Project Follow Through and the Tragic Buffoons

I do not like these whited sepulchers who impersonate life; I do not like these weary and played-out people who wrap themselves in wisdom and look "objective"; I do not like the agitators dressed up as heroes who wear the magic cap of ideals on their straw heads; I do not like these ambitious artists who like to pose as ascetics and priests but who are at bottom only tragic buffoons; and I also do not like these latest speculators in idealism… [Nietzsche. The genealogy of morals. Third essay, section 26]

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their gaudy visions and hallucinations seriously. [H.L. Mencken. From the
Smart Set, June, 1920.]

Dear Reader.  I hope this piece isn’t too pedantic.  [Professor Plum can sling it like nobody’s bizness.]  But I figured that an installment of superficial one-liners would not only insult your obvious intelligence but be of little use.

The huge gap in school achievement and later quality of life between minority and white students is usually explained by things that are largely irrelevant--culture, "race," family structure, the percentage of minority children in a school, socioeconomic status, students' self-perceptions and teachers' expectations.   I’d like to think that focusing on the wrong things is simple laziness--a person looking for keys under a streetlamp; it’s the easiest place.  But now I think it’s more because “social reformers” are happiest dealing with vague abstractions—their “big picture” of how “society oppresses the poor.”  This enables them to conjure up gaudy schemes (which elicit hormonal secretions.  The bigger the scheme the more important they feel.), to get long-running grants and high prestige positions, hire friends, write articles, and end up with nice retirement annuities.   

Let’s get serious about improving achievement.  You aren’t going to change anyone’s “race” or culture.  No “program” is going to raise children’s self-esteem and children’s and teachers’ expectations—for very long.  And we aren’t going to “make the distribution of wealth more equitable or equal”—even if we knew what that meant.  These sorts of efforts to create a “new man” and to revolutionize society almost always yield disaster.  [Think “Soviet Union.”]  But by then the reformers are long gone.  Besides, their kids are in private schools.   But don’t tell that to the reformers.  They’ll get testy.  After all, you're taking away their stock in trade—the false promise of edutopia—if we’d only give them power, money, our kids, and all the time in the world.

Reformers almost never consider the obvious.  What is closest to student learning is not race, social class, culture, school size, and all the other factors the reformers tout, but communication with the teacher—organized as instruction within a curriculum.   The reason poor kids don’t learn much in school is that they come to school less prepared and because most schools use curricula that are horrible (superficial coverage, illogical sequences, little built-in practice) and teaching methods that miscommunicate information—as discussed here. 

And there are tons of good data showing that well designed curricula and logically clear instruction can override the effects of social class, minority group status, and family background.

Follow Through
In the mid 1960’s, President Lyndon Johnson’s administration created Head Start—a large number of preschool programs primarily for disadvantaged children.  After a few years he also funded Follow Through, to see which Head Start models (curricula) yielded the most beneficial change.  Pretty rational.  Find out what works best and promote it.  Find out what fails and dump it.  That’s how they do it in medicine, engineering, and other serious professions.

That’s NOT how they do it in education.

Follow Through ran from 1967 to 1995.  It tested nine curricula--many of which are still used.  Follow Through involved about 75,000 children per year in about 180 schools.  Each model school was compared with control schools. 

Here’s a summary description of the models.

Cognitive/Conceptual Skills Models
Cognitively-Oriented Curriculum (High Scope Foundation).
This program (STILL widely used) was based on Piaget's theory of stages of cognitive development, and his assertion that teachers should be more like guides on the side rather than communicators of information.   

Florida Parent Education Model (University of Florida).
This program taught parents of disadvantaged children to teach their children. At the same time, students were taught in the classroom using a Piagetian approach.

Tucson Early Education Model (University of Arizona).
TEEM used a language-experience approach (much like whole language). It was based on the notion that children have different learning styles.

Affective Skills Models
Bank Street College Model (Bank Street College of Education).
This model emphasized learning centers that gave children many options, such as counting blocks and quiet areas for reading.  Much of the teaching was incidental as the teacher tried to follow children’s lead. 

