Retardation in the Reading public schools

Front matter

EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY

Editor: LIGHTNER WITHER

UNivEnsrry of Pennsylvania

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Inteoduction" % 9

II. Figures of Enrolment. School Census 12

I. Intkoduction

During the last six years investigations have been conducted under the auspices of the Psychological Department of the University of Pennsylvania, to find out the various causes for the retardation of a large per cent of the boys and girls enrolled in the public schools. Although these and other investigations have done much to throw light upon the shortcomings and defects of the present elementary school system, much remains to be done. It was, therefore, with a view toward obtaining further knowledge in regard to the amount of retardation in each of the eight elementary grades and of finding some of the fundamental causes contributing thereto, that the present investigation was undertaken.

The original plan was to study the school history of the first year classes enrolled in the Reading high schools in September, 1908, tracing the children back for at least eight years to the time when normally they should have entered the first grade, and including all who had ever belonged to these classes. A careful examination of the available data, however, soon disclosed the fact that previous to 1905 the records were imperfect, and even as far as they went were unreliable and taken under abnormal conditions. The explanation for this is that in 1902 the old regime of gradation which had been in use for at least seventeen years was completely changed and the commonly accepted twelve-year system put into operation. It is obvious that such a change produces abnormal conditions throughout the grades and that it will take at least three or four years before a new system can be applied effectively under anything like normal conditions.

The original plan, therefore, had to be abandoned. In its place was adopted a study of the school history of the pupils enrolled in the eight elementary grades in October, 1908, for the three years 1906-1909. This could not have been done without the liberal assistance given by the superintendent, supervisors, and teachers.

The sources of the data collected fall under three heads: (1) the school records; (2) the personal knowledge of the teachers, and (3) information furnished by the home through the child. Among the former must be mentioned the record card given to the child upon entering school. The data recorded on these since 1905 are very reliable, the form being shown in the following duplicate :

Public Schools, Eeading, Pa.

Eecord of Born

Admitted to Building Grade ,

Date of admission Date of vaccination

* Indicates transfer.

Date of Pro. or Trans.

To grade

Division

Building

Date of Pro. or Trans.

To grade

Division

Building

Owing to differences in recording the division and to lack of a clear distinction between division A and B in many of the grades, the data recorded under the division column had to be discarded. The date of vaccination was also omitted, although in a few cases a child was kept out of school on account of not being vaccinated.

On the blanks returned the names of 6025 boys and 5Y36 girls were recorded as regularly enrolled pupils for the first three months. Of these 5335 boys and 5130 girls, a total of 10,465 belonged to the public schools, and 690 boys and 606 girls to the parochial schools. Classified according to grade they are as follows:

INTRODUCTION. 11

Table I. — Grade Distribution according to Blanks Returned from Both Public and Parochial Schools.

Public Schools

Parochial Schools des

Boys

Girls

Boys

Girls

1,011

1,963

1,587

1,512

1,612

1,523

1,079

In the various computations a large number of these blanks had to be rejected for want of sufficient information, especially those of the parochial schools, from which not enough aetailed information was received to warrant deductions. In addition to these all records of apparent or real abnormalities due to uncontrollable circumstances were also rejected in all computations which involved the merits of the educational system.