By the time students reach high school, the retention rate for boys is about ten percentage points higher than for girls.

They point to a wide range of research findings that show no advantage to, or even harm from, retention, and the tendency for gains from retention to wash out.

Alternatives An alternative to social promotion is grade retention, in which students repeat a grade when they are judged to be a low performer.

But what would happen then? There has always been a debate about whether it is possible to have a single market without a single currency.

The practice of grade retention in the U.S. has been climbing steadily since the 1980s, although local educational agencies may or may not follow this trend.

The aim of retention is to help the student learn and sharpen skills such as organization, management, study skills, literacy and academic which are very important before entering the next grade, college and the labor force.

Similarly, old fashioned dirigisme such as attempts to pick winners, foster national champions, or keep failed business models alive through state subsidies is both harmful and doomed to fail.