Open Education Model (Education Development Center).
This model was derived from the British Infant School model. Reading and writing were not taught directly, but through stimulating a desire to communicate.

Responsive Education Model (Far West Laboratory).
This eclectic model used learning centers and students’ interests to determine when and where each child would be stationed. The development of self-esteem was considered essential to the acquisition of academic skills.

Basic Skills Models
Behavior Analysis Model (University of Kansas).
Developed by Donald Bushell, this model used a behavioral (reinforcement) approach for teaching reading, arithmetic, handwriting, and spelling.  Children received praise and tokens for correct responses. Teachers used programmed reading materials that presented tasks in small steps.

Language Development (Bilingual) Model (Southwest Educational Developmental Laboratory).
This model used an eclectic approach based on language development. When needed, material was presented first in Spanish and then in English.

Direct Instruction Model (University of Oregon).
Developed by Siegfried Engelmann and Wes Becker, this model used the DISTAR (Direct Instruction System for Teaching, Achievement, and Remediation) reading, arithmetic, and language programs. The model assumes that the teacher is responsible for what the children learn.

Here are some of the main features of Direct Instruction.
1. Direct Instruction focuses on cognitive learning--concepts, propositions, cognitive strategies.  It is not rote learning.

2. Brief (5 minute) placement tests are given to ensure that each child begins with lessons for which he or she is prepared. 

3. Children are taught in small groups.

4. The children sit in front of the teacher--close enough that she can see and hear each one.

5. Lessons move at a brisk pace.  This sustains children's attention and results in a high rate of learning opportunities per minute.

6. Instruction is organized in a logical-developmental sequence.  All of the concepts, rules, and strategies that students need in any lesson have already been taught.  In addition, what they learn in any lesson is used in later lessons.  There is no inert knowledge.

7. Knowledge (e.g., how to solve 4 + X = 12; how to sound out words) is taught directly and explicitly.  For example, the teacher verbalizes her reasoning process while demonstrating the strategy for solving an arithmetic problem.  This enables students to internalize the teacher's knowledge and become independent.

8. Instruction is aimed at mastery.  The group and each child is always "firm" before the teacher moves to the next exercise.   

9. Teacher-student communication has a common format from lesson to lesson.  This means that students need to attend only to the content of the communication, and do not have to figure out how the teacher is communicating.  The general format is Model, Lead, Test:
a. Model:  For example, the teacher says, "I can read this word the slow way.  Listen.  wh e n."

b. Lead:  This step is guided practice; teacher and students work problems, sound out new words, or read passages together.  For example, the teacher says, "Read this word with me. 
Get ready.  wh e n."

c. Test: Children now do the exercise on their own.  "Your turn to read this word the slow way.  Get ready..."

[More on this highly effective format later.]

10. Gradually, instruction moves from a teacher-guided to a more student-guided format. 

11. Direct Instruction would most likely be used at the beginning of some class periods.  The rest of a class period would be individual or small group work on generalizing or adapting what was learned to new material or problems.

[From G. L. Adams (1995).  Project Follow Through: In-depth and Beyond.  Effective  School Practices, 15 , 1, Winter. ]

By the way, I DON'T consider DI to be the only way to teach effectively.  But it surely IS effective.

Findings.  Which Curricula Did Good Things for Kids?  Which Curricula Made it Worse for Kids?
A major source of data was scores on the Metropolitan Achievement Test, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, and the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Scale.  The main results were as follows.

1. Children who were taught reading, spelling, and math with Direct Instruction were far superior in achievement to children taught with any other method in both basic and higher-order conceptual skills (e.g., problem solving).  Most of the other "innovative" models did far worse even than non-DI control schools.

2. Disadvantaged children taught with Direct Instruction moved from the 20th percentile on nationally- standardized tests to the 50th percentile.  In other words, Direct Instruction made them regular students in achievement.  However, the standing of disadvantaged children receiving some of the other (still used) non-DI curricula decreased relative to the rest of the country.

