Excerpt from The Fifteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Vol. 1: Standards and Tests for the Measurement of the Efficiency of Schools and School Systems

In the pages which follow, the Committee on Standards and Tests Of the National Council of Education presents a series of reports pre pared by its own members and by others who have, upon invitation of the committee, been willing to contribute results Of their study or investigation. The committee feels that these reports furnish most satisfactory evidence Of the progress which has been made in the field of educational measurement during the past few years. The papers of the several contributors may, in general, be classified as contributing (i) to the derivation of scales or units of measurement, and (2) to the application of such units or scales of measurement as have been derived in the field Of educational administration or supervision. In printing, the papers have been grouped as indicated above.

It seems unnecessary with this report in hand to argue in favor of the use of the more precise methods of measurement which have recently been developed. Those interested in the improvement of our schools have always attempted by some method or other to estimate the effi ciency of individual schools or school systems. Often this measurement has been based upon an Opinion not acceptable to another student or investigator, and not frequently upon attempts to measure which have been extremely crude. The examination system as we have commonly had it, not only has been responsible for judgments with respect to the efficiency of schools, or Of school systems, but has also determined in very considerable measure in most school systems the progress of children. In the studies which are reported here, more precise measures give to the student of education a better basis in knowledge of conditions upon which to base his criticism or to develop his improved method Of instruction or administration. The measurement Of results of any sort, whether of the achievements in School subjects, of the cost of any unit or function, or of the rate of progress, and the like, furnishes primarily a knowledge of the situation which makes clear the problems involved, and which may suggest a method of experiment that looks toward the improvement desired.

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