Why do our schools consistently avoid the most successful teaching approach of all?

And, why does Kentucky seem poised to ignore the best approach again?

It’s a deep, dark secret – largely hidden for nearly half a century – something it seems most educators don’t want you to know.

Project Follow Through, the most expensive and expansive education research project ever undertaken, clearly identified one, best-performing teaching approach – something named “Direct Instruction.”

Direct Instruction outlines an organized way to set up and teach curriculum that features teachers as a “Sage on the Stage” instead of just a “Guide on the Side.” In the Project Follow Through studies, Direct Instruction worked best across a wide range of students including traditionally those with more challenges such as racial minorities and students in poverty.

Perhaps most importantly, that Project Follow Through finding isn’t changing over time. As summarized in a recent article by Joy Pullmann in The Federalist, 1 a major new study just reconfirmed yet again the “strong positive results” for the Direct Instruction approach.

But, we never hear about Direct Instruction from Kentucky’s educators. Instead, Bluegrass State educators seem to constantly chase the same fad ideas that have been pushed since the earliest days of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). Worse still, it looks like Kentucky education is poised to start up a new chase after those largely ineffective, fad ideas yet again.

Recent research is reigniting interest in Direct Instruction. As Pullmann points, out that research finds the Direct Instruction approach: 

“…to be effective across races, sexes, ages, family income levels, and subjects.”

 She adds: 

”…’all of the estimated effects were positive and all were statistically significant except results’ related to non-academic effects such as personality and feelings.”

With such strong success in the critical area of academics, an area where Kentucky’s schools continue to be seriously challenged, why aren’t Kentuckians hearing about Direct Instruction, and why aren’t our educators running to incorporate it in their academic programs?

Instead, as recently announced in the Kentucky Department of Education’s NEWS RELEASE No. 18-015, 2 Kentucky seems ready to tear off – yet again – in the direction of Progressive Education fad ideas of the sort we’ve heard about ever since the early days of KERA.

The news release is full of references to things like creating a “holistic and comprehensive approach.” It pushes a focus on “student interests and applied learning.” 

Well, Kentuckians have heard terms like “holistic” and have seen discussions about “comprehensive” approaches dating back to at least 1993 and the first edition of the Kentucky Department of Education’s “Transformations, Kentucky’s Curriculum Framework, Volume II” document (The original isn’t online but here is a link to the 1995 update 3  that isn’t much different). 

The department’s news release also says Kentucky educators should “Rethink learning and assessment so that it becomes more individualized and allows students to progress as they gain mastery of skills and knowledge.” Well, the Transformations document is also laced with material about individualized learning and mastery learning.

So, this isn’t new stuff. More importantly, this stuff has already been pushed in Kentucky for decades. It has not worked terribly well for our kids, as our disappointing progress in the past quarter century on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress attests.

So, why is Kentucky launching off again in what seems to be a dubious direction? Part of the answer, as Pullmann writes is that:

“…the field of education research is well-known for producing especially shoddy, ideology-driven, and therefore untrustworthy work. The social sciences replication crisis is particularly acute in education, meaning that when you hear “research says” in the context of schooling, nearly all of the time what follows is bunk.”

As I have discussed before (see here, 5  here, 6  here 7  and here 8 ), education research is generally held in low regard by plenty of others besides Pullmann and myself, as well.

For still more about the poor quality of education research, check out what Arthur Levine, a former president of Columbia Teachers College, has to say in his reports about “Educating School Teachers” and “Educating Researchers.”

So, there is little question that the quality of education research is generally quite poor. Indeed, it can often be held up as a superb example of fake news. But, far too often, our educators, who seem to lack the ability to detect poor quality in education research, fall for the fad ideas this biased research constantly pushes. The result is a continuing cycle of educators chasing fad ideas that have already been tried and failed. It makes a lot of education gurus rich, but it doesn’t do much for our kids.

And, the taxpayer keeps paying the expensive bill for these continuing mistakes.

But, there does seem to be a better answer out there.

By the way, there is a whole web site devoted to Direct Instruction. Find that here.

After you get a handle on all of this and how Direct Instruction is being ignored, write the people at the Kentucky Department of Education and the Kentucky Board of Education and ask them to explain why we keep hearing about reintroducing failed ideas Kentucky tried in the 1990s. Why don’t we ever hear a word about Direct Instruction and how it seems to be the best educational approach of all?

LINKS

1 http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/16/research-keeps-showing-this-kind-of-teaching-is-very-effective-so-why-wont-schools-use-it/

2 https://education.ky.gov/comm/news/Documents/R18-015%20KBE%20Feb%20meeting.pdf

3 http://www.e-archives.ky.gov/pubs/Education/transit2.pdf

4 http://www.bipps.org/kentuckys-real-progress-national-assessment-educational-progress-naep/

5 http://www.bipps.org/more-shots-education-research-and-the-folks-who-create-it/

6 http://www.bipps.org/newsweek-flunks-education-research/

7 http://www.bipps.org/education-research-has-problems/

8 http://www.bipps.org/scientific-education-research-in-short-supply/

9 http://edschools.org/pdf/Educating_Teachers_Report.pdf

10 http://edschools.org/EducatingResearchers/educating_researchers.pdf

11 https://www.nifdi.org/