3. Children taught with Direct Instruction developed higher self-esteem and a stronger sense of control of their learning than did children receiving the other forms of instruction; this, despite the fact that some of the other curricula focused on self-esteem.

4. Follow-up studies showed that children (predominantly Black or Hispanic) who had been taught reading and math using Direct Instruction in elementary school were, at the end of the 9th grade, still one year ahead of children who had been in control (non-Direct Instruction) schools in reading, and 7 months ahead of control children in math.

Also, in contrast to comparison groups of children who had not received Direct Instruction in earlier years, former Direct Instruction students had higher rates of graduating high school on time, lower rates of dropping out, and higher rates of applying and being accepted into college.

Here’s a graph from the Washington Times. 

Notice that DI and Behavior Analysis—the two models that had clear objectives, taught in a logically progressive sequence, involved teachers focusing on exactly what they wanted kids to learn, communicated as clearly as possible, and provided practice to the point of mastery—did the best in all areas—how much kids learned, how they felt about themselves, and how much control they felt they had over their learning. 

Ironic.  The MOST teacher-directed approaches produced kids who felt that THEY were in control of their learning.  I suspect this is because they learned SO MUCH and so easily!

So, you think schools, districts, and states adopted Direct Instruction and Behavior Analysis?  WRONG, Pilgrim.  Instead, the Ford Foundation hired another team of statisticians to analyze the data which HAD been analyzed by ABT Associates in Cambridge, MA.  Apparently, the Ford Foundation, long a supporter of so-called progressive causes and programs, was not happy that the “progressive” ed programs (whole language, child-directed, self-esteem first, constructivist) not only were beaten by their self-created enemy (Direct Instruction and Behavior Analysis) but (as the graph shows) actually SUPPRESSED children’s growth.

The new statisticians made the claim that no model did any better than the others.

And THIS was the news sent throughout edland.  “Do whatever you want.  They are all good.  And don’t listen to the people who say DI was the best.”

Result?  DI and Behavior Analysis were shunned for decades.  And the eduquacks kept training new teachers to use the models that Follow Through data had shown were next to useless and often destructive. 

You see, just as the grand social reformers presume that OUR society belongs to THEM (because they assume that they are much smarter than the rest of us) and is an object for them to experiment with, so the edureformers consider kids and their futures to be their “responsibility” (for they are SO much smarter than parents and teachers) and also their property.  And THIS is why the past 100 years in education is largely the history of experimenting with kids.

This has begun to change—as states have passed accountability legislation making districts raise achievement or else.  Also, No Child Left Behind and Reading First put pressure on schools to use curricula and methods that are shown to work—which narrows the field to Direct Instruction and programs that share its design features.

But make no mistake, the progressive eduquacks are alive and well.  This is their “hudna.”  They are doing what they have always done.  Waiting for a change in administration.  Then they will say, “WE’RE BAAAAACK!”

[An installment, soon, on what can be done to secure the beach—a clever allusion to the Invasion at Normandy.]

Comments

[ookrana]

IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT YOU LUMP ALL DEMOCRATS INTO A SINGLE GROUP......WHETHER YOU WISH TO RECOGNIZE IT OR NOT.....SOME DEMOCRATS THINK LIKE YOU DO.....SOME DEMOCRATS WOULD RISK THEIR WHOLE FUTURES UPON YOUR BELIEFS.....

BY THE WAY....YOU ARE DEAD WRONG ABOUT KERRY

VERY GOOD READ

[Prof. Plum]

Okay, Ookrana! Finally found me, did you?

Ookrana is a buddy of mine who's blog is up and is sure to please, esp on a dark and stormy night and you are onloading scotch and smoking a soothing cigar in a candlelit room.

http://thejanitor.typepad.com/diaries_of_the_beast/

Ookrana is trying to provoke Professor Plum. But PP is not an easy to provoker.

[ookrana]

one shameless plug, deserves another....wanna bet lunch on the election.....i hear ohio has great lunch counters!!!!!

