Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

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teristics of the workplace is that it is organized to produce a product.… Surely you are not arguing that the workplace and the workworld is the same kind of place that we should generate for kids in our schools? Ken: Again, it depends on the level of health that the workplace presents us. Jim: So what we are in the business of doing is just generating little workers? Where do the kids come into the equation of this process? Ken: Kids should drive the terms forming the equation. We should be looking at them and their needs to determine how best to work with them, not forcing them into the mould our traditional classrooms and traditional methods require.... Most work places are still 180 degrees away from this, however—they are negative, coercive, demanding. But many in the American workplace are reinventing or reengineering that workplace. Many are beginning to look at the “old” research that John Champlin mentioned in our summer interview—Getzels and Guba and their organizational development work, Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene work, and Deming’s ideas [TQM]. In reinventing the workplace, they believe it can be caused to be both productive and satisfying for the worker. We can create that in the classroom and have kids who are challenged, motivated, and excited to be there.... Jim: …Our movement has based its efforts on the research, but apparently the research in this case is perceived as either out of date or out of fashion. Why do we need to look outside to industry for models that we have described inside the ML/OBE field? Ken: So many of the concepts presented by business gurus about workplace change are summed up very well in Mastery Learning’s basic beliefs. Jim: Is it that people within the Mastery or the Outcomes movement can only go so far, or do we need a swift kick from the outside? Ken: As far as our mental models go, experience and environment have put burden some blinders on us, and many will not see the implications of ideas until they are approached from a different perspective. I would rather we did not need so many detours, but if Deming gets us closer to better schools, then we “do” Deming. I incorporated his ideas and many business models when I was directing a district’s restructuring efforts. We all want the research to drive our efforts, but our movement’s Mastery Learning research exists in a broader context, and education research just does not have a lot of credibility among too many educators. The reasons are mostly poor ones, but they exist nonetheless and form a real barrier to change. If Deming presents an idea without the research prejudice baggage attached, I will start with Deming and end up teaching the group about the research. First, whether or not you have been engaged in this debate as yet, you need to become familiar with the concerns and issues of the Christian Coalition. You must be prepared to respond to its challenges, which are often based on half truths and misinformation. These issues must be carefully and clearly explained to those citizens who wish to hear the edu cators’ point of view. This will require all of us to be familiar with the research on such important topics as Mastery Learning, Continuous Progress, and De-Tracking—to mention just a few. Second, to develop mainstream community involvement, I strongly recommend that school and district leaders create a task force to study the issues related to school reform and be prepared to present their views along with the views that will be presented by the Christian Coalition. I truly believe that if educators have to debate the coalition alone, more often than not, educators will lose the debate on school reform. We need to make sure that A LETTER FROM L AWRENCE W. L EZOTTE , PUBLISHER OF E FFECTIVE S CHOOLS R ESEARCH Abstracts , was written to his colleagues in September, 1993. An excerpt follows: