Читать книгу Introduction to the scientific study of education - Charles Hubbard Judd - Страница 11
Effectiveness of Studies of Retardation
ОглавлениеFirst, we may refer to investigations which have been made of the rate of promotion of pupils through the grades.
Whenever a pupil fails to complete the work of a grade in the appointed time, it is evident that there is some kind of maladjustment. The pupil may be incompetent to do the work required of him because he is mentally deficient. On the other hand, it may be that the work is ill chosen and in need of revision. The following statement from one of the leading students of education in the United States describes with clearness the problem and the progress made in meeting it.
Just ten years ago the distinguished superintendent of schools of New York called attention to the fact that 39 per cent of the children in the schools of that city were above the normal ages for their grades. This aroused widespread investigation, which showed that similar conditions obtained in other cities throughout the country. Soon studies of this phase of educational efficiency showed that the same conditions which resulted in our schools being crowded with retarded children also prevented a large proportion of these children from ever completing the elementary grades.
About seven years ago this became one of the most widely studied problems of educational administration, and in the past four it has been one of the prominent parts of the school surveys. During the entire period hundreds of superintendents throughout the country have been readjusting their schools to better the conditions disclosed.
In these seven years the number of children graduating each year from the elementary schools of America has doubled. The number now is three quarters of a million greater annually than it was then. The only great organized industry in America that has increased the output of its finished product as rapidly as the public schools during the past seven years is the automobile industry.
It is probable that no other one thing so fundamentally important to the future of America as this accomplishment of our public schools has taken place in recent years. There is every evidence that this is the direct result of applying measurements to education. If the school survey movement now under way can produce other results at all comparable with this one, we need have no fear for the outcome.3
The quotation does not tell us how the reform has been worked out. That is a long story. In some cities better teachers were needed and have been employed. In a great number of cases the course of study has been revised. Sometimes smaller classes have been provided. So on through a long list of details, one might enumerate the reforms which have resulted from a careful study of the one fact that pupils in the schools were older than they normally should be.