The
regulations are flexible and admit of considerable latitude in matters
of classification and interpretation. Accordingly, if it happens
anywhere in the state that those who are the less promising candidates,
in the teacher's judgment, are debarred from attempting Regents'
examinations by failing marks, by demotion and exclusion from their
class, or by other means, the school's percentage of pupils passing may
be kept high as a result, but the injustice worked upon the pupil in
such manner is vicious and reprehensible. Yet the whole intolerableness
of the practice will center in the rule for exclusion of pupils from
these examinations because of school failure. No one can predict with
any safe degree of certainty that the outcome of any individual's
efforts will be a failure in the Regents' tests, even though he has
failed in a school subject. If failure should happen to result, it is
chiefly the school pride that suffers; if the pupil is denied a free
trial, he may suffer an injustice to aid the pretension of the school.
Our school sanctions are not characterized by such acumen or
infallibility as to warrant our refusing to give a pupil the benefit of
the doubt. He is entitled to his chance to win success in these
examinations if he is able, and it appears that only results in the
Regents' tests can be truly trusted to tell us that he is or is not
able to pass them.
The facts depicted here may lead to the belief that the recorded
success in Regents' examinations may sometimes be artificially high,
due to the subtle influences at work to make it so.
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