The Use and Misuse of Education Research: How Does Dr. Avis Glaze’s Raise the Bar Stack Up?

A sweeping Nova Scotia education reform report, Dr. Avis Glaze’s Raise the Bar, is now attracting an incredible amount of scrutiny in the regional media, among academics, and flocks of tweeting ‘parakeets’ on social media.  As one of Canada’s outstanding educators with impeccable Ontario Institute for Studies in Education credentials, the controversy might strike most Canadian education researchers as downright bizarre. In a field – provincial education policy- not known for stellar, evidence-based research, it is also peculiar and unusual enough to warrant some serious investigation.

Two external assessors, Greg Thompson and David Rutkowski, have now weighted-in with a 3 1/2 page typed “third party review” commissioned by the Nova Scotia Teachers’ Union (NSTU).  Its arrival was announced in an NSTU News Release (February 20, 2018) with a proposed headline: “Third party review calls into question the validity of the Glaze report.”  The release date is significant because it was timed to arrive as the province’s teachers were about to vote on whether to take “strike action” to slow down or derail the Nova Scotia government’s plan to proceed with legislation to implement most of Glaze’s recommendations.

The “third party review” was presented by the NSTU as not just a critique of Glaze’s research methodology, but as evidence that the whole initiative was somehow based upon “flawed research” and should be paused or perhaps abandoned. Education research conducted by and for teachers unions is not necessarily suspect or bad for that matter — and much that is conducted by the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) stands up well and contributes to informed public policy discussion.

One of the biggest problems confronting education research everywhere is what is termed “bias confirmation.”  Once you are attuned to the logical fallacy, it’s relatively easy to spot.  In this case, the evidence jumps right out in the first paragraph of the short piece. “When embarking on a radical, systematic restructure, we expect policy makers to use the best information available to inform their policy decisions.,” Thompson and Rutkowski state, before adding a qualifier worth examining: “That said, education has become a “marketplace of ideas’ with policy soothsayers plying their trade in a lucrative international market.”

Clearly the two academics are framing the work of one of Canada’s leading educators as that of one of those “policy soothsayers” engaged in a “lucrative” international business.  They also describe the proposed reforms, several times, as “radical” rather than “transformative” and summarize the contents of the report in a way that highlights its disruptive-ness.  “Disbanding school boards,””setting up a College of Teachers,” and “removing principals and vice principals” from the NSTU  are the only three of the 22 recommendations actually referenced in their review.  They also happen to be the three major sticking points for the union.

The NSTU commissioned “third party review” focuses rather narrowly on Glaze’s survey research methodology rather than the substance of her documentary research based upon more than 70 written submissions and NSSBA research conducted by David MacKinnon of Acadia for the Nova Scotia School Board’s Association (NSSBA). The researchers are, indirectly, slagging all those who submitted briefs informed by research evidence.  What’s most interesting about the short type-script is that it provides an analysis of the methodology in a short piece with no academic references. Most scholarly reviews at least cite sources and provide parenthetic references to supporting documents.

The two researchers are quite effective at picking-apart the survey research methodology and many of their points are well taken and legitimate, even if such quantitative lapses are quite common in public policy research.  The Glaze Report survey was rather simplistic and the results hard to quantify, but — in fairness– the wording was easy to understand and accessible to most Nova Scotians. You can also argue that open-ended questions are more likely to elicit honest, straightforward answers. It was, keep in mind, just one aspect of Glaze’s primarily research-driven project.

Being parachuted into Nova Scotia for such an assignment is not a problem in and of itself, if the researchers demonstrate some grasp of the total context and larger policy environment.  In this case, Thompson and Rutkowski, approach the report as a document in isolation and not part of a continuum of education policy debate and development.

A few examples demonstrate how important it is to properly “read” a policy environment before weighing in to render a judgement on one particular document. If Thompson and Rutkowski  had compared the Glaze Report with the earlier Nova Scotia NDP policy plan, Kids & Learning First (February 2012), they might have reached different conclusions.  That education reform plan came in a glossy, 35-pager with lots of photos and  containing no bibliography. Little or no direct reference was even made to Dr. Ben Levin’s 2011-12 education policy “literature review.”

