The High School Failures Part 8

DISTRIBUTION OF THE NON-GRADUATES ACCORDING TO THE NUMBERS PERSISTING TO EACH SUCCESSIVE SEMESTER

BY END OF SEMESTERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Total (4205) 2787 1957 1572 999 761 390 234 60 23 4 Per Cent of Non-failing (41.8) 24.5 20.0 16.4 13.9 12.7 7.2 3.8 1.6 0 ..

Only 20 per cent of the non-graduates who remain to the end of the first year (second semester) do not fail. Although the failing non-graduates outnumber the non-failing ones when all the pupils who finally drop out are considered, their percentage of the majority increases rapidly for each successive semester continued in school.

That the non-failing non-graduates are in general not the ones who persist long in school is shown by these percentages.

2. THE NUMBER OF FAILURES AND THE YEARS TO GRADUATE

The following table shows how the number of failures are related to the time period required for graduation. The distribution in Table VIII shows a range from 1 to 25 failures per pupil, and a time period for graduation ranging from 3 to 6 years. It is evident from this distribution that the increase of time period for graduating is not commensurate with the number of failures for the individual. By far the largest number graduate in four years in spite of their numerous failures. Nearly 70 per cent of the failing graduates require four years or less for graduation. The number who finish in three years is greater than the number who require either five and one-half or six years. The median number of failures per pupil is 4. The pupils with fewer than 4 failures who take more than four years to graduate are not representative of any particular school in this composite, nor are those having 10 or more failures who take less than 5 years to graduate.

TABLE VIII

DISTRIBUTION OF PUPILS GRADUATING, ACCORDING TO THE TOTAL FAILURES EACH AND THE TIME TAKEN TO GRADUATE

NO. OF YEARS TO GRADUATE FAILURES 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 TOTALS

0 Boys 20 23 244 12 8 .. .. 307 Girls 54 26 380 30 14 .. .. 504

1 Boys 2 10 59 7 2 .. .. 80 Girls 5 8 83 13 5 .. .. 114

2 Boys 2 2 64 7 7 0 .. 82 Girls 2 3 88 11 8 1 .. 113

3 Boys 0 6 27 5 4 .. .. 42 Girls 1 1 53 6 3 .. .. 64

4 Boys 1 1 44 0 8 1 .. 55 Girls 4 6 57 8 4 1 .. 80

5 Boys 0 1 41 2 3 .. .. 47 Girls 1 2 26 7 5 .. .. 41

6 Boys .. 0 29 6 3 .. 0 38 Girls .. 1 29 3 8 .. 1 42

7 Boys .. 2 12 7 7 .. .. 28 Girls .. 1 13 4 5 .. .. 23

8 Boys .. 0 17 7 8 .. 1 33 Girls .. 1 16 9 7 .. 0 33

9 Boys .. 0 6 5 5 0 0 16 Girls .. 1 7 8 8 1 1 26

10 Boys .. 1 6 4 6 0 .. 17 Girls .. 1 14 5 2 1 .. 23

11-15 Boys .. 0 9 18 11 0 1 39 Girls .. 1 11 25 14 1 4 56

16-20 Boys .. .. 2 2 4 1 1 10 Girls .. .. 2 5 2 2 0 11

21-25 Boys .. .. 1 0 0 1 0 2 Girls .. .. 0 1 4 3 1 9

Total Boys 25 46 561 82 76 3 3 796 Girls 67 52 780 135 89 10 7 1140

In reading Table VIII, we find that 20 boys and 54 girls who have no failures graduate in three years; 2 boys and 5 girls fail once and graduate in 3 years; 10 boys and 8 girls have one failure and graduate in 3 years, and so on. The median period is 4 years for those with no failures and it remains at 4 for all who have fewer than 9 failures; but the median time period is not above 5 years for the highest number of failures.

3. THE NUMBER OF FAILURES AND THE SEMESTER OF DROPPING OUT FOR THE NON-GRADUATES

The pages preceding this point have given evidence that the failing pupils are not mainly the ones who drop out early. But we may still ask whether the number of failures per individual tends to determine how early he will be eliminated? This question calls for the facts of the next table. In this table the semesters of dropping out are indicated at the top. The failures range as high as 25 per pupil, and it is evident that not all pupils have left school until the eleventh semester. The distribution includes the 1156 boys and the 1292 girls who failed and did not graduate; also the 694 boys and the 1063 girls who dropped out without failing. The wide distribution of these non-graduates both relative to the number of failures and to the time of dropping out, is forcibly brought to our attention by the table which follows.

