Book Report: Tinkering Toward Utopia

by David Tyack

Part 1 of my summer reading series

The Carnegie unit was established in 1906, and over a century later it is still the primary means of measuring student academic advancement. It was developed by an elite group of university presidents, who “confident that they had the answers to improving American education, were determined to reform from the top down a system of schooling they regarded as chaotic and ineffective.”  Since what’s good for the universities is good for the country, this system remains fundamentally in place even now.

The presidents group further determined that a minimum of 14 Carnegie credits should be required for university admission, as well as the content of these academic units - the reason most high schools still follow the traditional biology-chemistry-physics sequence. (And probably why we now have a biology Keystone exam graduation requirement.)  It’s also the main reason most high schools are still organized by content area departments. Much of the rigidity of the typical high school curriculum lies in this tie to college entrance requirements.

There have been challenges to this structure every twenty years or so, but none has really taken root because there is just too great of an investment in the current system. Interestingly - perhaps depressingly - a century of reform attempts will sound familiar to modern education progressives.

For example, beginning in the early 1920s, progressive educators in Denver objected to what they saw as domination by colleges of the secondary school program. Regarding the Carnegie unit as a straightjacket, they began to blend subjects, and experiment with time and space.  The Dalton Plan required “that teachers negotiate monthly contracts with their students.”  All students were required to study certain subjects, but it was the responsibility of the students to decide the pace of the work, who to work with, etc. No 50-minute periods, no ‘bells’, no teachers lecturing in front of large classes.

In the 1930s, the Progressive Education Association sponsored the Eight Year study. With a million dollars at their disposal, they were able to persuade over 200 colleges to admit students on a principal’s recommendation alone – GPAs and SATs not required. Freed from the ‘tyranny’ of the Carnegie unit, teachers developed curricula that crossed departmental boundaries, with less emphasis on traditional academic subjects and more time on the arts. Teachers spent less time lecturing, and more time planning – with each other, and with their students. Education became more individualized and student-centered. And much of this was accomplished using the ‘school within a school’ structure.

Any of this sound familiar?

Among the research findings from the study: graduates of these progressive schools did far better in college, on average, than their peers.  But by the early 1950s these reforms began to fade. Why?  The general consensus was that World War II and the specter of the Cold War brought a concern for security that strengthened the cultural tendency towards authoritarianism, in both society and in school. Compounding this, the passage of the GI bill allowed universities to become more selective in their admissions.

In the 1960s, yet another wave of reformers attempted to “overthrow the Carnegie unit … the teacher-dominated traditional curriculum, passive styles of learning, and the isolation of teachers from each other.”  And again, this idea seemed to have real potential, particularly for the most motivated and creative students.

It is interesting to note, however, that students who had already learned to succeed in a more directive environment often became frustrated when teachers no longer told them what to do. The greater flexibility that was a boon for some students was problematic for others.  In the public’s mind, this came to be seen as a ‘lack of discipline’, resulting in a desire to ‘get back to basics’. And so, in the 1970s the pendulum began to swing back again.

So, what can be learned from a century's worth of experiments in progressive, student-centered education?