Looking at the Glaze Report as a continuation of the Myra Freeman Commission of 2013-14 also casts the whole exercise in a different policy context.  The Freeman Report (October 2014) was actually based on a province-wide survey that netted over 19,000 responses and recommended (R 2.6 and R 2.7) that the Government introduce a more robust “performance management system” and “consider” removing “supervisory staff” including principals from the union.  Even though one out of every three teachers (3,167) completed the survey, leading members of the NSTU criticized the Freeman Committee for poor research methodology and the wording of its survey questions.

The recent third party review also makes no reference whatsoever to the most critical piece in situating this particular set of proposed reforms. One would expect that the academics might make some reference to the Nova Scotia Education plan known as The Three R’s, the most recent statement of education policy. If they had consulted that document in their research, they would have discovered that the Department publicly declared its intention to negotiate the key points in contention at the bargaining table.  We understand that the NSTU (behind closed doors) refused to discuss the proposals now featured in the Glaze Report.

All of this does raise the larger question about the state of Canadian education policy research and why organizations such as the NSTU might go further afield in search of researchers. Teaching and learning research lags significantly here in Canada where – with few exceptions – faculties of education are simply not producing ground-breaking, evidence-based research on critical curriculum and pedagogical issues. Compared to Britain and the United States, where the education debate has spawned hundreds of government and independent research institutes, Canada continues to show a dearth of research activity, especially outside the University of Toronto orbit of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). 

The authors might want to do a little more research on Dr. Avis Glaze. If and when they do, they will likely discover that this so-called “policy soothsayer” is revered (outside of Nova Scotia) as an outstanding OISE-trained researcher who, as Ontario Superintendent of Student Achievement, introduced and led the province’s first “What Works” Research-Informed Policy program, producing dozens of research briefs aimed at improving teaching and learning. She will survive a three page type-script note with no supporting references.

Educational research is improving, in part because of Dr. Glaze and a small group of education scholars, but it still has a bad name.  Instead of attacking education issues and problems, conducting evidence-based research, and letting the evidence suggest solutions, many practitioners continually engage in research driven by “bias confirmation.” We all have to guard against it in our work.  One of the most popular topics featured in Educational Leadership is the scourge of “politically-driven” education research.  It’s challenging to rise above it and Dr. Glaze is one education researcher who exemplifies the kind of research that Canadian K-12 education needs more of.

What’s the problem with most Canadian K-12 education policy research?  Should education policy documents be more closely scrutinized and assessed through a research lens?  What constitutes a legitimate “third party peer review”?  Should researchers analyzing documents be well grounded in the evolving education policy world? How can we separate “good” education research from the regular fare of commissioned studies? What needs to be done to clean up the field? 

 

 

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Upholding Teaching Standards: Why Did Dr. Avis Glaze Propose a Nova Scotia College of Educators?

An educational earthquake has just hit one of Canada’s normally tranquil Atlantic Canadian provinces. On January 23, 2018, Ontario-trained educator and external consultant Dr. Avis Glaze’s released Raise the Bar, a masterful and transformative plan to restructure the entire P-12 education system. In the maelstrom that followed her report, there was no real public airing or close scrutiny of one of her most constructive proposals – to establish a Nova Scotia College of Educators. It deserves more attention because it is a critical piece in her plan to bring more coherence, accountability and responsiveness to the province’s school system.

The Glaze report sought to raise our sights and to reaffirm the professional status of the province’s teachers. After developing a set of Teaching Standards during 2015-16, creating an independent professional body to uphold those standards is the next logical step. Aspiring to be “competitive with the best systems in the world” rings hollow without a self-governing professional body to validate claims that the province’s schools are doing an exemplary job of educating and nurturing its schoolchildren.

What happens when classroom teachers, in relatively small numbers, breech standards of conduct and face allegations of student harassment, sexual improprieties, or gross incompetence?  Don’t parents have a right know more about any improper conduct of the people who they entrust with their children?

