Monroe: Progress and Promotion 



25 



ever, it is probable that the schools of this group hold most 

 of their pupils as far as the eighth grade. It is significant 

 that nearly two out of three fail to reach the fourth year of 

 the high school. In the other group of systems only a little 

 more than half of the children reach the eighth grade, and 

 only one in five reach the fourth year of the high school. 



Comparison with Other Systems. When we compare these 

 data with similar data from other systems, it appears that 

 the elimination in Indiana systems having annual promotion 

 is less than in other systems. In the other group it is slightly 

 greater. Comparisons, however, must be made with reserva- 

 tions because the facts for the other cities are for different 

 years and were not collected at the same time of the school 

 year. In the case of the ''fourteen Kansas cities" the num- 

 ber entering was taken as the average of the four age groups, 

 eight to eleven. In this case, also, the figures represent the 

 number of children ''actually in attendance some time during 

 the last month of the school year" instead of the "number 

 belonging" on a certain day in December. However, it is 

 safe to say that the elimination in these Indiana cities is dis- 

 tinctly less than Ayres found it to be in fifty-nine (59) cities 

 in 1907. It is also less than Thorndike's determination (80 

 out of 1,000 reaching the fourth year of the high school) 

 and Strayer's determination (150 out of 1,000 reaching the 

 fourth year of the high school) . 



Comparison of Systems. Grade Distributions. In Table 

 XI the grade distributions for the systems having semiannual 

 promotion are given. It is significant that with the excep- 

 tion of two systems (the extremes) there is a high degree of 

 uniformity in the number of children in the first grade. In 

 fact, uniformity is more significant than the differences. 

 There are, of course, certain conspicuous variations from the 

 general tendency. These are doubtless due for the most part 

 to certain peculiar local conditions in the cities in which they 

 occur. For this reason no interpretation is attempted in the 

 report. Because the number of children in each grade is so 

 small, the corresponding table for the other groups of school 

 systems is not given. 



