[motorest]

> I don't want to strawman your argument but it sounds like you're saying that if you're in 3rd grade one year you should be in 4th grade the next year no matter what.

If a school system is designed so that the average kid in 3rd grade is expected to be in 4th grade the following year, the fact that a statistically significant subset of kids is not able to meet that bar is a sign that the system is failing those kids.

What's the goal here? Is it to get pretty metrics by filtering out the failures, or is it to provide an effective education to all kids?

[pc86]

How do you know its statistically significant? Nothing in the article (or anywhere else I looked) suggests a "statistically significant" portion of 3rd graders, whatever that means, are being held back.

[motorest]

> How do you know its statistically significant?

Because I bothered to look it up. In the last few years, Mississippi has been holding back between 5-10% of it's students.