An April 2016 nationwide investigation by CBC’s Marketplace made it clear that professional standards vary greatly from province to province and public disclosure depends upon where you live in Canada. The show highlighted a few cases where teachers were clearly violating professional codes by bullying, assaulting, and engaging in sexual conversations with students. So little data is available, however, and what was unearthed is questionable, especially in the case of Nova Scotia, where discipline rates are marginally higher, but in one recent year only one Halifax teacher out of 4,000 staff was dismissed for such misconduct. While instances like these are rare in Nova Scotia, the province provides no information whatsoever about cases of teacher misconduct. Provincial, board and union officials, until now, use privacy concerns as the reason teacher disciplinary records are not made public.

Nova Scotia teachers are overwhelmingly professional educators who have little to gain from maintaining a cone of silence and much to gain from full disclosure, sending a clear signal that standards are being upheld. It is no longer defensible to claim that the privacy rights of perpetrators trump the public’s right to know in a publicly-funded system.

Three Canadian provinces provide a measure of public disclosure in cases of teacher misconduct – Ontario, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan. Alberta has a Quality Teaching Standard and a well-publicized protocol for responding to such cases. In two of those provinces, Ontario and B.C., the actual cases and decisions made public.

The Glaze report recommends a self-governing professional College like that in Ontario and in Scotland. In Ontario, for example, anyone can go online to the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) website and look up the records of any of its members.

The OCT is far from perfect but much better than nothing. The Ontario college, for example, only started providing full disclosure of teacher misconduct cases in 2011, in response to a Toronto Star investigation of its records. It’s clear, however, that parents in Ontario are much better off than their counterparts in Nova Scotia and neighbouring Maritime provinces.

Complaints take far too long to be resolved for all parties. It takes the OCT an average of four years for a complaint to be investigated and resolved. If the complaint turns out to be valid, this means the teacher potentially continues teaching many other children. And in the cases of unfounded complaints, that teacher is forced to spend years living under a cloud of suspicion before having their name cleared.

Teachers everywhere are familiar with the all-too-common practice known as the “dance of the lemons” or “passing the trash.” One Toronto teacher, investigated by the OTC, who was found guilty of assaulting three students, was then transferred to another school where he assaulted yet another. Transferring problem teachers helps to assuage parental concerns, but only shifts the problem to another school.

Cases reviewed by the OCT also reveal a disturbing pattern. Too often those teachers are transferred to a school where the parent community is not too active, and sadly to urban schools in poor socio-economic neighbourhoods or to remote, rural schools. My own 2014 AIMS report documented several such cases. If a teacher’s conduct is so inappropriate and unprofessional as to justify their removal from one school, they should not be teaching anywhere.

Toronto high school teacher Sachin Maharaj, an OISE Ph.D. research fellow, has shown how little accountability or oversight exists once a teacher is placed in a classroom. That, he claims, allows ineffective teaching or abusive behaviour to continue indefinitely until someone files a complaint.

The Avis Glaze report has opened the door to developing a far more proactive approach. It does not really matter who is supposed to be upholding teacher professionalism when there is little evidence that it is actually happening in our schools.

Establishing a College of Educators is far better, in my estimation, than more radical solutions, such as following Massachusetts in introducing direct and unpredictable student feedback into teacher evaluation. The new U.K. Chartered College of Teaching has some advantages, but it is only a voluntary association of teachers committed to the highest standards of teaching practice. It may well be time for a College of Educators in Atlantic Canada to help strengthen the profession and to instill greater public confidence in our education system.

What are the merits and possible pitfalls of having a College of Teachers to uphold professional standards?  What can we learn from the earlier models in Ontario, British Columbia and Scotland?  Has the Ontario College of Teachers, on balance, been of net benefit to teachers and to the quality of education?  What is required in terms of teacher support to make such a model work successfully? 

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School District Consolidation: Where are the Actual Savings and Potential Losses?

