Repeating a grade in elementary school is commonplace. Indeed, often for minority and disadvantaged youngsters in high-poverty school systems it is the rule rather than the exception. Yet, as noted in Chapter 1, the picture is sketchy because the best national data cover overage and underage enrollments, not grade retention per se. Other sources either rely on retrospective accounts (e.g., the NELS88 survey of eighth graders and their parents) or do not follow children long enough to provide a complete picture (e.g., the Prospects and ECLS projects). This leaves a void that at present only local panel studies like the BSS can fill. These afford a glimpse of what is happening “real time” in the lives of children as they progress through the elementary grades.

This chapter plots the BSS cohort's history of retentions over the first 8 years of their schooling. For children who remain on schedule, this time frame covers all of elementary and middle school. However, many children are thrown off-schedule because of retention and other complications and so do not move into or out of middle school “on-time.” One consequence is that their transition between levels of schooling is delayed. Most retainees are not with their age peers or with their entering cohort when they advance from elementary to middle school or from middle school to high school.