Research in science is one thing, research in education is another. When discoveries in the physical or biological sciences make front page news, we can generally be confident that the results have been subjected to scrutiny by the scientific community and that they will withstand criticism for some time to come. When, on rare occasions, a scientific "finding" turns out to be a hoax or a sham or, on less rare occasions, demonstrably baseless, its exposure again makes news. In the field of education, the very opposite is often true. We have become quite accustomed to seeing front-page news treatment given to "research" which purports to have discovered what is wrong with teaches and the schools. But when the educational research community determines soon enough, that the methods used were shoddy and the conclusions unwarranted, the press is usually silent.

Thus, when Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (Pygmalion in the Classroom) "found" that many pupils learn when their teachers expect them to and others do not because their teachers have low expectations, the discovery made the front page of the New York Times. Subsequently, when highly qualified reviewers in the professional journals showed convincingly that the Pygmalion theory was definitely not established by the research methods and the evidence of Rosenthal and Jacobson, there was not a single word about their findings in the Times or elsewhere in the media. Thus, an educational theory had been established and accepted, not on the weight of scientific evidence, but on the wings of a journalistic airing.

Now a new piece of educational research has come upon the scene. A Times front page headline on October 29 reads, "Schools, Not Pupils, Are Found at Fault in Reading Failures." The Education Page of the Sunday Times of October 31 features Fred M. Hechinger's piece, "Reading: Why Some Progress While Others Don't," on the same research. Both pieces are based on a report, "Inner-City Children Can be Taught to Read: Four Successful Schools" by George Weber, Associate Director of the Council for Basic Education. Weber set out to test the hypothesis "that several inner-city public schools exist in the United States where reading achievement in the early grades is far higher than in most inner-city schools, specifically, is at the national average or higher." If true, this would show, "that inner-city can be taught reading well, and it might discover some common factors in the success of good programs."

Weber did find four such schools. (These were schools receiving Title I funds, with a large percentage of the children on free lunch. The two in New York City has acquired the designation "Special Service Schools.") Weber contends that the existence of four inner city schools with average reading progress "shows that the failure in beginning reading typical of inner-city schools is the fault, not of the children or their background, but of the schools. The factors that seem to account for the success of the four schools are strong leadership, high expectations, good atmosphere, strong emphasis on reading, additional reading personnel, use of phonics, individualization, and careful evaluation of pupil progress. On the other hand, some characteristics often thought of as important to school improvement were not essential to the success of the four schools: small class size, achievement grouping, high quality of teaching, school personnel of the same ethnic background as the pupils', preschool education, and outstanding physical facilities."

Outstanding Leaders and Outstanding Questions

In the months to come, the Weber report will undoubtedly be subjected to much critical analysis, but, while the headlines are still before us, several points should be made. 

  • First: Neither the New York Times news story nor Mr. Hechinger's article saw fit to city the Weber report's denial of the validity of the currently popular notion that it is educationally desirable for principals and teachers in a school to have the same ethnic and racial background as the pupils. Given the fact that the many principals and teachers are now being hired on the basis of
    this "theory," why didn't the Times report this finding?
  • Second: The discovery of four schools in the United States where poor children learn to read does not of itself prove that the schools rather than non-school factors are responsible. No effort was made by Weber to find out whether in these particular schools there was a selective process at work. Thus, were there, in these schools, a disproportionate number of children of the working poor as against the non-working poor? Was there, in these schools, a much larger percentage of children from homes with whole families as against broken families? Weber's faulting of the schools can be questioned for the reason that he did not seek to inquire whether the success of these four poverty schools could be explained in any other was - whether they were typical or atypical "inner-city" schools.

  • Third: Weber's basic conclusion, that what each of these schools had in common was an outstanding leader, usually the principal, puts us on a path to nowhere. There can be no question that society could solve many of its troublesome problems if its schools were filled with great teachers and great principals, if children came from great families, if lawyers, doctors and politicians were all outstanding leaders. But Utopia is a dream, not an answer. The number of outstanding people in any field will never be enough. The real answer is to find successful methods which can be used by the ordinary people who will continue to run our schools as well as other institutions.

    To give the front page to such research as Weber's is to do a great disservice to the schools.