[dr. cookie]

Oh Professor. We have things to discuss. You are so right. (I'm studying this for my dissertation.)

I am concerned that NCLB will be defanged in a Kerry administration, and all the educators can exhale and go back to the same lousy habits as before, blaming kids for being poor, blaming budgets for being small, blaming anyone but themselves and their professional work for the failure of disadvantaged kids to learn. I hope I'm wrong.

I'll be back. Keep it up.

[Mike]

I'm almost done reading Diane Ravitch's "Left Back", telling the [somewhat dismal] story of American education since about the 1880s.

It doesn't look like we've learned a lot in all that time. Methods that work are ridiculed and thrown out, and ones that haven't worked are re-worked and put in place again.

Is there any hope?

(And now I see from Joanne Jacob'e site that "Summerhill" is being reprinted (with the usual nod to current PC considerations).)

[ookrana]

to.... "Dr. Cookie".....hey, stud... sounds like you are exactly the right kind of ass licking "professional" for today's education establishment.....another dissertation....exactly what the freaking country needs.....

if you want direct instruction to succeed...you had better come down from your ivory tower....and crawl into the slime of politics, money and the world of naked power....its the only way the method will defeat the bullshit currently masquerading as education. But i see you as unwilling to get your hands soiled.......

face it....the people you guys rant at are a lot better at getting their agenda across....otherwise, why are they wrong, AND in control????

im sorry....politics is such a nasty word amoung the "educated"....90% of you thinkers have proven less effective than one Irish ward healer in Boston,,,who did not graduate high school....but can get results....hey, Dr. Cookie(what a fitting name), ever heard of results?????

best regards

Ookrana

[Prof Plum]

May I suggest that we are on the same side and that we please treat each other with respect, even though (in our passion to get the right things done for teachers, kids, and nation, and out of our anger at all the morlocks who profit from fads) we may temporarily be in thrawl to the war god, Ares.

Dr. Cookie has a fine website, here...

http://www.drcookie.blogspot.com/

She addresses many essential issues with care and intelligence. Most importantly, I agree with her.

Both Dr. Cookie and Ookrana pose one of THE eternal problems. "How far SHOULD you go down the road of nasty politics in the service of The Good"?

Some folks would say, "The ends don't justify the means."

I say, "Oh? Well what DOES justify the means?"

Other folks might warn, "Careful. You might end up just as evil as your adversaries who use any means necessary to control education (packing state agencies, creating the standard courses of study that sustain them in their jobs and sustain ideology, hiring new faculty who agree with them, etc. and so forth)."

I'm not too concerned with that. I don't think that the personality of the decent and intelligent person (e.g., someone reading this) is so flimsy that if a person did something EXTREME in the service of the good, that he or she would then BECOME a different kind of person. He or she would still be a decent person who knows that...

sometimes you will never achieve moral ends solely with moral means.

War is one example.

As to practical politics, No Child Left Behind and Reading First (which are just STARTERS in this administration's efforts to make education a serious scientific accountable endeavor) were withoout doubt as down-and-dirty political as anything Boston and Chicago ward healers ever did--well, except that the Bush admin hasn't exactly given any progressive ed opponents a refreshing and permanent dip in the ocean, wearing concrete booties.

I wonder if Dr. Cookie would share her dissertation topic with this blog. There appear to be a lot of thoughtful folks reading here.

[Ookrana]

Delusions of morality are not helpful in war.
War is the present state of American education, far removed from polite discourse. If children are to be valued, they must be defended. Anyone disagreeing with Professor Plum is not only an enemy of our country's future, but a child abuser. A long time ago, the British used to behead a villain and post the head upon a pole at the walls of a city. It was a warning, producing thought before a felonious act. Relative to education in America, the warning should read."Do not screw around with my kid's mind!!". Unfortunately, it has come to that. His antagonist cannot be reasoned with, they must be defeated.

[Engineer-Poet]

Nit: The phrase is ward heeler, as in a person who brings the voters to heel on behalf of the political machine.

