The extent of dropouts in public schools in Richmond and metropolitan area

About the middle or the nineteenth century the graded school emerged, which resulted in a great number of failures, which, in turn caused an overloading of lower grades and many dropouts in the upper grades.l Although dropouts in large numbers began at about this time it has been only in recent years that they have been classified as a problem. The problem rises largely from the concept that everyone should be in school until eighteen, or until he completes high school. Statistics dealing with the trends of all youth show that eighty per cent enter the ninth grade and only fifty percent reman to graduate from high school. This seems to be the trend all over the country. Although, in the Northwestern States, as many as sixty per cent finish high school while in the Southern States the percentage may be as low as forty percent