Many schools have conducted student surveys to determine their reactions. As one would suspect, student reaction is practically all positive. Like their teachers, many think it involves more work, but in the words of one student, "this way you don't have to spend a lot of time studying something you're not interested in, you can specialize in a field and study it more." Most schools report, however, that a small proportion of students, usually less than five percent, and sometimes less than one percent, try to take unfair advantage of the fact that they have greater freedom. The report is most frequently heard at the secondary level after young people have learned to expect to be told day-by-day and hour-by-hour what to do.

The most exciting evidence of the effects of individualization on students is seen in the products they create. One example among thousands is the case of a farm boy in a small high school in Colorado. The school's program had been individualized and when prescribed objectives had been completed students were free to work on their own selected objectives. The school's principal stated, "this arrangement results in about half of a student's time being turned back to him to learn what he wants to learn." This particular student undertook the design and construction of a cattle trailer to be used on his father's farm. The writer saw the finished product and it was truly remarkable. The instructor stated that the retail value was approximately six thousand dollars. The young man, using the school's tools, welding gear, etc. and his instructor's guidance, had built it for less than two thousand dollars.

Even more important the proud builder stated, "I didn't know what I was going to do when I graduated from high school but now I've been lined up with a scholarship at Colorado State in mechanical engineering, and it really looks like a good deal. I wonder what I'd be doing, if I would have had to sit through seven fifty-minute periods. waiting for the bell to ring?"

All over the country in individualized programs students are working on projects which make "school" into a different kind of place—”I wondered how we could control the weeds in our farm plants," I really understand computers and know how to program them" "I'm studying brain functioning and it's fascinating." A principal in Texas stated, "We have cases where children come into this school with a phobia against school. They hate school so much they may be on tranquilizers so they can endure it; after this kind of program, this disappears."

Parent reaction to individualized instruction is often skeptical, especially when first informed of it. The concern is that it will not be as good as a more rigid, structured program. However, the attitude seems to dissipate rather rapidly as a result of student enthusiasm. The major exception is the parent of the student who has a record of difficulty. The new program is unlikely to make an immediate difference in the behavior of any young person who is disturbed or psychologically immature. But there is a big difference now. There is a new program. To this parent the cause of the child's problem is obviou The parent has something to point at, something which explains all the child's difficulties; obviously, the new program. For this reason, many school administrators are making changes slowly, making no announcements, avoiding publicity and labels, and keeping parents

informed by involving them in helpful, constructive ways to improve their programs.

Disciplinary records provide evidence that individualizing instructional programs results in a dramatic decrease in common disciplinary problems. Traditional group-oriented programs which emphasize homework, being quiet for extended periods, staying in one's seat, and generally having one's behavior controlled result in frustrations which lead to disciplinary problems. In individualized programs most students are so involved in what they are doing that those problem students who try to get attention by causing disruptions are largely ignored. When there is no "pay-off" or reward for disruptions such behavior tends to wane. This is a phenomenon reported in school after school where programs have been individualized.

Truancy and drop-out records are surprisingly difficult to interpret. For example, a given student may be listed as a drop-out for three consecutive years. The situation, of course, is that he drops out, i.e., stops going to school for the remainder, or part, of the school year but then he decides to return at a later date. Despite these record keeping problems school administrators report that since individualizing their program there is a marked reduction in both truancy and drop-out. They generally attribute the less rigid atmosphere and more relevant curriculum to their increased holding power.

Two Major Concerns

School administrators state that there are really only two major obstacles slowing the general adoption of the concept of individualization. Perhaps surprisingly, operational monies is not one of the obstacles. In fact, a majority of administrators believe that once the transition to an individualized program is made, it may be a partial solution to spiralling school costs because it provides an opportunity for more efficient utilization of teachers and support personnel. While traditional instruction places emphasis on student-teacher ratio, individualized instruction places increased emphasis on student self-direction, instructional technology and appropriate use of paraprofessionals. The major concerns of administrators are teacher re-training and obtaining effective instructional materials.

Teachers trained to handle a group of thirty, or to lecture extensively on a body of knowledge, are ill-equipped to diagnose the needs of individuals and to provide appropriate consultant help. These teachers are observed lecturing to individuals as if they were a group of thirty! Their relationships with young people are often formal and impersonal. They are not broadly informed on the wide range of available learning strategies, media and materials. Most important of all, they do not understand the basic philosophy of individual human growth and development.

