Common Core Roots In Outcomes Based and Mastery Learning
All of these slogans are bogus:
Roots of Common Core and the push for "higher standards" can be found in Chicago's experiment in the 1970s with Professor Benjamin Bloom's Mastery Learning (ML), which is essentially the same as OBE. ML was a colossal failure and was abandoned in disgrace in 1982. The test scores proved to be appallingly low and the illiteracy rate became a national scandal. Bloom argues (without any supporting proof or data) that aside from the 5% who have disabilities, and 5% who are truly talented, the other 90% can learn all knowledge to the same level of proficiency, any difference in aptitude is simply a different rate of learning (which is obviously silly and misguided) Traditional grade assignment is based ON AGE, NOT ABILITY. It is a lost cause to say that "seat time" and "social promotion" must be replaced by measured performance, or that such a change will eliminate differences in academic ability between individuals or groups. It might be better to eliminate holding back students to grade level because of ability level than to eliminate social promotion.
*References:
from
http://www.antichristconspiracy.com/HTML%20Pages/BloomFinalPub.htm
*Common Core requires mastery of college prep for all
A Common Core of Readiness April 2012 ascd Perhaps the most significant difference, however, is that the new standards were explicitly designed around the goal of ensuring college and career readiness for all students.
The Real Failure Of Common Core Ted Dintersmith In an effort to implement the policy mandate of "all students college ready," the Common Core state standards have been designed to align with college admissions requirements. Because colleges require all applicants to take advanced math -- at least Algebra II -- this is the math standard that all students in the country will now have to meet, requiring mastery of obscure algebraic procedures that the vast majority of adults never use. In English, high school student writing will be limited to essays on the assumption that skill in writing essays is what is required for college. The ability to tell stories -- an essential tool for making one's point in the adult world -- is not in the curriculum.
Learning_and_Instruction-A_
3D, page 169: “A BROAD-GAUGED RESEARCH/REFORM PLAN FOR SECONDARY EDUCATION—IN THE TRADItion of
the Eight-Year Study,” proposed by The Project on Alternatives in Education (PAE) in 1981, was
submitted for consideration and received funding from the U.S. Department of Education and
the National Education Association. The project was conducted by leading American change
agents, including Mario D. Fantini, John Goodlad, Ralph Tyler, Ronald S. Brandt, Herbert J.
Walberg and Mary Ann Raywid. Explanatory cover sheet of the grant proposal was submitted
on “The John Dewey Society” letterhead. PAE called for publicly funded choice schools using
“effective school [outcome-based education] research” and principles of the Eight-Year Study.
These called for “inculcation of social attitudes, development of effective methods of thinking,
social sensitivity, better personal-social adjustment, acquisition of important information,
consistent philosophy of life,” etc.
[edit]
All of these slogans are bogus:
- All Students Can Achieve
- All Students Will Be College And Career Ready
- End Social Promotion
- Vary time
- Replace Seat Time With A Meaningful Diploma
- All But The Truly Disabled Will Achieve At World Class Level
- Demand Higher Standards
- World Class Standards
Roots of Common Core and the push for "higher standards" can be found in Chicago's experiment in the 1970s with Professor Benjamin Bloom's Mastery Learning (ML), which is essentially the same as OBE. ML was a colossal failure and was abandoned in disgrace in 1982. The test scores proved to be appallingly low and the illiteracy rate became a national scandal. Bloom argues (without any supporting proof or data) that aside from the 5% who have disabilities, and 5% who are truly talented, the other 90% can learn all knowledge to the same level of proficiency, any difference in aptitude is simply a different rate of learning (which is obviously silly and misguided) Traditional grade assignment is based ON AGE, NOT ABILITY. It is a lost cause to say that "seat time" and "social promotion" must be replaced by measured performance, or that such a change will eliminate differences in academic ability between individuals or groups. It might be better to eliminate holding back students to grade level because of ability level than to eliminate social promotion.
