History has the median percentage
for the failures as listed for the nine subjects above.
The failures as reported by subjects for other schools and other pupils
will provide a comparison which may indicate something of the relative
standing of this group of schools in reference to failures. The
failures are presented below for thirteen high schools in New Jersey,
involving 24,895 grades, as reported by D.C. Bliss[7] in 1917. As the
schools were reported singly, the median percentage of failure for
each subject is used here for our purpose. But Mr. Bliss' figures are
computed from the promotion sheets for June, 1915, and include none of
those who had dropped out. In this sense they are not comparable to the
percentages of failure as presented in this study. Yet with the one
exception of Latin these median percentages are higher. The percentages
as presented below for St. Paul[8] are in each case based on the total
number taking the subject for a single semester, and include about
4,000 pupils, in all the classes, in the four high schools of the
city.[B]
[Footnote B: It is a significant fact, and one worthy of note here,
that the report for St. Paul is apparently the only one of the surveys
which also states the number taking each subject, as well as the
percentages of failure. Percentages alone do not tell the whole story,
and they do not promote the further utilization of the facts to
discover other relationships.
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