School district consolidation is a striking phenomenon not only in Atlantic Canada, but right across Canada and the United States. Two levels of consolidation, encompassing the merging of smaller schools and the collapsing of school districts, leads to the centralization of management. It also rests primarily on two presumed benefits: (1) fiscal efficiency and (2) higher educational quality.

With the recent release of Dr. Avis Glaze’s education restructuring report, Raise the Bar, a fierce public debate is underway in Nova Scotia focusing on her plan to dissolve the seven remaining English school boards, reassign administrators to the schools, and reinvest any savings in the classroom. Following that report, a CBC News Nova Scotia investigation revealed that the 38 school board administrators potentially affected earned $4.7 million a year. Whether her plan retaining the seven districts will yield much in the way of cost savings is very much in question.  The research, so far, is decidedly mixed when all factors are taken into consideration.

The sheer scale of district consolidation is staggering. Driven largely by the pursuit of financial economy and efficiency, district consolidation swept across the United States, reduced the number of K-12 districts from 117,108 in 1939-1940 to 13,862 by 2006-2007, a decline of 88 per cent. The rate of consolidation has slowed over the past decade, but at least a few districts consolidate every year in many states (Duncombe and Yinger 2010). While comparative Canadian data is not readily available, it is relatively safe to observe the existence of a similar pattern (Bennett 2011, Corbett 2014).

School district consolidation in Canada is driven by provincial education authorities looking for cost reductions, but in some cases, the trigger factor is eliminating local education authorities obstructing education initiatives. Provincial announcements authorizing educational restructuring, such as the 1996 Ontario School Reduction Task Force, justify the school district consolidation as a cost reduction measure and commit to redirecting any savings into the classroom (Ontario 1996). Declining student enrolments, demographic trends, out-migration, and duplicated functions are among the common factors cited in making the case for consolidation (Galway, Sheppard, Wiens and Brown 2013).

In some cases, such as Prince Edward Island, the prime justification is clarity of direction rather than any economic benefits. In October 2011, for example, the P.E.I. Education Governance Commission recognized that the evidence of “operational efficiencies and net savings” is mixed, based upon previous ventures in Prince Edward Island and elsewhere. “There is a risk,” the Commission report recognized, “that any savings that may result from elimination of duplication in some areas could be offset. Initially by transition costs, and in the longer term by rising expenditures in other areas such as increased specialization and more hierarchy.”   (PEI Governance 2011).

Most American state governments are more explicit about the incentives uses to nudge along the process of school district consolidation. The most common form of U.S. state policy is transition funding designed to encourage district reorganization, typically in the form of consolidation, by providing additional money for operations or capital projects during the transition to the new form of organization. The aid bonus from consolidation can be quite large. In the State of New York, consolidating districts may receive an increase in their basic operating aid of up to 40 percent for five years, with declining increases for an additional nine years.

On top of this aid, consolidating districts also may receive a 30 percent increase in building aid for projects initiated within 10 years of consolidation.  Possibly as many as one-third of all American states, including some with consolidation bonuses, still maintain countervailing policies that provide support to school districts for “sparsity” (or low population density) or for small scale operations, factors that work against consolidation (Duncombe and Yinger 2010).

Forecasted Savings

The prime justification for school district consolidation has long been that it is a way to cut costs. These cost savings arise, the argument goes, because the provision of education is characterized by economies of size, which exist whenever the cost of education per pupil declines as the number of pupils goes up. In this context, the cost of education is not the same as education spending but is instead the amount a school district would have to spend to obtain a given level of performance, as measured by test scores, graduation rates and perhaps other output measures. To put it another way, economies of size exist if spending on education per pupil declines as the number of pupils goes up, controlling for school district performance. Because consolidation creates larger school districts, it results in lower costs per pupil whenever economies of size exist (Duncombe and Yinger 2010).

Economies of size could arise for many reasons:

Indivisibilities: First, the school services provided to each student by certain education professionals may not diminish in quality as the number of students increases, at least over some range. All districts require a superintendent and the same central administration may be able to serve a significant range of enrollment with little change in total costs.

