The High School Failures | Page 2

Chapter, and References 85
VII.--WHAT TREATMENT IS SUGGESTED BY THE DIAGNOSIS
OF THE FACTS OF FAILURE?
1. Organization and Adaptation in Recognition of the Individual
Differences in Abilities and Interests 87
2. Faculty Student Advisers from the Time of Entrance 89
3. Greater Flexibility and Differentiation Required 90
4. Provision for the Direction of the Pupils' Study 92
5. A Greater Recognition and Exposition of the Facts as Revealed by
Accurate and Complete School Records 94

6. Summary of Chapter, and References 96

A STUDY OF THE SCHOOL RECORDS OF THE PUPILS FAILING
IN ACADEMIC OR COMMERCIAL HIGH SCHOOL SUBJECTS
CHAPTER I
GENERAL INTRODUCTION OF THE SUBJECT
1. THE RELEVANCE OF THIS STUDY
As the measuring of the achievements of the public schools has become
a distinctive feature of the more recent activities in the educational field,
the failure in expected accomplishment by the school, and its
proficiency in turning out a negative product, have been forced upon
our attention rather emphatically. The striking growth in the number of
school surveys, measuring scales, questionnaires, and standardized tests,
together with many significant school experiments and readjustments,
bears testimony of our evident demand for a closer diagnosis 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 committed themselves to the
support of the free public high school. They have been liberal in their
financing and strong in their faith regarding this enterprise, so typically
American, to a degree that a secondary education may no longer 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 more desirable employment for young people which demand or
give preference to graduates of a high school. At the same time there
has been no decline in the importance of high school graduation for
entering the learned or professional pursuits. Accordingly, it seems
highly 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 burdens make the public less willing
to depend on faith in financing so 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 seem justifiable.
It is estimated that the public high 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 completion of their courses; and,
again, the majority of those who do graduate have on graduation ended
their school days. Consequently, it becomes more and more evident
how momentous is the influence of the public high 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 seems imperative that our
"American High School" must rapidly come to utilize more of business
methods of accounting 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 may be
the facts relative to that major portion of our high school population,
the pupils who fail in their school subjects, and to note something of
the significance of these findings. 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 problem cannot be solved by merely labeling such pupils as the
unfit. There is no attempt in this study to treat all failures as in any
single category. The causes of the failures are not assumed at the start
nor given the place of chief emphasis, but are regarded 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