Did the No Child Left Behind Act and similar legislation prohibit schools from holding students back?

No Child Left Behind, signed into law in 2002, and its successor, the Every Student Succeeds Act, contain no statutory language prohibiting schools from holding students back. Promotion and retention, though variably influenced by legislative incentives, are under state and local purview.

NCLB created sanctions to hold schools accountable for raising student performance which, though made more flexible by ESSA, remain rooted in minimum proficiency levels and standardized testing — metrics used in some states to determine promotion. 

Data shows that retention rates peaked from 1999-2005 at 2.9 percent and declined to 1.5 percent in 2010, explained by some by the incentive to increase graduation rates. 

However, in the pursuit of boosting testing results, retention can increase among some low-performing students, who may be excluded from standardized testing altogether. 

In Oklahoma, 3rd graders scoring below proficiency on state literacy tests could once be retained, though this was eliminated by the 2024 Strong Readers Act.