Increased Dimension: Second, education requires certain physical capital, such as a heating system and science laboratories, which require a certain scale to operate efficiently and therefore have a high cost per pupil in small districts.

Specialization: Third, larger districts may be able to employ more specialized teachers, putting them in a better position to provide the wide range of courses required by public accountability systems and expected today by students and parents.

Innovation and Learning: Finally, teachers in larger districts have more colleagues on which to draw for advice and discussion, interactions that presumably lead to improved effectiveness (Duncombe and Yinger 2007, 2010).

Potential Mitigating Factors
Popular assumptions about economies of size have been challenged by researchers focusing on the relationship between school and school district size and student performance and well-being. Rural education studies have demonstrated that the sizes of the school district and the high school are highly correlated and, in many cases, cost savings are rarely realized and larger schools can have detrimental impact upon student performance and engagement (Howley, Johnson and Petrie 2011). Effective schools research also tends to show that small to moderate-sized schools are more successful than mega-schools at retaining students through to high school graduation (Howley 2002). Leading American experts on school district consolidation William Duncombe and John Yinger have found that extremely large districts (those enrolling 15,000 or more students—are likely to be fiscally inefficient because consolidation has proceeded beyond the point of a favourable cost-benefit ratio (Duncombe and Yinger 2005, 2010).

Four sources of potential diseconomies of size are:

Higher Transportation Costs: First, consolidated school districts usually make use of larger schools, which implies that average transportation distance must increase. As a result, consolidation might increase a district’s transportation spending per pupil.

Levelling Up of HR Costs: Second, consolidating districts may level up salaries and benefits to those of the most generous participating district, thereby raising personnel costs.

Lowering of Staff Morale: Third, administrators and teachers tend to have a more positive attitude toward work in smaller schools, which tend to have more flexible rules and procedures.

Less Student and Parent Participation: Finally, students can be more motivated and parents more comfortable to interact with teachers in smaller districts, which tend to have a greater community feel. These reactions and closer student-faculty relationships may result in higher student performance at any given spending level. Longer school bus rides have a detrimental impact upon student engagement and achievement.

Overall, the net impact of consolidation on education costs per pupil is not always clear. Consolidation of tiny school districts of 1,500 students or less is likely to tap into economies of size and thereby lower these costs, but, beyond those numbers, consolidation might actually cause costs per pupil to rise (Duncombe and Yinger 2010). The most recent research literature review, published in 2011 by the U.S. National Education Policy Center, concluded that “claims for educational benefits from systematic state-wide school and district consolidation are vastly overestimated and, beyond school districts of 1,500, have actually been maximized years ago” (Howley, Johnson and Petrie 2011).

What happens to the projected savings forecasted in school district consolidation plans?  How does the education finance process work to obscure and conceal the data required to conduct a thorough cost-benefit analysis? What mitigating factors arise to compromise or nullify the forecasted savings?  Is it possible to assess the full extent of losses, financial and social, at the school level? What are the real lessons for those tempted to tackle education restructuring? 

Research conducted for this post is part of a larger project on Restructuring Education (Halifax: Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, 2018).

 

 

 

 

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The Ontario Hall-Dennis Report, Fifty Years On: What Remains of Its Legacy?

Fifty years after its appearance, the June 1968 Ontario Hall-Dennis Report lives on in the philosophy and pedagogy that it seeded in the schools of Ontario and right across Canada. In its ringing endorsement of child-centred learning, its imagery of playful school children, its spirit of experimentation, and its flirtation with gradeless education, the Report left its mark and defined the limits of so-called “progressive education” for a generation or more. It also ushered in a student-centred philosophy harkening back to days of the renowned American educational progressive educator John Dewey that remains deeply ingrained in elementary education.

The “progressive education” mantra bequeathed by Hall-Dennis exposed deep divisions over core philosophy and preferred teaching practice.  Education professor Ken Osborne perhaps put it best in his 1999 guide to the Canadian education debate:  In its day, the Report was revered as “the shining star of educational reform,” but two decades later it was considered passe — and “painted as at best wholly-minded idealism and, at worst, reckless irresponsibility.” 