*References:
- Education Week: October 9, 1985 Chicago Mastery Learning Reading:'A Program With Three Left Feet' By Kenneth S. Goodman The Chicago Board of Education's recent decision to drop Chicago Mastery Learning Reading as a required program may have appeared to be a political move, not one based on the merits of the program. That is an unfortunate impression, because cmlr is indeed a very bad program... I can, however, explicate some of the particular faults of the Chicago program.... more than any other factor, brought down the program was that it was imposed on teachers: Every teacher at every level from kindergarten through grade 8 was required to use cmlr methods for all pupils in a rigid and unvarying way. The program perverted the principle that "every child can learn" into the idea that "every child can learn in exactly the same way." The only thing teachers were permitted to vary for individual children was the amount of extra drill they received. Pupils who passed were not permitted to go on to the next unit until the rest of the class was retaught and retested...had to mark time. pupils who did not score at least 80 percent on 80 percent of the tests (no justification was given for these absolute criteria) were not promoted to the next grade. [Same idea as no diploma for students who do not pass Common Core passing score] materials reflect poor writing and careless editing. In addition, some of the content and pictures have been criticized as being racist or insensitive to children with problems... That this program was spawned in an urban school district with large minority populations suggests a tendency to believe that minority children cannot achieve unless they are regimented and dehumanized--that they are incapable of learning language in the way other people learn. I hope that minority parents and leaders recognize this attitude as a form of racism.
- ERIC: Chicago Mastery Reading: A Case Against a Skills-Based Reading Curriculum. Schmidt, George N. Learning, v11 n4 p36-37,39-40 Nov 1982 A city-wide elementary school reading program that emphasizes mastery learning and continuous progress in Chicago, Continuous Progress--Mastery Learning, is blamed for the declining reading test scores of high school students there. The program's origins and evolution are described along with a new program, Chicago Mastery Learning Reading, which was developed in response to problems cited in the previous program. (PP)
- Mastery-learning.com Benjamin Bloom coined the term "Learning for Mastery" and then later "Mastery Learning" in 1968 and 1971 to describe an educational method in which each student stays with a certain unit of learning material in a process of assessing and correcting until the objectives of that unit are mastered before moving on to the next unit. This remains among the most intuitive and effective teaching methods today. As nation-wide education reform focuses increasingly on setting standards and testing, there is an urgent need to bring students who have trailed behind educationally up to newly stringent standards. Mastery Learning implemented with diverse educational resources can meet this need.
- Phi Delta Kappan Nov., 1977 Reading in the City: The Chicago Mastery Learning Reading Program Mastery learning strategies developed by Benjamin Bloom and J.H. Block have been tested for two years in the Chicago Public Schools with "highly encouraging" results. Yhe problem of low reading achievement in the Chicago Pubic Schools is both chronic and pervasive.. seems resistant to a variety of remedies. In an effort to abate this problem, Department of Research and Evaluation of the Chicago Board of Education undertook a project in the fall of 1975 to adapt the mastery learning strategies developed by Bloom and Block to the Chicago reading curriculum. major components are: 1. Formal specification of comprehensive set of cognitive objectives 2. Instruction 3. Frequent formative / diagnostic evaluation 4. Corrective or remedial instructional treatments 5. Criterion-referenced summative evaluation In this way almost all students master the content and are better prepared for the next unit. [it was cancelled after half of largely minority students were held back in grade because they could not meet arbitrarily minimal test scores] Does it work? 1. 30% increase in rate of learning 2. faster pupils were not slowed 3. variance decreased 4. dependence of previous performance declined 5. teachers were enthusiastic two classrooms in each of 10 schools with pupils at appropriate reading levels... While our optimism is still cautious, it appears that mastery learning may provide a reasonable and practical approach to the unique problems of teaching reading in an urban [codeword for minority] setting.
