No.

Even if you deserve to be 'held back', you get what's called a 'social promotion'.

In 8th grade, there was this big project we (each student) had to do in order to 'pass' 8th grade. The teachers all told us that if we didn't do it, we'd fail 8th grade, but still go on to high school as a 'social promotion'.

I actually had several friends who decided to not do that project, because nothing bad would happen to them if they didn't do it.

Those social promotions are clearly screwed up, especially as old as eighth grade. As a counterpoint anecdote, however, my mother is a kindergarten teacher who holds back (on average) two students a year for failure to understand the material or social immaturity that would prevent them from learning anything in first grade. And this is in a state (Indiana) in which kindergarten is voluntary.

Never heard of that but I don't doubt you.

In the (public) school my son goes to, people do get held back.

Yes.

Although it sometimes takes less clear-cut forms than "you fail this course, therefore we make you repeat the entire grade." my mother, for instance, taught at a school (this was ~2000-2006) that kept students perpetually in 8th grade. The school system identified students who were likely to drop out of high school based on grades and behavior and kept them from entering high school to prevent them from depressing high school dropout rates. They would remain in 8th grade until they turned 16 and dropped out.

I was in high school in the 90's, and my classmates frequently failed and had to repeat classes. This usually didn't result in having to repeat an entire grade though, since our schedules were very personalized and classes could be repeated the next year or semester without interfering with the rest of the schedule.

This was a conversation I was having the other with a close friend from France. I was talking about how kids in the US, especially in impoverished areas, get pushed through math classes with barely passing marks even if they learned nothing. I'm not sure how completely accurate this is, but he explained that he knew many people (probably 15-20) that had repeat entire grades multiple times because they failed math.

I know that a lot more has to happen in the US in regards to financial reform of public education for kids to be able to repeat grades so liberally, but I think it would do a lot of good.

As someone who went through school in the 1990s-2000s, I heard of kids either in my grade or my sister's grade (younger) that had to repeat a year. I'm not sure if that's changed since, or if it was location-specific.

I graduated in 2007. While it wasn't common, there were friends of mine held back in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grade.

I have friends with kids who have been held back, but these are usually kids who have some form of diagnosable developmental delay, not just an average kid not doing well.

I remember kids being held back, mostly in the early k-1-2 years or 11-12th grade years. Not much in between. I was in school in the 90s and early 00s.