Boys        2.4    18.0    29.4    27.1    15.0    4.4    2.3    0.7
Girls       1.1    16.0    29.6    23.8    16.4    8.6    2.7    1.6

These percentages are computed from the age totals in Table VI, just as the ones preceding are computed from Table V. It seems worthy of note here that close to 50 per cent of the non-failing drop-outs occur under 16 years of age, for both the boys and the girls; but that the number of the failing pupils who drop out does not reach 20 per cent for the boys or the girls in these same years.  It is likewise remarkable in these distributions that the percentages for boys and for girls show such slight differences in either of the two groupings.

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER II

If to the recorded failures the virtual but unrecorded ones are added, the percentage of failing pupils is 66 per cent.  This percentage is higher for the boys than for the girls by a difference of 6 per cent.

Of the graduating pupils, 58.1 per cent fail one or more times.

Of the non-failing non-graduates 78 per cent are lost from school by the end of their first year.  But the failing non-graduates have not lost such a percentage before the end of the third year.

The percentage of pupils failing increases for the first four semesters, and lowers but little for two more semesters.  One third to one half of the pupils fail in each semester to seventh.

In the distribution of failures by ages and semesters, 86 per cent are found from ages 15 to 18 inclusive.  Thirty-four per cent of the failures occur after the end of the second year, when 52.2 per cent of the pupils have been lost and others are leaving continuously.

Mathematics, Latin, and English head the list in the percentages of total failures, and together provide nearly 60 per cent of the failures; but English has a large subject-enrollment to balance its count in failures.

Mathematics, Latin, and German fail the highest percentages on the number of pupils taking the subjects.

In several subjects the percentages of failure based on the total failures are higher for the graduates than for the non-graduates.

For the pupils dropping out without failure the median age is at 16, with the mode at 15.  For the failing drop-outs both the median and the mode are at the age of 17.  Nearly 50 per cent of the non-failing drop-outs occur under age 16, but not 20 per cent of the failing non-graduates are gone by that age.  The percentage of drop-outs is higher for older pupils.

REFERENCES: 

5.  Kelley, T.L.  “A Study of High School and University Grades, with Reference to Their Intercorrelation and the Causes of Elimination,” Journal of Educational Psychology, 6:365.

6.  Johnson, G.R.  “Qualitative Elimination in High School,” School Review, 18:680.