Part 1 (1/2)

The High School Failures

by Francis P Obrien

PREFACE

Grateful acknowledgh schools whose records are included in this study, for the courteous and helpful attitude which they and their assistantsthe data Thanks are due Dr John S Tildsley for his generous permission to consult the records in each or any of the New York City high schools But the fullest appreciation is felt and acknowledged for the ready criticiss and Professor George D Strayer at each stage from the inception to the completion of this study

FPO

CHAPTER I

GENERAL INTRODUCTION OF THE SUBJECT

1 THE RELEVANCE OF THIS STUDY

As theof the achievements of the public schools has become a distinctive feature of the more recent activities in the educational field, the failure in expected acco out a negative product, have been forced upon our attention rather erowth in the nu scales, questionnaires, and standardized tests, together with nificant school experiments and readjustnosis of the practices and conditions which are no longer accepted with complacency

The American people have expressed their faith in a scheme of universal democratic education, and have coh school They have been liberal in their financing and strong in their faith regarding this enterprise, so typically Aer be regarded as a luxury or a heritage of the rich No longer may the field be treated as either optional or exclusive The statutes of several of our states now expressly or impliedly extend their compulsory attendance requirements beyond the elementary years of school Many, too, are the lines of ive preference to graduates of a high school At the sah school graduation for entering the learned or professional pursuits

Accordingly, it seehly probable that, with such an extended and authoritative sphere of influence, a stricter business accounting will be exacted of the public high school, as the great after-war burdensso great an experiment They will ask, ever more insistently, for facts as to the expenditures, the finished product, the internal adjustments, and the waste product of our secondary schools Such inquiries will indeed seeh schools had 84 per cent of all the pupils (above 1,500,000) enrolled in the secondary schools of the United States in 1916[1] The majority of these pupils are lost from school--whatever the cause--before the coain, the raduation ended their school days Consequently, it becomes more and h school in conditioning the life activities and opportunities of our youthful citizens who have entered its doors Before being entitled to be considered a ”big business enterprise,”[2] it seeh School” must rapidly co and of efficiency, so as to recognize the tremendous waste product of our educational machinery

The aim of this study is to trace as carefully and completely as h school population, the pupils who fail in their school subjects, and to note sos If we are to proceed wisely in reference to the failing pupils in the high school, it is admittedly of importance that such procedure should be based on a definite knowledge of the facts The value of such a study will in turn be conditioned by the scrupulous care and scientific accuracy in the securing and handling of the facts It is believed that the causes of and the remedies for failure are necessarily closely linked with factors found in the school and with the school experiences of failing pupils, so that the proble such pupils as the unfit There is no atteory The causes of the failures are not assuiven the place of chief earded as incidental to and dependent upon what the evidence itself discloses

The success of the failing pupils after they leave the high school is not included in this undertaking, but is itself a field worthy of extended study Even our knowledge of what later happens to the h school pupils is liher institutions One of the more fah school illustrates the fallacy of overlooking the process of selection involved, and of treating its influence in conjunction with the training as though it were the result of school training alone[3]

2 THE MEANING OF 'FAILURE' IN THIS STUDY

The ternify the non-passing of a pupil in any semester-subject of his school work The school decision is not questioned in the h it is usually understood to negate ”ability plus accomplishment,” it s, such as a punitive ave it than about the pupil who received it These peculiarities of the individual teacher or pupil are pretty well coe number of teachers and of pupils involved The decisive factor in this rant credit for the work pursued The failure for a semester seems to be a more adaptable unit in this connection than the subject-failure for a year However, it necessitates the treatment of the subject-failure for a year as equivalent to a failure for each of the two se about 11 per cent of the pupils) recorded grades only at the end of the year It is quite probable that theby semesters would actually have increased the number of failures in these schools, as there aretothis unit of failure, the failures in the different subjects are regarded as comparable Since only the academic and commercial subjects are considered, and since they are almost uniformly scheduled for four or five hours a week, the failures will seeravity and to represent a similar amount of non-performance or of unsatisfactory results There were also a few failures included here for those subjects which had only three hours a week credit, mainly in the commercial subjects But failures were unnoted when the subject was listed for less than three hours a week

There are certain other elements of assumption in the treatment of the failures, which seemed to be unavoidable They are, first, that failure in any subject is the sairls; second, that failures in different years of work or with different teachers are equivalent; third, that failures in elective and in required subjects are of the saravity It was found practically impossible to differentiate required and elective subjects, however desirable it would have been, for the subjects that are theoretically elective often are in fact virtually required, the electives of one course are required in another, and on many of the records consulted neither the courses nor the electives are clearly designated

3 THE SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE FIELD COVERED

As any intensive study must almost necessarily be limited in its scope, so this one coh school records for 6,141 pupils belonging to eight different high schools located in New York and New Jersey For two of these schools the records for all the pupils that entered are included here for five successive years, and for their full period in high school In two other schools the records of all pupils that entered for four successive years were secured In four of the schools the records of all pupils who entered in February and September of one year constituted the number studied There is apparently no reason to believe that a longer period of years would be more representative of the facts for at least three of these four schools, in view of the situation that they had for years enjoyed a continuity of adanization The fourth one of these schools had less complete records than were desired, but even in that the one year was representative of the other years' records The distribution of the 6,141 pupils by schools and by years of entering high school is given below

HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS IN: ENTERING HIGH SCHOOL NUMBER IN THE YEARS STUDIED

White Plains, NY 1908, '09, '10, '11, '12 659 Dunkirk, NY 1909, '10, '11, '12 370 Mount Vernon, NY 1912 224 Montclair, NJ 1908, '09, '10, '11, '12 946 Hackensack, NJ 1909, '10, '11, '12 736 Elizabeth, NJ 1912 333 Morris HS--Bronx 1912 1712 Erasmus Hall HS--Brooklyn 1912 1161 ---- TOTAL 6141

As it is essential for the purposes of this study to have the coh school, the 6,141 pupils include none who entered later than 1912 Thus all were allowed at least five and one-half or six years in which to terh school history, of successes or of failures, before the ti this inquiry into their records No pupils ere transferred froh school or who did not start with the class as beginning high school students were included araduate records were not considered, neither was any attempt made to trace the record of drop-outs who entered other schools Manifestly the percentage of graduation would be higher in any school if the recruits from other schools and the drop-backs from other classes in the school were included

No attee records of the failing pupils, for our purpose does not reach beyond the sphere of the high school records In reference to the differentiation by school courses, some facts were at first collected, but these were later discarded, as the courses represent no standardization in ter of definite value As reement or uniformity in the number of courses offered One school had no coned to a separate school; another school offered only typewriting and stenography of the coht emphasis on the commercial subjects until recently Only four of the schools had pupils in Greek The Spanish classes outnumbered the Greek both by schools and by enrolllish is made to include (in addition to the usual subjects of that nalish Mathematics includes all subjects of that class except commercial arithmetic, which is treated as a commercial subject, and shop-mathematics, which is classed as non-academic Industrial history, and 'political and social science'

are regarded along with academic subjects; likewise household chemistry is included with the science classification Economics is treated as a commercial subject At least a dozen other subjects, not classified as acade and penmanshi+p, were taken by a portion of these pupils, but the records for these subjects do not enter this study in deterrades or the sizes of schedule Yet it is true that such subjects do demand time and work from those pupils