During conferences to decide whether or not to retain a child, usually two questions are asked. The first is, "Will retention bring success in school?" The other is, "If we retain him, will he perform better in school than if we don't retain him?" The goal of this research was to see if retained students would make enough academic growth due to retention that they would to catch up to their peers, or even surpass them as a result of being retained. Two separate studies were conducted to measure the academic effects of retention. The first study identified the group of 1999-2000 students who were retained under the changing California law that banned social promotion. Propensity scores were used to create a retrospective control group of K-2 students from 1998-99 who would have been retained if the law had been adopted a year earlier. The second study examined records of retained students from the 2011-2012 school year. Performance pre- and post-retention was measured using California Standards Test (CST) scores, California English Development Test (CELDT) scores, and teachers' scores. Results indicate that retention does not benefit students academically. Retained students did not meet the level of CST performance of their non-retained peers; almost half (48%) of the retained students did not show grade level proficiency post retention on CST; ELL students did not gain an advantage in language learning due to retention; and teacher perception was that only 24% of the retained students worked within grade level expectations post-retention. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]