- Wikipedia Mastery learning instructional strategy and educational philosophy, first formally proposed by Benjamin S. Bloom in 1968. Mastery Learning maintains that students must achieve a level of mastery (i.e. 90% on a knowledge test) in prerequisite knowledge before moving forward to learn subsequent information. If a student does not achieve mastery on the test, they are given additional support in learning and reviewing the information, then tested again. This cycle will continue until the learner accomplishes mastery, and may move on to the next stage. Mastery learning methods suggest that the focus of instruction should be the time required for different students to learn the same material and achieve the same level of mastery. The challenge becomes providing enough time and employing instructional strategies so that all students can achieve the same level of learning. Despite those mostly positive research results, interest in mastery learning strategies decreased throughout the 1980s. Many explanations were put forward to justify this decline, like alleged recalcitrance of the educational establishment to change, or the ineffective implementations of mastery learning methods, Bloom argues that there are 1 to 5 percent of students who have special talent for learning a subject and there are also around five percent of students who have special disability for learning a subject. For other 90% of students, aptitude is merely an indicator of the rate of learning. Additionally, Bloom argues that attitude for a learning task is not constant and can be changed by environmental conditions or learning experience at school or home.
from
http://www.antichristconspiracy.com/HTML%20Pages/BloomFinalPub.htm
Transformational Marxism
Most teachers today are trained on Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy. One of Bloom’s foundational beliefs behind his taxonomy is that “we recognize the point of view that truth and knowledge are only relative and that there are no hard and fast truths which exist for all time and all places.” Detective Phil Worts, Communist (Community) Oriented Policing, NewsWithViews.com, at http://www.newswithviews.com/community_policing/community_policing.htm (June 1, 2001).
Another of Bloom’s principles is: "The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students." Berit Kjos, Reinventing the World, The Mind-Changing Dialectic Process, at http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/Reinventing2.htm (quoting Benjamin Bloom, All Our Children Learning (New York: McGraw Hill,1981), at 180). What does Bloom mean by that? He means: “[A] large part of what we call 'good teaching' is the teacher's ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs and getting them to discuss issues." Kjos, supra (quoting David Krathwohl, Benjamin Bloom and Bertram Massia, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook II: Affective Domain, at 55 (McKay Publishers, 1956)).
What are the fixed beliefs that Bloom seeks to change? One reviewer of Bloom’s book, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain, explains that Bloom’s taxonomy is a method for challenging and changing the values and beliefs that a person is imbued with by his parents, family, and religion.
Benjamin Bloom is a second generation transformational Marxist, dedicated to the destruction of the founding ideals that have made America great. Namely, accountability to a higher authority, the existence of revealed and absolute truth, and that man's heart is desperately wicked, in need of internal or external restraints. Bloom and his buddies have simply cleaned up Theodore Adorno's work The Authoritarian Personality, for public consumption in teachers colleges. Bloom's work is based on false assumptions of human nature; there is no God, no absolute truth, and man is basically good, evolving, and perfectible. Read pg. 32 where Bloom claims there is no lasting truths for all time and all places. Compare Bloom's statement with Engel's claim in Ludwig Feuerbach, "nothing is final, absolute, or sacred." In Bloom's affective domain book he blatantly acknowledges Adorno and another Frankfort School Marxist as forming his "world view". The progressive restructuring educational movement has destroyed what was great in America. Read it and weep. Protect your children.
Customer Reviews, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain, at http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0582280109?sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending (last visited February 16, 2008).
Dr. Dennis Cuddy concluded that Bloom’s philosophy of moral relativism codified in Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives has made teaching “less and less about teaching students academic knowledge, and more and more about changing their values.” Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D., Mental Health, Education and Social Control, Part 4, NewsWithViews.com, at http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis18.htm (October 7, 2004).
Mastery Learning
Bloom further developed his taxonomy into what he called “Mastery Learning,” which later became known as “Outcome Based Education.” Professor Benjamin Bloom has been called the Father of Outcome-based Education. Benjamin Bloom was not interested in educating a person so they attained knowledge, but rather with changing the way a person thinks, feels, and behaves. He was a behavioralist, cut from the same mold as Skinner and Pavlov.
