The facts presented for St. Louis[9] are for one school only, with 2,089 pupils, as recorded for the first half of the year 1915-16. All foreign languages as reported for this school are grouped together. History is the only subject that has a percentage of failure lower than that of the corresponding subjects for our eight schools. The figures for both St. Paul and St. Louis are based on the grades for all classes in school, but for only a single semester. One cannot avoid feeling that a statement of facts for so limited a period may or may not be dependable and representative for all periods. The percentages for Paterson[10] are reported for about 4,000 pupils, in all classes, for two successive semesters, and are based on the number examined. For Denver,[11] the records are reported for 4,120 pupils, and cover a two-year period. The percentages for Butte[12] are based on the records for 3,110 pupils, for one school semester. The figures reported by Rounds and Kingsbury[13] are for only two subjects, but for forty-six widely separated high schools, whose enrollment for these two subjects was 57,680.
PERCENTAGES OF FAILURE BY SUBJECTS—QUOTED FOR OTHER SCHOOLS
| Math. | Latin | Ger. | Fren. | Eng. | Hist. | Sci. | Bus. Subj's. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 N.J. H.S.'s. | 20.0 | 18.0 | 16.0 | . . | 14.0 | 11.0 | . . | 11.5 |
| St. Paul | 21.8 | 13.6 | 14.3 | 17.0 | 10.0 | 10.9 | 7.3 | 11.7 |
| St. Louis | 18.0 | [—— | 16 | ——] | 13.0 | 7.0 | 19.0 | . . |
| Paterson | 23.1 | 21.6 | 23.4 | . . | 12.2 | 13.9 | 18.3 | 8.5 |
| Denver | 24.0 | 21.0 | 12.0 | . . | 11.7 | 11.0 | 17.0 | 11.0 |
| Butte | 18.6 | 25.0 | 24.0 | 32.6 | 5.4 | 7.0 | 13.0 | 8.4 |
| R and K | 24.7 | . . | . . | . . | 18.5 | . . | . . | . . |
| Our 8 H.S.'s | 16.0 | 18.7 | 13.5 | 11.6 | 8.2 | 10.4 | 9.8 | 8.0 |
In some schools the reports were not available for all subjects. It is not at all probable, so far as information could be obtained, that the failures of the drop-out pupils for any of the schools were included in the percentages as reported above, or that the percentages are based on the total number in the given subjects, with the exception of one school. Moreover, it is certain for at least some of the schools that neither the failures of the drop-outs nor the pupils who were in the class for less than a whole semester were considered in the percentages above. So far, however, as these comparisons may be justified, the suggestion made in [Chapter I] that the schools included in this study are doubtless a superior group with respect to failures appears to be strengthened by the comparisons made above.
It becomes more apparent, as we attempt to offer a statement of failures as taken from the various reports, that they are not truly comparable. The bases of such percentages are not at all uniform. The basis used most frequently is the number enrolled at the end of the period rather than the total number enrolled for any class, for which the school has had to provide, and which should most reasonably form the basis of the percentage of failure. Furthermore, the failures for pupils who drop out are not usually counted. Yet, in most of the reports, the situation is not clearly indicated for either of the facts referred to. Still more difficult is the task of securing a general statement of failures by subjects, since the percentages are most frequently reported separately for each class, in each subject, and for different buildings, but with the number of pupils stated for neither the failures nor the enrollment. The St. Paul report[8b] is an exception in this regard.
To present the full situation it is indeed necessary to know the failures for particular teachers, subjects, and buildings, but it is also frequently necessary to be able to make a comparison of results for different systems. Consequently, in order to use the varied reports for the attempted comparison above, the plan was pursued of averaging the percentages as stated for the different classes, semesters, and years of a subject, in each school separately, and then selecting the median school thus determined as the one best representing the city or the system. This method was employed to modify the reports, and to secure the percentages as stated above for Denver, Paterson, and Butte. Any plan of averaging the percentages for the four years of English, or similarly for any other subject, may actually tend to misstate the facts, when the percentages or the numbers represented are not very nearly equal. But, in an incidental way, the difficulty serves to emphasize the inadequacy and the incomparability in the reporting of failures as found in the various studies, as well as to warn us of the hopelessness of reaching any conclusions apart from a knowledge of the procedure employed in securing the data.
The basis is also provided for some interesting comparisons by isolating from the general distribution of failures by school subjects ([p. 19]) the same facts for the failing graduates. That gives the following distribution.
THE FAILURES BY SCHOOL SUBJECTS FOR GRADUATES ONLY
| Total | Math. | Eng. | Latin | Ger. | Fr. | Hist. | Sci. | Bus. Subj's. | Span. or Greek |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5803 B. | 660 | 403 | 521 | 241 | 191 | 180 | 251 | 91 | 7 |
| 6334 G. | 782 | 347 | 673 | 257 | 240 | 410 | 394 | 162 | 12 |
| Per Cent of Totals | 24.8 | 12.9 | 20.5 | 8.5 | 7.4 | 10.1 | 11. | 4.3 | .3 |
SIMILAR PERCENTAGES FOR THE NON-GRADUATES | |||||||||
| As above | 23.6 | 18.3 | 17.7 | 10.1 | 5.3 | 8.4 | 10. | 6.3 | .1 |
It is a noteworthy fact that the percentages of failure (based on the total failures for the graduates) run higher in mathematics, Latin, history, French, and science for the graduates than for the whole composite number ([page 19]). The non-graduates have a correspondingly lower percentage of failure in these subjects, as is indicated above. The school influences in respect to the failures of the non-graduates differ from those of the graduates chiefly in the fact that the failures of the former tend to occur to a greater extent in the earlier years of these subjects, since so many of the non-graduates are in the school for only those earlier years; while the failures of the graduates range more widely and have a tendency to predominate in the upper years of the subject, as will be further emphasized in the later pages of this report (see also [Table IV]).