While there are vast quantities of instructional materials, most are not designed for use in individualized programs. In individualized programs all over the country, teachers, paraprofessionals and parents are taking apart textbooks, workbooks, magazines and even films and newspapers and arranging them into single-concept modules or units with appropriate identification and cataloguing. Often modules are grouped into a learning "package" usually consisting of a statement of what the learner should be able to do when the assignment has been completed, sample test items, a list of all available related modules or

units and suggestions as to how to proceed. Materials developed by the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh, Research for Better Schools, Inc. in Philadelphia, and the American Institutes for Research of Palo Alto, California are examples of materials specifically designed to support individualized instruction. These materials have been tested, and include tests useful in both diagnosis and evaluation. While they greatly facilitate the individualization of instruction, much additional development is essential to meet the needs of more learners.

Implications for a National Institute of Education

This nation has no educational task more important than develop ing instructional systems in which every individual receives an edu cation designed for him rather than for someone else. The Preliminary Plan for the Proposed National Institute of Education (Draft) published by the Rand Corporation has some useful data, but it avoids commitment to any specific task. I believe that the purpose of the NIE should be to promote the development of these fundamentally different systems. It should not be as the present bill proposes "to conduct and support educational research...etc." The present proposed legislation and Preliminary Plan would result in the same kind of diffused efforts which characterize other broadly worded legislation and policy directives.

Each state has legal responsibility for its educational program. The NIE working cooperatively with the state educational agencies could help each of them develop systems appropriate for their particular requirements. The recommendation of the Commission on Instruetional Technology relating to "a diversity of approaches" cannot be emphasized too strongly. However, the point to be emphasized here is that development of new programs to provide education for individuals should occur first and should be the initial thrust of the NIE. "To conduct and support educational research and disseminate educational research findings throughout the nation; to train individuals in educational research, . . . to construct or provide for necessary facilities" etc. in the context of the present generally ineffective educational system would be equivalent to conducting research on buggy whips." After significant change has taken place in the form of education, then extensive evaluation will be necessary. New questions will be raised as the result of problems created by the new systems. This will be the time to phase-in a major research thrust. Obviously, in some states dissemination, training, applied research, technological assistance etc. will be required from the very beginning. But, these are means to assist in the development of more effective educational systems, and not ends in themselves. The legislation must not permit the proliferation of every kind of research, development, diffusion, and evaluation activity that can be "sold" to the director or his staff by sophisticated "grantsmanship".

Stated in a less dramatic way, extensive development is now both possible and necessary before meaningful evaluation can take place. When meaningful evaluation has taken place, then it will be both necessary and productive to undertake research and further development to improve deficient systems. It will do little good to do additional

research now on measurement, compensatory education, reading, television, etc. when we have already supported every idea for research that the present context of education has suggested. What is needed now is a major effort in one direction that holds great promise. With a clear goal, effective management, and adequate support the National Institute of Education could, in time, make a significant difference in everyone's life and help assure the ascendancy of all mankind.

STATEWIDE ASSESSMENT: ITS FUTURE AND
POTENTIAL FOR EDUCATIONAL REFORM

By HENRY S. DYER AND ROBERT J. SOLOMON

When one considers the faith which Americans place in education, it is amazing that the concept of statewide assessment is such a relatively new development. From the beginning, Americans have seen education as an instrument for social progress. "If a nation," wrote Thomas Jefferson, "expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

From the beginning, too, and increasingly with each new generation, American education has become a public (and in this sense, political) enterprise supported by a complex body of laws, particularly state laws, designed to give social sanction and encouragement to education, and supported by large and increasing amounts of public funds, particularly state and local funds. And as our concept of a democratic society has expanded and our needs as a society have multiplied, so too have our expectations with regard to who is to be educated and what is to be achieved.

In a society where education is everybody's business, the adequacy of that system also becomes everybody's business. As Bressler and Tumin 1 have observed, "The high visibility of the educational system and its governance, which underlies the public accountability of that system, also makes possible the constant confrontation... by relevant publies, such as parents and employers, of the "outcomes" of that system, as they personally encounter those outcomes in the form of their children and their employees."

If Americans today were satisfied with their society, if they were united in their perception of social priorities, and if they felt reasonably secure about their power to shape and control the future, there would probably be less concern today with assessment. But under the circumstances, it is not surprising that an institution which is so political, in the larger sense of that term-that is, how we govern ourselves to achieve our social goals-should come under increasing scrutiny from those on the left, the right, and the middle who feel a need to know what the schools are accomplishing, why they are accomplishing or not accomplishing, and how their accomplishments can be improved. In short, if education is the instrument of social progress then those who are dissatisfied for one reason or another with the present fruits of "progress" see assessment as a means to determine what has been happening and, ultimately, what should happen in the schools.

This is the motivation that underlay the Equal Educational Opportunities Survey (the Coleman Report), which is a landmark study in American education not for its findings, which are nevertheless

1 Marvin Bressler and Melvin Tumin. Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Educational Systems, Final Report, USOE Cooperative Research Project No. 6-2023, April 1962.