Bloom’s Mastery Learning was implemented in a Chicago area school district and it was a resounding failure. As explained in an article in the Eagle Forum:
The best test of an OBE-type system was Chicago's experiment in the 1970s with Professor Benjamin Bloom's Mastery Learning (ML), which is essentially the same as OBE. ML was a colossal failure and was abandoned in disgrace in 1982. The test scores proved to be appallingly low and the illiteracy rate became a national scandal. Bloom, the father of ML, is well known for his statement that "the purpose of education is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students."
What's Wrong With Outcome-Based Education?, Eagle Forum, VOL. 26, NO. 10, at http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1993/may93/psrmay93.html (May 1993) (quoting All Our Children Learning, at 180).
Outcome Based Education
Why was the title of Bloom’s Pavlovian/Skinnerian “Mastery Learning”changed to Outcome Based Education (OBE)? “Due to the Chicago disaster in 1981 when one half of the Chicago inner city school children dropped out due to Benjamin Bloom's ten year mastery learning experiment on minorities, Spady et al changed the label to OBE [Outcome Based Education].” Charlotte Iserbyt, No American Left Alone!, NewsWithViews.com, at http://www.newswithviews.com/iserbyt/iserbyt.htm (April 12, 2002).
What is the underlying method of OBE?
OBE is based on the unrealistic notion that every child in a group can learn to the designated level and must demonstrate mastery of a specific outcome before the group can move on. The faster learners are not allowed to progress, but are given busy work called "horizontal enrichment" or told to do "peer tutoring" to help the slower learners, who are recycled through the material until the pre-determined behavior is exhibited.
What's Wrong With Outcome-Based Education?, Eagle Forum, VOL. 26, NO. 10, at http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1993/may93/psrmay93.html (May 1993).
Under Bloom’s system, the entire class would have to wait for the least able student to learn a lesson before they could move on to the next lesson. Under the traditional instruction, time was static and learning was variable. Under Bloom’s system learning became static and time was variable. Bloom assumed that time was unlimited.
Bloom’s philosophy had the effect of dumbing down curriculums so that little advanced instruction was imparted to the students. If one were to apply Bloom’s Mastery Learning to basketball, the basket would have to be lowered so that all could score equally.
Under the traditional teaching paradigm, education is the acquisition of knowledge. The student is challenged to use the scope of that knowledge to formulate a reasoned conclusion as an individual. Traditional instruction cultivates and disciplines the mind.
Outcome-based education calls for a shift in that model or paradigm. The model is shifted from content to process. The student under the OBE model is called upon to demonstrate what he knows and can do against pre-established instructional objectives. Instead of core knowledge being the focal point of education, the focal point becomes some conduct that manifests an instructional objective.
If the curriculum and instruction are not moving the student to mastery of the exit outcomes as measured by assessment, then the instruction is changed. This process is repeated until the instruction aligns with the exit outcomes and produce in the student the desired conduct. Bloom stated: “What we are classifying is the intended behavior of students - the ways in which individuals are to act, think, or feel as the result of participating in some unit of instruction.” Education Reform, at http://www.learn-usa.com/education_transformation/~education.htm (quoting Bloom, Benjamin, editor; Taxonomy of Educational Objectives; Book 1: Cognitive Domain; New York: Longman (1956)). Lynn Stutter explains:
There is a vast difference between how traditionalists and progressives view the brain. Traditionalists view the brain as an inexhaustible sponge that can soak up an infinite amount of knowledge and information – factual and nonfactual. Traditionalists believe that the capacity and capability of the brain is infinite, given mental discipline and the abilities that spring therefrom. Traditionalists believe that properly disciplined, the brain provides the path to intellectual capability. Traditionalists also believe that the brain is unique to the individual.
