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justice, so the supervisor as a personal judge of teaching efficiency is a variable that is exceedingly difficult to reckon with in the application of the McMurry criteria.

Guides and Unstandardized Scales. Numerous guides and scales have been developed of recent years for estimating the work of teachers. These are valuable to the supervisor in that they force analysis of the teaching act and thereby make it possible for him to determine the relatively strong and weak points in the recitation, and afford an opportunity for him to give the teacher some practical suggestions as to the improvement of methods.

The following "ten-point scale" is somewhat typical of helps of this sort.

TEN-POINT SCALE FOR ESTIMATING CLASSROOM WORK IN HIGH SCHOOLS 1

I. "Setting" of class topics in the course.

II. Mastery of intellectual content and effective logical organization of materials.

III. The mechanics of classroom management.

and grasp of pedagogical technique.

Economy of time

IV. Effective emphasis upon the mental processes and values peculiar and essential to the subject.

V. Independence of teacher and class as a growth toward their material.

VI. Suitability to the pupil of the type of recitation employed. The "common sense" factor.

VII.

VIII.

Evidence of culture versus mere erudition.

IX. Class participation and class sense of responsibility.
X. Class respect for learning.

Scales of this sort do not, however, materially assist the supervisor in judging teaching efficiency. In the

1 A tentative scale prepared by the late Professor Charles Hughes Johnston of the University of Illinois in conjunction with the Principals' Club which he founded.

application of this scale, as in the application of the McMurry standards, a marked variable is introduced in the judge who applies it. Furthermore, the points are not of equal significance. Some of these points are several times more significant than others. Two teachers of widely different abilities when measured by this scale may receive the same numerical mark. One may be stronger in the essentials; the other, stronger in the non-essentials. Even if the relative value of each point were determined, the former objection holds.

CHAPTER XV

GROWTH AND APPLICATION OF OBJECTIVE STANDARDS

Classes of Objective Standards. - Objective standards fall roughly into two classes: standardized scores and standardized scales. A standardized score is the median score of all the individual scores made upon a carefully graded test, by a highly selected and widely distributed group of pupils. For example, the median score made on a special test in arithmetic by eighth-grade pupils in many villages and cities of several states is a standardized score. A standardized scale is one composed of a graded series of pupils' contributions each of which has been given a value relative to one whose value has been arbitrarily fixed. Usually the contribution with the arbitrarily fixed value is at the top or bottom of the scale.

The Ayres Handwriting Scale is a standardized scale. The Thorndike Drawing Scale and the Harvard-Newton Composition Scales are standardized scales also. These scales were determined by arbitrarily fixing the value of one or two contributions and then proportioning the other values in the order of their relative merit.

Objective standards generally have been called "tests" or "scales." Since a "scale" is also a test, it is evident that "score" is more descriptive of the fact than "test." For this reason the classification used here consists of scores and scales, respectively.

Origin of Objective Standards. Dr. J. M. Rice is the father of objective standards in America. Zealous for better opportunities for the child, enthused by his psychological studies at Jena and Leipsic, free from prejudices which sometimes result from a limited experience in teaching, he set for his task the exposition of certain evils which he conceived to exist in the public schools. Consequently from 1891 to 1896 he became a critical student of education. After examining the schools of one hundred American cities, he pointed out in the columns of the Forum what seemed to him to be remedial measures for the schools of those cities.

After four years of constant investigation he came to the very decided conviction that concerted effort towards obtaining satisfactory results in public education is impossible until it is known what satisfactory results are. "If we do not know," he wrote in the Forum, December, 1896, "what we mean by satisfactory results, how shall we be able with any degree of intelligence to judge when our task has been satisfactorily performed? Until we come to a definite understanding in regard to this matter, our entire educational work will lack direction and we shall continue, as heretofore, to grope our way along passages completely enveloped in darkness in an endeavor to land we know not where.

"If we might have a standard which would enable us to tell when our task has been completed, our attention might be earnestly directed towards the discovery of short cuts in educational processes. For want of such a standard each individual teacher has thus far been a law unto himself; permitted to experiment on his pupils in accordance with his own individual educational notions, whether in

herited from his grandfather or the result of his study and reflection, entirely regardless of what was being done by others. So long as this condition is possible pedagogy cannot lay claims to recognition as a science. Until an accurate standard of measurement [my italics] is recognized by which such truths may be discovered, ward politicians will continue to wield the baton and educational anarchy will continue to prevail."

SPELLING STANDARDS

The First Objective Standards. In his characteristic way Rice set out in 1896 to establish a standard of measurement for spelling. He undertook personally the herculean task of examining 13,000 children in spelling. This investigation extended over a period of sixteen months and included sixteen American cities.

The children were tested on a list of words, on words given to them in sentences, and on the words used in their compositions. The tabulated results in the Forum for April, 1897, is, so far as I have discovered, the first objective standard in spelling or in any other subject. The list of words standardized by him consists of too few words to be of service in judging the spelling abilities of children. The list of words presented in sentences is subject to the same criticism. This objection does not hold for his composition test. Had he estimated the per cent of words correctly spelled in the compositions on the basis of the number of different words used, instead of upon the basis of the entire number of words used, he would have established the first practical objective standard. As it is, his per cents of words correctly spelled are entirely too high.

Cornman's Spelling Standard. - Dr. O. P. Cornman of

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