TABLE IX

DISTRIBUTION OF THE NON-GRADUATES, ACCORDING TO THE TOTAL FAILURES EACH AND THE TIME OF DROPPING OUT

NO. OF SEMESTER OF DROPPING OUT FAILURES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 TOTAL

0 B. 430 134 40 41 15 24 7 3 0 .. .. 694 G. 643 163 89 78 27 45 12 5 1 .. .. 1063 1757 1 B. 35 53 25 33 14 9 1 1 .. .. .. 171 G. 46 65 25 34 12 12 4 3 .. .. .. 201 372 2 B. 52 58 18 30 8 17 5 6 .. .. .. 194 G. 49 79 31 36 12 17 3 3 .. .. .. 230 424 3 B. 43 41 22 28 9 10 5 1 0 .. .. 159 G. 54 52 19 34 18 17 0 6 1 .. .. 201 360 4 B. 27 31 13 32 7 11 9 2 .. .. .. 132 G. 34 43 23 29 11 16 5 8 .. .. .. 169 301 5 B. 3 13 14 30 11 16 11 4 .. .. .. 102 G. 2 14 18 24 5 13 3 5 .. .. .. 84 186 6 B. .. 27 8 24 11 16 11 6 0 0 .. 103 G. .. 17 14 25 10 11 3 9 2 1 .. 92 195 7 B. .. 8 7 7 6 16 5 3 0 1 .. 53 G. .. 9 3 15 8 7 5 5 0 0 .. 52 105 8 B. .. 8 3 14 6 11 6 5 1 0 .. 54 G. .. 10 5 15 7 10 6 6 1 1 .. 61 115 9 B. .. 1 1 7 5 8 2 7 3 1 .. 35 G. .. 0 2 7 8 9 2 4 1 0 .. 33 68 10 B. .. 2 2 10 2 7 6 10 0 .. .. 39 G. .. 2 1 6 5 9 4 4 0 .. .. 31 70 11-15 B. .. .. 1 8 7 27 14 22 5 2 0 86 G. .. .. 1 5 12 22 20 23 9 6 2 100 186 16-20 B. .. .. .. 1 0 8 3 6 3 3 0 24 G. .. .. .. 0 2 3 3 12 6 2 2 30 54 21-25 B. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 2 1 1 .. 4 G. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1 3 3 1 .. 8 12 TOTAL B. 590 376 154 263 101 180 85 78 13 8 0 1850 G. 828 454 231 308 137 191 71 96 24 11 4 2355 4205

Table IX reads in a manner similar to Table VIII: 430 boys and 643 girls, having failures, drop out in the first semester; 35 boys and 46 girls drop out in the first semester with a single failure; 3 boys and 2 girls drop out in the first semester with five failures each.

For a small portion of these drop-outs the number of failures is undoubtedly the prime or immediate factor in securing their elimination. It seems probable that such is the situation for most of those pupils who drop out after 50 per cent or more of their school work has resulted in failures. Yet a few of these pupils manage to continue for an extended time in school, as the following distribution shows.

DROP-OUTS FAILING IN 50 PER CENT OR MORE OF THEIR TOTAL WORK, AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION BY SEMESTERS OF DROPPING OUT

SEMESTERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

221 B. 81 69 17 24 7 15 4 2 1 1 264 G. 98 68 20 35 14 10 5 8 5 1

% of Total 36.9 28.2 7.6 12.2 4.3 5.2 1.9 2.0 1.2 .4

This grouping includes 485 pupils, or 11.5 per cent of the total number of 4,205 drop-outs. But whatever the part may be that is played by failing it is evident that it does not operate to cause their early loss to the school in nearly all of these instances. It may be noted here that it is difficult to find any justification for allowing or forcing these pupils to endure two, three, or four years of a kind of training for which they have shown themselves obviously unfitted. To be sure, they have satisfied a part of these failures by repet.i.tions or otherwise, but only to go on adding more failures. A device of 'superannuation' is employed in certain schools by which a pupil who has failed in half of his work for two semesters, and is sixteen years of age, is supposed to be dropped automatically from the school. This device seems designed to evade a difficulty in the absence of any real solution for it, and harmonizes with the school aims that are prescribed in terms of subject matter rather than in terms of the pupils' needs. From the standpoint of the individual pupil his peculiar qualities are not likely to be fashioned to the highest degree of usefulness by this procedure. It simply serves notice that the pupil must make the adjustment needed, as the school cannot or will not.

Notwithstanding the testimony furnished by the acc.u.mulation of failures shown in Table IX, there are grounds for believing that for the major portion of all the non-graduates the number of failures is not a prime nor perhaps a highly important cause of their dropping out of school.

This conviction seems to be substantiated by the statement of percentages below.

THE PERCENTAGE OF NON-GRADUATES WHO DROP OUT WITH

0 1 or 0 2 or fewer 3 or fewer 4 or fewer 5 or fewer Failures Failures Failures Failures Failures Failures

41.8 50.6 60.7 69.2 76.4 80.8

The fact that nearly 81 per cent of the non-graduates have only 5 failures or less, taken in comparison with the fact that approximately one fourth of the failing graduates have 8 or more failures, argues that the number of failures alone can hardly be considered one of the larger factors in causing the dropping out. In a report concerning the working children of Cincinnati, H.T. Wooley remarks[33] that "two-thirds of our children leaving the public schools are the failures." This seems to suppose failing a large cause of the dropping out. But this investigation of failure indicates that the percentage of failure for those leaving is no higher than for the ones who do not leave. A similar ill.u.s.tration is credited to O.W. Caldwell[34], who makes reference to the large percentage of the failing pupils who leave high school, without taking any recognition of the equally large percentage of the failing pupils who continue in the high school.