Excerpt from The Use of Mental Tests in School Administration, Vol. 4
Within the last two or three decades the public school system has gradually grown more and more complex. Not only have studies and curricula increased in number, but school organization has become highly differentiated and the means of ministering to the needs of individual children have been greatly multiplied. Indeed, a modern school system is as marvelous an expression of complexity in education as the modern city is an expression of complexity of social life.
An accompaniment of greater complexity has been increased school costs. The greater costs are in part a result of the more varied features combined in the modern complex system. Increased costs are partly due, of course, to the gradually changing economic situation and to the higher standards of living which have been established.
The need for careful study of any enterprise or institution increases as complexity becomes greater and as costs multiply. Public schools have shown themselves responsive to this need. Within the last two decades as a result of the initial efforts of Rice, Thorndike, Strayer, and others, scientific procedures applicable to analyzing and measuring the efficiency of school procedures and the costs of the same have been developed. By this time rather satisfactory standards have been established for judging the efficiency of a school plant, the organization of a school system, the ability of children in the various subjects from grade to grade, the costs which are reasonable for various types of school work, and so on. Just as a well established business enterprise no longer relies upon rule of thumb methods nor trial and error processes, so no school system which is economically and efficiently operated may rely upon such methods.
In keeping with the foregoing considerations, the Board of Education of the Berkely Public Schools established a Bureau of Research and Guidance at the opening of the school year 1919. This bureau is responsible for conducting a continuous survey of the most pressing educational and financial problems connected with the operation of the system.
This monograph is the first printed report of the results of the work of this bureau. No effort has been made to compile a complete report of all of the efforts and activities of the Bureau of Research and Guidance. Sufficient results have been achieved, however, and sufficient services been rendered to call forth the brief report made herein. The first chapter concerns itself with a brief summary of some of the major types of work in the Berkeley Public Schools carried on by the bureau. The later chapters set forth in a scientific impersonal way the relation of measurement to efficiency in the classification and teaching of children. Both of these are central problems of large concern in the administration of schools. Hundreds of children in the schools of Berkeley have profited during the last three years in both happiness and growth as a result of the more scientific handling of them through the work of this bureau.
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