TABLE 32. Median and average ratios between the total number of boys and girls found in each grade and the average of the largest age groups in 80 cities in 1908 and 1918. TABLE 32.-Median and average ratios between the total number of boys and girls found in each grade and the average of the largest age groups in 80 cities in 1908 and 1918Continued. In Table 32 and figure 25 the medians for each group of cities for 1908 and 1918 for both boys and girls in each grade have been assembled. This figure, therefore, summarizes the medial central tendencies exhibited as modes in the four preceding figures. The connotation of the median should be clearly understood at this point. In the cities of group A in 1918 it is found that as many cities had more than 141 pupils in the first grade for each 100 beginners as had a smaller corresponding percentage, a large and a small city being considered of equal importance. This diagram, therefore, measures city school practices and does not represent the average percentage of pupils surviving to each grade in all cities combined. It should also be reiterated that these medians are derived from the ratio between the enrollment in each grade and the largest age group. The fact that very large cities have relatively low survival percentages in the upper grades has little effect in drawing the medians down. The high-school medial survival percentages, therefore, happen to be about correct for the "average" pupil, as will be shown later. In each part of figure 25 a striking improvement is apparent in the number of survivors. In the lower grades in 1908 the proportion of retarded pupils exceeded the proportion of such pupils in the same grades in 1918. In the upper grades the reverse condition prevails, in that more pupils are now reaching these advanced grades than did in 1908. The "humps" in the black curves for 1918 in cities of group B show that there are now more pupils in the first year of high school than in the eighth grade. This unexpected situation may mean that pupils after completing the eighth grade in private schools are entering the public schools for secondary school work; that pupils completing the elementary school course in rural schools are coming to the city to take up high-school work; or that the number of failures in the first year of high school causes an unusual number of retarded pupils to be registered in this grade. The data submitted scarcely warrant any further deductions in localizing the cause of this irregularity. It will be noticed that there is a smaller percentage of retardation among girls than among boys in the lower grades, and that a greater proportion of girls than boys survive to the upper grades. This condition is apparent when one compares the right and left sections of corresponding diagrams. In Table 32 and figure 26 average survival percentages are shown. These percentages relate to individual pupils and not to city school practices. With these percentages the corresponding survival percentages of each city should be compared. In this manner any city can determine just how it stands as compared with these averages. If, for instance, the survival percentage for boys in a given city in the fourth year of high school is found to be 10, it is known at once that this percentage is low, since, granting the reliability of this method of computing survival percentages, the average for all 80 cities for boys is 13. In a similar manner it is seen that on an average 17 girls survive out of each 100 that began 12 years earlier. It should be pointed out that these survival percentages for the upper grades are too low, since the number in each grade has been divided by the largest age group, which is too large to represent the number of beginners who have now reached the upper grades. This, however, does not vitiate comparisons in any considerable way, since the survival percentages of the individual city are probably equally as erroneous as are the final average survival percentages. As in the case of corresponding median survival percentages, better conditions are shown for 1918 than for 1908. In other words, there are comparatively fewer "repeaters" in the lower grades and more "survivals" to the upper grades. This wholesome tendency is unmistakably shown in figure 26. |