The progressive, on the other hand, treats the mind like a computer – take information in, process it, and output it – all on command. They deny the ability of the brain to function beyond input, process, and output mode as they believe the individual brain is not more than part of the Universal Mind, the collective mind. In other words, someone else should do your "thinking" for you, and you should simply be conditioned to a perceived environment so you act in all the "proper" ways. . . . This is all based on Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and other taxonomies . . . This is one of the reasons that those who have researched education reform say that the purpose is to produce robots.
Lynn M Stuter, Teaching Children to Think, Learn USA, at http://www.learn-usa.com/education_transformation/er014.htm (last visited on February 20, 2008).
Bloom’s Taxonomy is the foundational principle underlying OBE. One thing that becomes immediately apparent when applying Bloom’s Taxonomy is that the practitioner of his system of learning dissuade teachers from having an objective that involves knowledge or understanding. For example, we find the following instructions on the St. Edward’s University website that explains the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy in framing instructional objectives:
Since the first two levels in the taxonomy reflect literal-level thinking, questions classified as Knowledge or Comprehension should be avoided. (emphasis added)
Bloom's Taxonomy, Developing Higher-Order Questions, St. Edward’s University, at http://www.stedwards.edu/cte/content/category/13/27/51 (last visited on February 19, 2008) (citing Eanes, Dr. Robin, Content Area Literacy: Teaching for Today and Tomorrow, Chapter 5, 1997, Wadsworth Publishing, ISBN# 0-8273-5954-3).
Robert F. Mager
Robert F. Mager has written an authoritative book on writing instructional objectives that builds upon Bloom’s Taxonomy. Mager considers an objective that describes knowledge or understanding as being “fuzzy,” and therefore such an objective is to be avoided. Mager explains: “Until you say what you mean by ‘knowing’ in terms of what students ought to be able to DO, you have said very little at all.” Robert F. Mager, Preparing Instructional Objectives, 2nd Ed., at 21 (emphasis in original). Mager lists examples of preferred objectives, all of which involve action. For example he lists the following suggested objectives: to write, to recite, to identify, to sort, to solve, to construct, to build, to compare, to contrast, to smile.” Id. at 20.
Why would Mager limit instructional objectives to actions? Because he is an experimental psychologist. As is Bloom, Mager is a behavioralist, who sees man only in terms of what he manifests behaviorally. His sees the world in terms of response-stimuli. In his view, a person is a manifestation of conditioned behavior. It is not important what someone knows or understands, but only what he does. There is no compromise with Mager. Mager is emphatic that “[a]n objective always says what a learner is expected to be able to do.”Id. at 21 (emphasis in original). According to Mager, all instructional objectives require the learner to do something.
An objective will communicate your intent to the degree you describe what the learner will be DOING when demonstrating achievement of the objective, the important conditions of the doing, and the criterion by which the achievement will be judged.
Id. at 87 (emphasis in original).
Mager’s book is viewed by many as an authoritative text on instructional objectives. In fact, his book is in such demand among teachers that in one resource library used by instructors, I found six copies of his book. However, Mager cites only three authorities in his entire book, and he is the author of every one of those authorities. It is notable that Mager is described on the back cover of his book as an “experimental psychologist,” yet he does not cite a single experiment in his book to support his theory on the effectiveness of behavioral objectives. Amazingly, Mager’s book does not even contain a bibliography! Apparently, Mager is his own authority for his theories on instructional objectives.
Eschewing Knowledge
Samuel Johnson, who is the most quoted English writer outside of Shakespeare, stated that “integrity without knowledge is weak and useless.” Johnson’s statement is based upon an ancient precept that “wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” Proverbs 4:7. Mager and Bloom are adverse to that precept.
Destruction is the end of those who lack knowledge. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Hosea 4:6. Why were his people destroyed? James Madison explains that “knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” By eschewing knowledge and understanding as instructional objectives, Mager’s and Bloom’s behavioralist system of objectives create a dumbed-down, weak, and destructive curriculum.
Under Bloom’s OBE, however, the objective is no longer knowledge, but rather the objective becomes an exhibited behavior. Because in many courses the only exhibited behavior that can be measured would be answering questions on a quiz or exam, the instructional objectives are reduced to the goal of getting correct answers to exam and quiz questions.
