Part 12 (1/2)

Thirty-three and three-tenths per cent of the repeated grades are repeated failures

Few of the repeaters take reduced schedules

The repeaters with an extra schedule are rades, and have 114 per cent less failures than repeaters with a normal or reduced schedule

In the later subjects of the sarades are 22 per cent higher than for a sirades in neork for repeaters are markedly superior to those in the repeated subjects, for the same semester

As the nuh as six), the percentage of final failure rapidly rises

The emphasis placed on repetition is excessive, and the faith displayed in it by school practice is unwarranted by the facts

Relatively few of the failing pupils who continue in school discontinue the subject or substitute another after failure

School examinations are employed for 103 per cent of the failures, with 375 per cent of success on the atteents' examinations are employed for 172 per cent of the failures, of which 728 per cent succeed in passing, and in most cases immediately after the school failure

Of those who continue the subject of failure without any repetition 52 per cent get passing grades

No form of school compensation can be considered as adequate which does not adapt the treatment to the kind and cause of the malady, as manifested by the failure sys, TH Report on Secondary Education, US Comm of Educ

Report, 1914

43 Snedden, D In Johnson's _Modern High School_ II, 24, 26

44 Official Bulletin on Prorae of Secondary Schools, for NY City

45 Lewis, WD _De of Board of Supt's, New York City, June, 1917

CHAPTER VI

DO THE FAILURES REPRESENT A LACK OF CAPABILITY OR OF FITNESS FOR HIGH SCHOOL WORK ON THE PART OF THOSE PUPILS?

In view of the fact that some of the pupils do not fail in any part of their school work, there is a certain popular presunificant of pupil inferiority when it occurs That connotation will necessarily be correct if we are to judge the individual entirely by that part of his work in which he fails, and to assu mark is a fair indication of both achieveh the pupil is only one of the contributing factors in the failure, nevertheless it happens that cherished opportunity, prizes, praise, honors, enition are frequently proffered or withheld according to his marks in school

Still further, the pupil who accuressively alive and active; he is in danger of acquiring a confor unsuccessful Therefore it is particularly momentous to the pupil, should the school record ascribed to hiruous with his potential powers It has already been pointed out in these pages that the failures frequently tend to designate specific difficulties rather than what is actually the negative of 'ability plus application' This does not at all deny that in some instances there appears to be the ability minus the application, and that in other cases the pupils are simple unfitted for the work required of them

1 SOME ARE EVIDENTLY MISFITS

There is a strong presumption that many of the 485 pupils who failed in 50 per cent of their school work and dropped out (reported in Chapter IV) represent misfits for at least the kind of school subjects offered or required One cannot say that even hopeless failing in any particular subject is a safe criterion of general inability, or that failure in abstract sort of mental ould be a sure prophecy of failure in ether probable that some of the individuals in the above nuh school course, and that others were the restless ones at a restless age, who just would not fit in, whatever their abilities

But even of these pupils a considerable number display sufficient resourcefulness to satisfy many of their failures and to persist in school two, three, or four years There are perhaps at least a few others ithout failing, drop out early, prompted by the conviction of their own unfitness to succeed in the high school Yet collectively this group is by no ment of former Superintendent Maxwell, of New York City,[47] who stated that ”the nu school because they have not the native ability to cope with high school studies, is, in [48] reached the conclusion that ”at least 75 per cent of the pupils who enter (high school) have the brains, the native ability to graduate, if they chose to apply themselves” With , as the facts of section 2 will seem to prove

2 MOST OF THE FAILING PUPILS LACK NEITHER ABILITY OR EARNESTNESS