Child psychiatric disorder and relative age in school year

Editor—If the increased psychiatric stress in the comparatively younger students in the study by Goodman et al is the result of inappropriate teacher expectations, holding back students may have no net benefit.¹ The held back student becomes one of the older students, raising expectations and increasing stress for those younger. Some held back students will be resentful and increase stress on everyone.

Figure 1.

Comparison of parents (top) and teachers (bottom) in detecting psychiatric disorder by children's relative age (bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7413/472/FIG1)

American schools have a conflict of interest. Holding a child back increases the number of years that the child spends in a particular school. This increases the total government funding that school receives. I have witnessed students denied early graduation for just this reason.

Held back students are injured in at least one way. They are stuck in an extremely lengthy educational process for one more year, having been denied one extra year of occupational income and freedom from schooling. Numerous American studies have found no psychological harm from grade acceleration of the academically capable. Accelerating the most gifted may accomplish the same goals that Goodman et al desire with greater benefit. There is no research showing that holding back on psychiatric grounds helps any student, let alone which students.

There is a politically correct hostility against streaming students and against grade acceleration. We need to find ways to shorten the time college bound students spend in school, not lengthen it. Obviously, my 13 year old daughter is more immature than others in her college classes, but that doesn't mean she would have benefited from being held back.