Earlier this week, John Wilson put the spotlight on a national embarrassment in his Education Week blog post entitled Flunking 3rd Graders Is Not An Intervention. His central point is worth repeating here:

"Flunking 3rd graders is costly to the taxpayers and devastating to the students. Do the math. It costs $10,000 to educate a student every year or $20,000 annually for a special needs student. Is it better to fail a student and create an extra year of that cost or to create a "bridge" program for students who have not mastered reading by the end of the third grade? It is better to provide an intensive intervention in literacy while covering a fourth grade curriculum and eventually place the students in the fourth grade classroom when they will be successful there."

Wilson's assessment could not be more devastatingly true. Clearly, retention is a fiscally irresponsible option. Even worse, it sets children back an entire year in their education by repeating the course of action that set them behind in the first place. Yet schools continue to opt against adopting more effective proven interventions because they are deemed "too expensive," and legislators in several states are considering mandatory retention for low-performing third graders.

The Doing What Works initiative at the Center for American Progress takes one step forward in addressing this issue by educating school leaders on cost-effective, proven options that are available. School leaders can also refer directly to the government-funded What Works Clearinghouse, the Top Tier Evidence Initiative at the Coalition for Evidence Based Policy, and the Best Evidence Encyclopedia from Johns Hopkins School of Education to find out what works for struggling readers. All of these sites provide comprehensive information about the strength of the evidence supporting a variety of education programs.

Wilson ends his post with the question: "What are your best interventions to help children read?" With all the resources that exist, we cannot simply throw up our hands when faced with this question. If the well-meaning legislators talking about mandatory retentions were aware of the evidence, they would see that retention is far from being the only solution to the problem of school failure.

For the latest on evidence-based education, follow me on twitter: @RobertSlavin

Disclosure Note: Robert Slavin is the Director of the Best Evidence Encyclopedia project at the Johns Hopkins School of Education.