The High School Failures | Page 4

1912 1712 Erasmus Hall H.S.--Brooklyn
1912 1161 ---- TOTAL 6141
As it is essential for the purposes of this study to have the complete
record of the pupils for their full time in the high 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 terminate their
individual high school history, of successes or of failures, before the
time of making this inquiry into their records. No pupils who were
transferred from another high school or who did not start with the class
as beginning high school students were included among those studied.
Post-graduate 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 attempt has been made to trace the elementary school or college
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 terminology or
content, and they promised to give nothing of definite value. As might
be expected, the schools lacked agreement or uniformity in the number
of courses offered. One school had no commercial classes, as that work
was assigned to a separate school; another school offered only
typewriting and stenography of the commercial subjects; a third had
placed rather slight 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 enrollment. In the
classification by subjects, English is made to include (in addition to the

usual subjects of that name) grammar, literature, and business English.
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 academic or commercial,
including also spelling and penmanship, were taken by a portion of
these pupils, but the records for these subjects do not enter this study in
determining the successful and failing grades or the sizes of schedule.
Yet it is true that such subjects do demand time and work from those
pupils.
4. SOURCES OF THE DATA EMPLOYED
The only records employed in this whole problem of research were the
official school records. No questionnaires were used, and no statements
of pupils or opinions of teachers as such were sought. The facts are the
most authoritative and dependable available, and are the very same
upon which the administrative procedure of the school relative to the
pupil is mainly dependent. The individual, cumulative records for the
pupils provided the chief source of the facts secured. These school
records, as might be expected, varied considerably as to the form, the
size, the simplicity in stating facts, and the method of filing; but they
were quite similar in the facts recorded, as well as in the completeness
and care with which the records were compiled. It may be added that
only schools having such records were included in the investigation.
After the meanings of symbols and devices and the methods of
recording the facts had been fully explained and carefully studied for
the records of any school, the selection of the pupil records was then
made, on the basis of the year of the pupils' entrance to the school,
including all the pupils who had actually entered and undertaken work.
(Pupils who registered but failed to take up school work were entirely
disregarded.) These individual records were classified into the failing
and the non-failing divisions, then into graduating and non-graduating

groups, with the boys and girls differentiated throughout. As fast as the
records were read and interpreted into the terms required they were
transcribed, with the pupils' names, by the author himself, to large
sheets (16x20) from which the tabulations were later made. There was
always an opportunity to ask questions and to make appeals for
information either to the principal himself or to the secretary in charge
of the records. This tended to reduce greatly the danger of mistakes
other than those of chance error. The task of transcribing the data was
both tedious and prolonged. This process alone required as much as
four weeks for each of the larger schools, and without the continued
and courteous cooperation of the principals and their assistants