Some would argue after looking at the previous slide that most of the children who are held behind a year or more (the grey part of the bars in the right hand graph of the previous slide) will eventually make it to Grade 12 and complete high school – that is, recover from their set back of having been held behind a grade or more. However, our analyses suggest that this “recovery” is also strongly related to SES.

When we look at what happens to the retained students within 2 years of the 2001-02 school year, most have not completed high school and there is a very clear gradient in who recovers.