Monroe: Progress and Promotion 



31 



Limitations of Retardation and Acceleration as the Meas- 

 ure of School Efficiency. The per cent of retardation and 

 acceleration is only a very crude measure of the efficiency of 

 the school system. The efficiency of a school system is the 

 ratio of the achievements of the pupils to the expenditures 

 of time, effort, and money. That school system is most effi- 

 cient which is obtaining the largest relative returns upon its 

 investment. The giving of standardized tests has made very 

 evident that some school systems are securing very much 

 greater outcomes than others. Thus, it might happen that 

 a school system which showed a very small per cent of re- 

 tardation and a large per cent of acceleration, indicating an 

 efficient system, was actually less efficient than another sys- 

 tem which showed a higher per cent of retardation and a 

 lower per cent of acceleration, because of the difference in 

 the achievement of the pupils in the two systems. For this 

 reason if one wishes to secure an absolutely trustworthy 

 index of the efficiency of the school system, he must take into 

 consideration the achievements of the pupils as well as their 

 rate of progress. 



Relation between Overage and Retardation. As was pointed 

 out above, the amount of retardation is not the same as the 

 amount of overageness, no matter what method is used. We 

 can only assume that the per cent of overage pupils approxi- 

 mates the per cent of retarded pupils. Data are not at hand 

 for showing the closeness of the approximation by either of 

 the above methods for the Indiana school systems studied. 

 They are available for three cities when a modification of the 

 method of computing the amount of overageness and under- 

 ageness was used. The normal age of IB was six or six and 

 a half, the normal age of lA was six and a half or seven, etc. 

 Using this method we have the following facts : 



Retarded Overage Difference 



Dubuque, lowa^ 26 32 —6 



Rochester, N. Y.^^ 33 42 —9 



'Cleveland, Ohio^ 32 29 +3 



1 Harris, J. H., and Anderson, H. W. "An Investigation of the Progress of Children 

 Throug-h the Elementary Schools of Dubuque, Iowa." 



- From an unpublished report by Assistant Supt. J. P. O'Hern. 



3 Ayres, L. P. "Child Accounting in the Public Schools" (Cleveland Survey Report). 