They have nothing to do with healing, being more often a symptom of illness (as everyone here should know).

See: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=ward+heeler

[dr. cookie]

Professor, living in the world of academe means you have to hold your cards close to the vest. I have already been warned by several similar minded academics not to choose a topic that is too, well, identifiable as outside the group-think. If I want a job, that is.

And I do want I job. So I try to fly under the radar.

I've been really sick for the past few weeks with a nasty cold, probably flu. But when I get over it, I will certainly share the details. I'll say this so far: I started out as a policy person, but have decided that to real change education, to really help all kids learn, you have to go where the rubber meets the road--into the classroom.

What is most shocking about teaching is that there appears to be no shared profressional protocols, practices, methods, etc. Think about it. Imagine another profession, medicine, orchestral music, police work, without shared protocols, practices. Imagine these professions without shared goals and outcomes.

That's teaching.

What's hopeful is that medicine looked quite similar at beginning of the 20th century. There was a terrific document called the Flexner Report that helped direct medical schools to standardize education, practices, required skills, and knowledge for new physicians. Education needs a Flexner Report.

I know this sounds insane. Like, all the social constructionists etc. are going to buy into a Flexner Report? But at least I can start somewhere.

My dissertation is about the potential for creating a shared protocal for teaching reading, particularly reading to upper elementary students. And it's not at all wishy-washy. Anything but. Wait and see.

[Engineer-Poet]

It's obvious that the people inside the field are too weak in the relevant scientific methods to be able to write a report with the rigor of e.g. a human drug trial. Such an effort might take a cross-disciplinary team from the hard sciences (and it is such a pity that Richard Feynman and Carl Sagan are no longer around to lend their considerable talents, reputations and no-nonsense attitudes to the effort).

[ookrana]

cookie and the "poet".....miss the point....an absolutely PERFECT instructional construct exists right now!!!!...however, without the ward heelers (many thanks to the poet for correcting my spelling, and informing me of the definition, perhaps you can next look up the word "pretentious" and then look in the mirror?)

And no dissertation or corection of a mispelled word, or a dead dreamer like Carl Sagan (another "ratings whore") is going to change the fact, that without money and political power, direct instruction will not spread at a rate fast enough to make a difference to this generation, or the next one. Forgive me, i dont know much, so i hope your comments continue (I DO learn so much from people smarther than I), they prove my point. I am correct, and you two obviously live in another galaxy.

Best Regards.....

[ookrana]

cookie, sorry about calling you a stud. How about "studette"?

Best Regards....

[dr.cookie]

Studette? Okay. I'll take it.

Meanwhile, I continue in the statistical salt mines. More to come.

[jannieeug77]

you sound like GREEN EGGS AND HAM . do you remember that?

[ookrana]

Dr. Plum....my mother wrote the "Green Eggs and Ham" comment....I turned her on to your site....as a mother, and a person with two decades of life more than ouselves, she seems to agree with you, but compares you with her son....

that both of us are children....and someday, we will learn that, in the end, we can only do what we can...to simply try....

Her point?

I thinks she likes you.....high praise indeed, believe me....she is no one's fool, except for the fact she puts up with me.....God Bless her....

best regards,

ookrana

[also-inside-the-blob]

Great read professor.Just two quick comments, if I may be so presumptuous ... any Democrat elected at any level got there with funding, volunteers, and primary election votes from the teacher unions. Although as individuals these people may not all be evil, wicked, mean, nasty and rotten to the core, they tend inevitably to promote the agenda of the unions. That agenda includes -- forget it, you obviously know what it includes -- it doesn't include effective instruction. It's extremely difficult for any Democrat to buck that agenda in any way, and there's little prospect of that changing. Comment #2 is pedantic. "Ward-heeling" comes from the same analogy as "well-heeled", from the era when the standard of living was so low that only the relatively well-off had decently maintained footwear. Borough politicians didn't bring the voters to heel, but rather heeled them by directing resources and services to their region. In that sense a successful politician kept his ward well-heeled.