A depth of knowledge is no longer required. The instructor changes the teaching from teaching the substance of the material to teaching the students how to obtain the correct answer on the test. The course becomes a course on honing the test taking skills of the students. The test should not be the objective, but should simply be a way to measure understanding. Understanding should be the objective.
Mager suggested objectives list behaviors that are to be measured. The fact that is lost is that when a behavior becomes the objective, the student only needs to learn that which is sufficient to exhibit the listed behavior. Now the objective goes from acquiring understanding to displaying some change in behavior. Under the traditional educational system the student acquired understanding and then he was tested to determine if the he has the requisite understanding. Under the Bloom’s Taxonomy the cart is being put before the horse. Rather than the student being educated so that he can be competent in a variety of circumstances he is trained to respond with a correct answer to a given question.
In Bloom’s and Mager’s world, a student does not need to know why something is so, because that is irrelevant to the need to change behavior. Applying that philosophy to courses requiring knowledge, according to Bloom and Mager, it is only necessary for the student to know how to answer a question correctly. Such a system of instruction leaves the student unable to reason through the innumerable circumstances where his depth of knowledge and good judgement are needed.
Fuzzy Math
An example of the OBE system at work in our school systems today is the so-called fuzzy math that has found its way into the school systems today. The students are able to pass tests that are the instructional objectives of the course, but in the process they do not learn the necessary math skills to perform adequately at the next level in math because they do not have an adequate “understanding” of math.
One example of the fuzzy math is a program called Everyday Math (EDM). The fifth grade workbook allows the students to use calculators to solve almost two-thirds of the problems. What is the effect of that? The child can perform his lessons on the examinations and meet the instructional objectives, but he has no actual “understanding” of basic math or algorithms. That is because passing the examination is the instructional objective of the course, not attaining an understanding of math concepts. The course it taught to get the child to pass the exam, however, the child is left completely ignorant about the math concepts that underlay standard algorithms, because the standard algorithms are passed over as being inefficient. The objective is not “understanding” math, but efficiency in math. A calculator is more efficient. Andrew Isaacs, Algorithms in Everyday Math, http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/educators/Algorithms_final.pdf .
The preferred Everyday Math methods (calculators) used for solving problems are crutches. The crutches are needed because the children are not taught the standard algorithms. The lack of skill in standard algorithms ends up crippling their ability to solve math problems without their crutches. The EDM crutches become cumbersome and hold children back when the they are later exposed to more advanced math problems. Their crippled minds are unable to sprint ahead in math, because they trip all over the crutches imposed upon them by EDM.
*Common Core requires mastery of college prep for all
A Common Core of Readiness April 2012 ascd Perhaps the most significant difference, however, is that the new standards were explicitly designed around the goal of ensuring college and career readiness for all students.
The Real Failure Of Common Core Ted Dintersmith In an effort to implement the policy mandate of "all students college ready," the Common Core state standards have been designed to align with college admissions requirements. Because colleges require all applicants to take advanced math -- at least Algebra II -- this is the math standard that all students in the country will now have to meet, requiring mastery of obscure algebraic procedures that the vast majority of adults never use. In English, high school student writing will be limited to essays on the assumption that skill in writing essays is what is required for college. The ability to tell stories -- an essential tool for making one's point in the adult world -- is not in the curriculum.
Iserbyt work on the Chicago Mastery Learning and similar ML/DI programs in inner city schools:
The draft plan for the Skinnerian Chicago Mastery Learning program can be downloaded as a pdf at my son's website AmericanDeception.com
Learning_and_Instruction-A_
osition_Paper-1968-87pgs-EDU.