Child-centred teaching, teacher as facilitator, and learning centres many not have originated with the Hall-Dennis Committee, but all were sanctified in the Report and became preferred methodologies associated with ‘good teaching.’ From that time forward, child-centred approaches did become like a “Holy Writ” among elementary school teachers, while high school educators considered it symptomatic of “dumbing down” subject teaching.  A few smaller elementary schools, even today, like the Halifax Independent School, are explicit in their adherence to Hall-Dennis inspired progressive ideals.

One Toronto elementary school, Alpha Alternative School, founded in 1971, continues to hold a candle for the educational philosophy and approach to education espoused in the Hall-Dennis Report.  It also provides a lens through which to examine and take stock of the Report’s key principles.  The first line of the 1968 report “The truth shall make you free” remains today as the essential mission of Alpha and its 2007 satellite site, Alpha II.

Student-directed education inspired by Hall-Dennis springs from Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations enshrined in the 1968 report. Based upon that Declaration, the Report proposed fundamental principles for Ontario school education:

1. the right of every individual to have equal access to the learning experience best suited to his needs, and
2. the responsibility of every school authority to provide a child-centered learning continuum that invites learning by individual discovery and inquiry.

While the principles conveyed a spirit of openness, it was firmly committed to “progressive education” and surprisingly prescriptive about “how child-centred learning should take place.” The key tenets of the Hall-Dennis Report convey a sense of certitude that implies imparting a “new wisdom” in education:

The Child-Centred Curriculum

“The curriculum of the future must be child-oriented and must provide opportunities for choice within broadly defined limits. Teachers at every level, supported by qualified counselors, will be required to guide each child along his own critically determined path, far more flexible than a computer guide, but critical in the sense that the learning programs initiated and developed will best meet the needs of each child at the time best suited to his development. ” (H-D R, p. 52)

The Open and Flexible Learning Environment

“There is increasing evidence that children are often better taught in groups centered around interests, and as individuals, than in classes consisting of 30 or 40 pupils. Group teaching and individual learning programs break down the old formal class organization. But despite advocacy of clustering children around interests, supported by appropriate resource teachers, children, particularly young children, seem more relaxed and at ease when identified with at least one home teacher…., so that she may be aware of the child’s changing moods and responses. “(H-D R, p. 56)

The Student- Attuned Curriculum for Young People

“A good curriculum must meet the needs and expressed desires of pupils. It creates in the school a pleasant and friendly environment in which young children know that they are appreciated and accepted; in which maturing young people will find that they and their ideas are respected; and in which all pupils find interest and satisfaction in learning. It gives a realistic and objective exposition of society and its institutions. It encourages pupils to ask questions, to contribute further information, and to express their opinions freely, and it encourages teachers to answer pupils’ questions truthfully as often and as fully as possible. At the same time, such a curriculum provides for studies related to institutions of higher or further education or which are needed to obtain specific qualifications.” ((H-D R, p. 56)

Eliminate Grade Promotion and Curtail Examinations

“The curriculum must provide for the individual progress of pupils. To make this possible, two major innovations are indicated: complete abolition of the graded system throughout the school; and the use of individual timetables at the senior level. The introduction of graded textbooks and the placing of pupils in ‘books’ or grades undoubtedly improved education in Ryerson’s day…. But during the last fifty years, as it has become increasingly difficult to retard and eliminate pupils at an early age by failure, the graded system has become an anomaly…. [Formal examinations are] “arbitrary measures of achievement” and “concepts of promotion and failure” should be “removed from the schools not to reduce standards, but to improve the quality of learning. The evaluation of pupils’ progress should be a continuous part of the learning process, not a separate periodic exercise….” (H-D R, p. 72)

Page 93—Developing a Sense of Responsibility in Students

“Teachers can take definite steps to develop a sense of responsibility in children, such as: Have pupils plan and manage their own routines of study; Encourage pupils to suggest ventures in learning which they would like to undertake;Encourage joint or group undertakings; Reduce assigned homework in favor of pupil-planned study or practice; Apply only those rules that are necessary for the maintenance of a healthy, invigorating and pleasant learning atmosphere; Give pupils practice in making decisions of a personal and social nature. ” (H-D R, p. 93)

