A partial report of a study of failures in the first year of high school

Abstract

This is a partial report of a study made over a period of four years by the elementary school supervisor and the two principals of the intermediate schools in a town of thirty-odd thousand people. This school system has seven grades in the elementary schools and four in the high school. That one missing year, the eighth grade, is definitely cut from the elementary school since the high school faculty expects its beginning classes to make as good records as are made by children in cities which have the longer preparatory period. This study was begun because the high school principal and his staff seemed to feel that the elementary school children were being sent to them thoroughly unprepared. Certainly, the records confirmed their opinion, if the figures were accepted without further study. For example, the first report showed that thirty per cent of the children in the first year of high school did not make passing grades at the end of the first advisory while only fourteen per cent of the children of the entire school were failing. In order to be able to work more intelligently on the problem, the supervisor and principals asked that at the end of each first advisory they be given a report listing the names of the children failing together with the subject or subjects in which each child failed. When these reports were received, the elementary school records of the children were studied. These records included the teacher's ratings, the standard achievement test scores for the previous year, the rank of each pupil in his group, the health records, and occasional comments by the teacher. Each report was analyzed in a rough way in order to determine the next steps to be taken. For example, the data on the first report gave this information: