FREE ESSAY ON PERSPECTIVE

PERSPECTIVE

Abstract 
Despite continuing criticism of public education, experimentally demonstrated and field
tested teaching methods have been ignored, rejected, and abandoned. Instead of a stable
consensus regarding best teaching practices, there seems only an unending succession of
innovations. A longstanding educational doctrine appears to underlie this anomalous state
of affairs. Termed developmentalism, it presumes natural ontogenesis to be optimal and it
requires experimentally demonstrated teaching practices to overcome a presumption that
they interfere with an optimal developmental trajectory. It also discourages teachers and
parents from asserting themselves with children. Instead of effective interventions, it
seeks the preservation of a postulated natural perfection. Developmentalism's rich
history is expressed in a literature extending over 400 years. Its notable exponents
include Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget; and its most recent
expressions include developmentally appropriate practice and constructivism. In the years
during which it gained ascendance, developmentalism served as a basis for rejecting harsh
and inhumane teaching methods. Today it impedes efforts to hold schools accountable for
student academic achievement. 
Over the past thirteen years American public schools have been subjected to an increasing
barrage of criticism. The chief object of complaint has been their continuing failure to
equip students with the academic and workplace skills needed in an era of increasing
economic competition. 
Recent expressions evidence a growing public impatience. In an April 1993 statement, U.
S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley commented: A watered down curriculum and low
expectations for too many of our students prevent them from meeting high standards
(Riley, 1993). A September 1993 report by the National Center for Education Statistics
found that 16 to 20 percent of the U. S. adults who perform at the lowest levels of
reading, writing, and arithmetic were high school graduates (Kirsch, Jungblut, Jenkins &
Kolstad, 1993). In November of 1993, the U. S. Department of Education reported that in
comparison to their peers in other industrialized countries, gifted American students
rank near the bottom in math and science achievement (Kantrowitz & Wingert, 1993). In
September of 1994, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC, 1994) disclosed that
since the Nation at Risk report in 1983 there has been little change in the achievement
levels of public school students despite a 43% increase in real dollar expenditures. Near
the end of 1994, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 1994)
described the quality of American education as a major threat to the future economic
well- being, productivity, and competitiveness of the U. S. In April of 1995, Business
Week (Mandel, Melcher, Yang & McNamee, 1995) declared that businesses find too many job
applicants unable to read, write, or do simple arithmetic and that Americans are fed up
with their public schools. 
Berliner and Biddle (1995) and various other commentators (Bracy, 1996; Westbury, 1992)
have attempted to defend the public schools' record by offering a more sympathetic
interpretation of the available evidence. However, a recent review of Berliner and Biddle
(Stedman, 1996a) and the ensuing exchange between Berliner, Biddle and Stedman (Berliner
& Biddle, 1996; Stedman, 1996b) demonstrates that reinterpretation of school and student
performance data is unlikely to convince knowledgeable observers that the ongoing
criticisms of public schooling are manufactured or otherwise off target. 
Despite these mounting concerns, schools have largely ignored the availability of a
number of teaching methodologies that seem capable of producing the kind of achievement
outcomes demanded by the public. They are experimentally validated, field tested, and
known to produce significant improvements in learning. Instead, the schools have
continued to employ a wide variety of untested and unproven practices which are said to
be innovative (Carnine, 1995; Marshall, 1993). In particular, teaching practices such as
mastery learning and Personalized System of Instruction (Bloom, 1976; Guskey & Pigott,
1988; Kulik, Kulik & Bangert-Drowns, 1990), direct instruction (Becker & Carnine, 1980;
White, 1987), positive reinforcement (Lysakowski & Walberg; 1980, 1981), cues and
feedback (Lysakowski & Walberg, 1982), and the variety of similar practices called
explicit teaching (Rosenshine, 1986), are largely ignored despite reviews and meta-
analyses strongly supportive of their effectiveness (Ellson, 1986; Walberg, 1990, 1992).
Yet methodologies such as whole language instruction (Stahl & Miller, 1989), the open
classroom (Giacomia & Hedges, 1982; Hetzel, Rasher, Butcher, & Walberg, 1980; Madamba,
1981; & Peterson, 1980), inquiry learning (El- Nemr, 1980), and a variety practices
purporting to accommodate teaching to student diversity (Boykin, 1986; Dunn, Beaudrey, &
Klavas, 1989; Shipman & Shipman, 1985; Thompson, Entwisle, Alexander, & Sundius, 1992)
continue to be employed despite weak or unfavorable findings or simply a lack of
empirical trials. 
Equally surprising is the observation that many of the ignored and rejected methodologies
are quite similar to those that have been found effective and are routinely used by
special educators and school psychologists (Hallahan, Kauffman, & Lloyd, 1985; Hammill &
Bartel, 1990; Wang, Reynolds & Walberg, 1987). In many instances, the otherwise unused
practices are successfully implemented but only after a student has been identified as
disabled.