence that such programs improve the academic proficiency of low-performing students.

The study uses individual-level data provided by the Florida Department of Education. It examines the gains made in one year on the math and reading tests by all Florida 3rd graders in the first cohort subject to the retention policy who scored below the necessary threshold, as compared to the gains made by all Florida third graders in the previous cohort with the same low test scores, for whom the policy was not yet in force. Because some students subject to the policy obtained special exemptions and were promoted, the study also separately measures the effects of actually being retained.

The findings of this study, evaluating Florida’s program after its first year, include:

Low-performing students subject to the retention policy made gains in reading greater than those of similar students not subject to the policy by 1.85 percentile points on both the FCAT and the Stanford-9, a nationally respected standardized test that is also administered to all Florida students, but with no stakes tied to the results.

Low-performing students subject to the retention policy made gains in math greater than those of similar students not subject to the policy by 4.76 percentile points on the FCAT and 4.43 percentile points on the Stanford-9.

Low-performing students who were actually retained made gains in reading greater than those of similar students who were promoted by 4.10 percentile points on the FCAT and 3.45 percentile points on the Stanford-9.

Low-performing students who were retained made gains in math greater than those of similar students who were promoted by 9.98 percentile points on the FCAT and 9.26 percentile points on the Stanford-9.

The authors intend to follow the same two cohorts of students in future studies to evaluate the effects of this policy over time.

Jay P. Greene, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research where he conducts research and writes about education policy. Dr. Greene obtained his doctorate in political science from Harvard University and was a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin before joining the Manhattan Institute in 2000. His education research has been cited in U.S. Supreme Court opinions and has appeared in scholarly and popular publications.

Marcus A. Winters is a Research Associate at the Manhattan Institute’s Education Research Office. He earned his B.A. in political science with departmental honors from Ohio University in 2002.

The Education Research Office, a part of the Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, produces high-quality academic research on U.S. education issues, including school choice policies and other aspects of education reform.

The Manhattan Institute, a 501(c)(3), is a think tank whose mission is to develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility.

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