Research actually shows that students who are not reading on grade level by the end of first grade have about a one-in-eight chance of ever catching up. The most effective interventions in recent years have been in the primary grades.
In a 6th grade class of about 130 students, I have several students that read on about a second or third grade level. These days, this is rarely due to a lack of early intervention. Most of those students have learning disabilities, but some are English Language Learners. A few of the others have never been evaluated for Special Education, but some of them have been evaluated and consent for SpEd has not been given by the parents.
As far as retaining students, I am confronting that very real possibility this year for the first time in years. But it is only for students who refuse to complete most of the assignments.
The research also shows that students who are retained (especially at middle school level) are at high risk for alienation: truancy, further failures, at risk-behaviors, dropping out. If we wanted to increase the ranks of the unemployable and the incarcerated, we would fail every student that does not read on grade level. As a general rule, that is not our aim in public education. And the threat of failure in May is not very effective motivation for pre-adolescents writing a paragraph in September. Their time horizon extends all the way to the next bell.
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When educated and motivated parents pull their children out of public schools, they are taking motivated, capable students out of public school classrooms. They are taking out independent learners, peer role models (positive peer pressure is a powerful force), someone who might understand what the teacher is saying and be able to explain it to their classmates, an intelligent participant in class discussion. To me, the struggling learners are not so difficult to teach, but when you get a class where most of the students don't care about school, whose parents are happy with Ds, that's difficult.
