Policies on social promotion and retention, although formulated to regulate academic success and failure in the field of K-12 education, have become burdensome and are now considered damaging to the public education system. The various stakeholders in education, including students, teachers, education policy makers, parents, and employers are all undermined by the pass or fail mentality of the current system. As failure continues to mean that a student is either retained or promoted without the necessary mastery of skills and knowledge deemed age appropriate, all of these stakeholders pay a price or absorb a cost that can hardly be made up. Because of these costs, a more comprehensive probe on current policies is needed to either throw away ineffective ones or improve on viable ones.