Is there a Science of Education? Can intellectual development be weighed, measured, counted, divided by two? If so, then a science of education might be possible. If not, then there is an emperor called 'School Improvement' that is in dire need of a wardrobe. And if so, then why are school improvement efforts largely ineffective? A gravitational law that failed again and again to produce the expected results would be abandoned or amended. An educational program that fails again and again gets repackaged, funded by the Gates Foundation, and fails again on the front page.
The problem might come down to this: The scientific method works well as an intellectual tool for understanding physical phenomena. But human beings, with a few notable exceptions, are more complex than billiard balls. And when human beings begin interpreting the world and act on their interpretations, then science (which is also a group of people interpreting the world and acting on those interpretations) has met its epistemic match and has no vantage point from which to gain distance or perspective or objectivity with regard to its would-be subject. Good scientists have recognized and wrestled with this problem for decades. They have realized that even with regard to physics the act of the scientists making observations can impact the results of an experiment. If it is problematic with inanimate objects, how much more difficult is the measurement of mental processes?
Even the proponents of 'scientific' approaches to education can't quite bring themselves to form the words. When 'No Child Left Behind' was first out, the federal and Oregon departments of education began using the phrase 'scientific practice'. As reform movements continued to stall, the vocabulary shifted somewhat to 'scientifically based practice.' Subtle equivocation, or just bad grammar? Today the phrase has morphed to become 'evidence based practice'. Evidently even the compliance police couldn't connect the words 'science' and 'education' without experiencing some cognitive dissonance.
I don't believe that a science of education any more possible than is a science of literature or of aesthetics. That is not to say that education is not worthy of study or that people can't become highly expert with regard to teaching and to operating schools. It is only to claim that education will not give up its secrets to the scientific method. Any attempts to force it to do so produce only pseudo-science and snake oil in the form of 'scientifically-based' approaches to literacy, behavior, professional development, assessment, special education, etc. (You can spot the scientifically-based products by their accompanying acronyms. Odds are, if you've heard of it, and it's not a real word, it's an expensive, 'scientifically-based', utterly ineffective, brand-spankin'-new miracle of modern education! Do they work? Keep an eye on high school achievement. That's the 'needle' that I watch, and it's not doing much over the past decade.)
Yep, you got it. I am an unbeliever. The chief unbeliever, perhaps, as most of my Corbett colleagues are of a similar mind. Most days it doesn't matter. We just avoid the nonsense, embracing what we jokingly refer to as 'Program-Free Schooling' (or, PES, though we haven't figured out how to market it!). We simply don't do what the School Improvement Industry insists must be done, and our kids are well served. But the Industry is a distraction, and political forces in the State are constantly tempted to impose statewide 'solutions' based on the testimony of its lobbyists. So it matters, even to those of us who don't buy it, that The School of Education, Scientist, continues to advocate for practices that range from ineffective to dangerous. Keep an eye on the Oregon Legislature. Be suspicious of National Standards. Watch the Chalkboard Project. There are well-intended Oregonians who would like to 'fix' education without regard to how their 'repairs' play out in our tiny corner of the world. We need to be vigilant.
We are off to a great school year. Program free. We'll do our best to keep it that way.
