Social promotion is defined as the practice of allowing students who failed to meet performance standards and academic requirements the opportunity to pass on to the next grade with their peers. Although the A+ Educational Reform Act abolished the use of the practice, social promotion continues to occur in numerous school districts across one state under the guise of academic placement. The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify the relationship between grade placement without a demonstration of mastery on the 8th-grade state-mandated assessment and failure to demonstrate mastery on the 9th-grade Math I state-mandated assessment. The zone of proximal development, expectancy theory, and self-efficacy calibration served as the theoretical bases for this quantitative study. A non-experimental design was used that involved archival data from the 2009 and 2010 spring administration of the mathematics Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT) and the 2010 and 2011 spring administration of the Math I End-of-Course Tests (EOCT). Data were analyzed using Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient method, descriptive statistics and independent t tests. Results confirmed a significant positive relationship between the scores obtained by students who do not demonstrate mastery on the mathematics CRCT and scores obtained on subsequent tests such as the Math I EOCT. It was also found that scores obtained on the Math I EOCT by grade-placed students who failed to demonstrate mastery on the mathematics CRCT were significantly lower than those obtained by students who had demonstrated mastery. The findings of this study have the potential to stimulate social change in how school district leaders enforce the current state promotion and retention policy and in the development and implementation of remedial services aimed at helping those students who have been grade placed after failing to demonstrate mastery on mandated standardized assessments. [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://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]