I understand that ‘F’ is for ‘Fail’, but why wasn’t it decided to make ‘E’ the failing grade?
'e flunked!
Just a WAG–wouldn’t some parents/children perhaps misconstrue an E as Excellent?
It depends on the school district.
When I was going to (elementary) parochial school, the bottom grade was U, Unsatisfactory, while the public schools in my neighborhood did use E for the worst grade.
I would guess that schools used F, Failure, in the way that my school used U: it set the complete flunking of a class outside normal “range” of letters/grades.
WAG, but it is super easy to forge an F into an E, but turning an F into a D is not so easy. That, or the grading scale was A-D with anything else being a “fail”, with that evetually eing shortened to F to fit in a one-character column.
WAG is in the hizouse.
When I was in public grade school in the 1970’s, there was a period where one could “earn” an E for flunking.
There was also a period when I was in elementary school when an A-B-C-D-F scale was in place for most of the academic-type classes, but an E-S-U scale–for Excellent, Satisfactory, and Unsatisfactory–existed for certain other classes that were evidently deemed less important–music, IIRC, was one of those classes. Probably art was, too, though I can’t remember.
In high school, I learned that one can also earn I’s.
There has been a thread on this before, but I’m having a heck of a time finding it. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to say something that may seem a little nonsensical.
SEARCHFORE SEARCHFORF
Thank you.
Ah, well done. Your search skills are far beyond mine. 
Oh, and also School grading system.
Thanks, Achernar. I just looked for ‘grades’ in GQ over the last year. Found 6 pages, did a quick flick through.
Heh. Pity my typin’ ain’t up to speed at the moment, tho. 
Dang! Thanks Ice Wolf…(and to the others who contributed). Much obliged. The fact that I’ve been away for quite some time probably didn’t help.
Thanks again.
I got an H in eighth grade once. I found out that it stood for, bafflingly, “incomplete,” and I had forgotten to make up a test or something. Confused the hell out of my parents.