Monroe: Progress and Promotion 



51 



promotions. Somewhere between these extremes is the point 

 at which the most favorable conditions will be found. 



It will be recognized that the setting of standards of pro- 

 motions in the way just suggested raises the whole question 

 of marking systems. Space does not permit a consideration 

 of this topic. Those who may be interested will find a good 

 account together with a bibliography, 'Teachers' Marks and 

 the Reconstruction of the Marking System", by H. 0. Rugg 

 in Elementary School Journal, Vol. 18, pp. 701-719. 



It is possible to use several different ''policies of promo- 

 tion" with the same course of study content. Thus a group 

 of twenty cities having identical course of study content, chil- 

 dren of equivalent ability and teachers equally efficient might 

 exhibit twenty different rates of promotion simply because 

 they had different promotion policies. In one city it might 

 be the policy to promote practically all children. In another 

 city it might be the policy to fail a large per cent. 



Thus, we must not conclude from Table XVI that the 

 Indiana cities have better courses of study or more efficient 

 teaching than the Kansas cities. This may be true but the 

 data presented here are not sufficient to show that it is. The 

 facts simply show that a larger per cent of the pupils are 

 promoted in Indiana. This may be due to any one or a com- 

 bination of these causes: (1) promotion policy, (2) quality 

 of instruction, (3) ability of pupils, and (4) indirectly the 

 course of study. 



Age, Years-in-School Progress Tables. It has been 

 pointed out that an age-grade table is an unsatisfactory basis 

 for computing the retardation of children unless we interpret 

 retardation in terms of overage rather than progress. No 

 method of computing "overage" and "underage" will give 

 results which can be considered to represent a true statement 

 of actual retardation and acceleration. Therefore, if one wishes 

 a reliable basis for computing retardation and acceleration 

 one must have a table which shows the relation between the 

 years in school and the grade reached. Such a table would 

 be similar in form to Tables I to VI, the years in school taking 

 the place of the ages. From such a table the computation 

 of retardation and acceleration would give true results. 