"Learning and Instruction, A Chicago Inner City Schools Position Paper" presented in June of 1968 to the Chicago Board of Education, was produced by the planning staff in Chicago made up of Dr. Donald, William Farquhar, Lee Shulman, and the Chicago and Michigan State universities in collaboration. One reference used was "Soviet Preschool Education" translated by Henry Chauncey (Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J.) This position paper laid out the plan to restructure Chicago's inner city schools from a traditional grading plan to an ungraded plan using Skinnerian mastery learning and continuous progress/individual education plans. Education Week carried an article in its March 6, 1985, edition entitled "Half of Chicago Students Drop Out, Study Finds: Problem Called Enormous Human Tragedy". The program was one of the first experiments with mastery learning, later referred to as Outcomes- Based Education and in the 90's and early part of the Twenty-first Century, referred to as Direct Instruction. The paper also called for extensive community involvement and emphasis on changing the values of teachers, students, and the community as a whole. This project was the most important pilot project for the restructured educational system presently being implemented in the United States and worldwide today, and is a perfect example of the use of the minority community in educational research which would in 2008 affect all teachers, students and schools in the nation. The new system satisfies the needs of the business community worldwide since it is performance based.
This was the model for mastery learning/direct instruction and community education lifelong plans under the supervision of Sophie Bloom, wife of Prof. Benjamin Bloom and Lee Shulman. Professor Henry Chauncey is listed on the cover sheet for his research and translation of important book on Soviet Pre-School Education. I have Soviet Preschool Education which carries an Introduction by Yuri Bronfenbrenner, born in Russia, principal researcher and creator of Head Start which introduced the Skinnerian method first in Chicago and which ultimately went into all inner city schools. James Block, close to William Spady of OBE fame, said "I don't know of a single inner city school that has not experimented with mastery learning."
I hope people on your list will read my article "Experimentation with Minorities", 2004, which is a pdf at deliberatedumbingdown.com. Documentation regarding federal grants, etc. to restructure toward Soviet education system (school to work) is included in that article.
Also of interest is the following from my book, 3D, page 311:
IN 1993 DR. BEAU FLY JONES, A SENIOR DIRECTOR OF THE NORTH CENTRAL REGIONAL Educational
Laboratory (NCREL) in Oak Brook, Illinois and a strong advocate and practitioner of Skinnerian
mastery learning, wrote “The Unfolding of an International Partnership: A Story of
Russia and the U.S.” published in EFA Today (No. 2, January–March, 1993). Excerpts follow
which illustrate the extent of controversial exchange activities due to the 1985 U.S.-Soviet and
Carnegie-Soviet agreements in education:
Well-designed exchanges often involve strong emotions, including caring, empathy, and the
excitement of discovery, and individuals may return from such exchanges not only with
cognitive paradigm shifts, but also with life-changing values and interests.
This has been the case with the NCREL involvement in Russia.
In January 1992, the Russian Ministry of Education assumed control of the former
Soviet Ministry’s responsibilities. Dr. Edward Dneprov, the new minister, initiated massive
reforms focusing on decentralization, democratization, and the demilitarization of the Russian
school system.
NCREL’s relationship with the new Russian Ministry began with an invitation to join
the Metropolis Project, a collaboration among schools in Chicago, Moscow, and Amsterdam.
The objective of the Project is to identify and develop successful models of systemic change
in an urban context. To this end, the Project involves research, training, and exchanges of
school staff in the three cities. Themes that guide these efforts are authentic learning, global
education and strategic teaching....
…Metropolis schools were being selected, and one of the highlights of the delegation’s
February tour was the signing of a Letter of Cooperation between the Russian Ministry and
the Chicago Public Schools....
Existing exchanges between the U.S. and Russia tend to focus on university students
or the teaching of foreign languages. For that reason, one of the major problems in obtaining
funding for the Metropolis Project was that it involved a new level of exchange, this time
between Russia and U.S. teachers and administrators, as well as a change in the nature of
the exchange, which would focus on school reform and school-based training.
