Monroe: Progress and Promotion 



29 



Criticism and Limitations of These Methods. In 1909 L. 

 P. Ayres stated with reference to the second method 'These 

 ages have been accepted by common consent as the 'normal 

 ages' for these grades by nearly all school men who have 

 interested themselves in the problem/'^ Some school men 

 have pointed out that this popularity of the second method 

 was due to the fact that it gave a much lower amount of 

 retardation than the first method. The difference in the 

 amount of retardation for the two groups of Indiana school 

 systems is shown in Table XII. The magnitude of this dif- 

 ference is striking. 



TABLE XII 

 Per Cent of Retardation by Methods I and II 





SYSTEMS HA\ING ANNUAL 

 PROMOTION 



SYSTEMS HAVING SEMIANNUAL 

 PROMOTION 



Grade 



I 



II 



I 



II 



I 



21 



6 



33 



9 



II 



28 



9 



42 



15 



Ill 



35 



13 



50 



22 



IV 



40 



19 



51 



25 



V 



38 



17 



55 



28 



VI 



55 



28 



54 



25 



VII 



44 



17 



50 



18 



VIII... 



37 



14 



41 



15 



IX 



36 



15 



45 



17 



X 



32 



10 



42 



16 



XI 



30 



8 



38 



12 



XII 



36 



10 



23 



7 



The true per cent of retardation is probably between the 

 amounts obtained by the two methods. The superintendent 

 of one city reported that a study of the pupils who have 

 actually failed to be promoted at least once showed that 39.2 

 per cent were retarded. The first method gave for this city 

 a retardation of 59.5 per cent and according to the second 

 method it was 14.8 per cent. This is probably representative, 

 but, in the absence of additional data, no method is available 

 for the accurate calculation of the amount of retardation. 

 When dealing with age-grade tables it is, therefore, necessary 

 to employ one of the above methods or a slight modification 

 of them. In this study the second method has been used pri- 



*^ Ayres, L. P, Laggards in Our Schools, p, 38, 

 4—16697 