The Teacher as Guide at the Side

“The modern professional teacher is a person who guides the learning process. He places the pupil in the center of the learning activity and encourages and assists him in learning how to inquire, organize, and discuss, and to discover answers to problems of interest to him. The emphasis is on the process of inquiry as well as on the concepts discovered.” (H-D R, p. 93)

Innovative Learning Environments – Cooperative Learning, Study Centres, Learn Through Doing

“In the future a school will contain various kinds and sizes of learning areas, including classrooms, small study centers, and large open areas. In a well-organized schoolroom efficient, flexible use is made of available resources, and routines proceed with a minimum of confusion and interference….. The organization of schoolroom routines should be regarded as a co-operative activity of teachers and pupils, operating within the general organization of the school. The establishment of routines should be an exercise in democracy in which pupils establish and maintain as many as possible of their own ‘rules,’ evaluating and revising them as conditions demand. This exercise provides for the development of self-discipline and responsibility….

The spotlight in the school is shifting from methods of teaching to experiences for learning, and the truly professional teacher now employs in each situation the methods that will enhance the quality of the learning experience of the pupils in his care….In establishing the atmosphere for learning the professional teacher remains sensitive to the interests and problems of pupils, and allows the direction or pace of the lesson to change as the situation demands. He realizes that for an individual child the sequence of steps in the lesson may be less important than a word of praise or kindness, or a sign of recognition or reassurance; indeed, such actions are themselves part of teaching ‘method.’ A teacher may actually be teaching very well when he is apparently doing little more than observing pupils at work; he does not believe that effective teaching demands constant activity on his part.” (H-D R, pp. 139-40)

Student Evaluation – and Assessment for Learning

“With the introduction of a child-centered program, evaluation is changing in both function and form: its function is to determine the effectiveness of the program in the pupil’s development; it takes the form of day-by-day observations of the pupil’s interests and activities, difficulties and achievements. Evaluation is part of the learning program, is often planned jointly by the pupils and the teacher, and provides for self-evaluation as well as for diagnosis. The process may involve a discussion of the effectiveness of a learning situation, of the degree of participation of the pupils, and of suggestions for improvement of study habits, research and discussion procedures, and use of reference materials.”(H-D R, pp. 142)

Democratic Schools and Teacher Autonomy

“The structure of the system and of the school itself should be a democratic one-one where the teacher has freedom, not one that is so rigidly bound by rules and regulations that he feels his freedom is being questioned. The teacher’s loyalty to the system will be conditional upon the degree to which the system and the individual school serve to make it possible for him to do his best work. The system that meets the professional needs of its teachers will usually have the highest teacher morale. “(H-D R, p. 157)

The Principal as Curriculum Leader

“The principal who sees himself as the curriculum leader of the school acts as a consultant, adviser, and co-ordinator, and spends most of his time with children and teachers in psychological, sociological, and curricula activities. He subscribes to the theory that the aims of education are determined philosophically, and he realizes that striving for uniformity through standardized tests, external examinations, and other devices and controls has little to do with the attainment of objectives in education. Subjectivity is his accepted mode for educational endeavor; objectivity is desirable only in specific instances, subordinate to the major purposes of education. “(H-D R, p. 170)

Looking back, it is striking to see how much of the so-called “progressive orthodoxy” was articulated and extolled in a document that is all-too-often forgotten, especially among teachers born after its appearance. Few who lived through the Hall-Dennis era would miss the connective tissue linking contemporary “innovations” with concepts and ideas espoused in that Report.

What contemporary educational principles, concepts and pedagogical approaches find earlier justification in the Hall-Dennis Report?  Which of the Hall-Dennis reform proposals proved the most successful?  Which of the proposals simply fizzled and went nowhere?  Will there ever come a time when the vision is fully realized in K-12 education? 

Third and Final commentary in the Series.

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