Laboratory (NCREL) in Oak Brook, Illinois and a strong advocate and practitioner of Skinnerian
mastery learning, wrote “The Unfolding of an International Partnership: A Story of
Russia and the U.S.” published in EFA Today (No. 2, January–March, 1993). Excerpts follow
which illustrate the extent of controversial exchange activities due to the 1985 U.S.-Soviet and
Carnegie-Soviet agreements in education:
Well-designed exchanges often involve strong emotions, including caring, empathy, and the
excitement of discovery, and individuals may return from such exchanges not only with
cognitive paradigm shifts, but also with life-changing values and interests.
This has been the case with the NCREL involvement in Russia.
In January 1992, the Russian Ministry of Education assumed control of the former
Soviet Ministry’s responsibilities. Dr. Edward Dneprov, the new minister, initiated massive
reforms focusing on decentralization, democratization, and the demilitarization of the Russian
school system.
NCREL’s relationship with the new Russian Ministry began with an invitation to join
the Metropolis Project, a collaboration among schools in Chicago, Moscow, and Amsterdam.
The objective of the Project is to identify and develop successful models of systemic change
in an urban context. To this end, the Project involves research, training, and exchanges of
school staff in the three cities. Themes that guide these efforts are authentic learning, global
education and strategic teaching....
…Metropolis schools were being selected, and one of the highlights of the delegation’s
February tour was the signing of a Letter of Cooperation between the Russian Ministry and
the Chicago Public Schools....
Existing exchanges between the U.S. and Russia tend to focus on university students
or the teaching of foreign languages. For that reason, one of the major problems in obtaining
funding for the Metropolis Project was that it involved a new level of exchange, this time
between Russia and U.S. teachers and administrators, as well as a change in the nature of
the exchange, which would focus on school reform and school-based training.
It is a shame that all I have written since I got myself fired from the US Dept. of Ed on OBE and Mastery Learning, U.S.-Soviet education agreements, Carnegie, etc. has been boycotted by the neoconservative Republicans (who are all responsible for what I have written about!)... from 1985, in my little 39-page booklet"Back to Basics Reform or OBE Skinnerian International curriculum, necessary for United States Participation in a Socialist One World Govt. scheduled for the early years of the 21st Century", "Soviets in the Classroom...America's Latest Education Fad", the 750 page deliberate dumbing down of america, and the 8-disc dvd set "Exposing the Global Road to Ruin through Education", etc.
It is remarkable (or is it?) how those leading the anti-common core bandwagon (Heritage, Pioneer, Heartland, Freedom Works, et al) seem to be totally ignorant regarding the roots of CC. Their history starts at the earliest in the nineteen nineties, and it's rare when they go back that far? How many of them realize that Herbert Walberg, VP of Heartland Institute, and co-author of new book "Rewards" which recommends use of Skinnerian methods, is an internationally know behavioral psychologist and was involved in the following NEA/leading change agents' tax-funded school choice initiative:
3D, page 169: “A BROAD-GAUGED RESEARCH/REFORM PLAN FOR SECONDARY EDUCATION—IN THE TRADItion of
the Eight-Year Study,” proposed by The Project on Alternatives in Education (PAE) in 1981, was
submitted for consideration and received funding from the U.S. Department of Education and
the National Education Association. The project was conducted by leading American change
agents, including Mario D. Fantini, John Goodlad, Ralph Tyler, Ronald S. Brandt, Herbert J.
Walberg and Mary Ann Raywid. Explanatory cover sheet of the grant proposal was submitted
on “The John Dewey Society” letterhead. PAE called for publicly funded choice schools using
“effective school [outcome-based education] research” and principles of the Eight-Year Study.
These called for “inculcation of social attitudes, development of effective methods of thinking,
social sensitivity, better personal-social adjustment, acquisition of important information,
consistent philosophy of life,” etc.
Of course, these very groups have always supported the Skinner method since they know it is essential for school to work. The Reading Excellence Act, which calls for Direct Instructcion, was their baby.
I guess that is why they have opposed my work from the get-go (Back to Basics Reform or OBE...)
All Americans will unfortunately reap what "they" have wrought, starting with the minorities upon whom they experimented.
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