Rational Schools: The Role of Science in Helping Education Become a Profession

Abstract

The continuing failure to distinguish change from change with improvement punishes teachers and students alike, particularly diverse learners-children of poverty, students with disabilities, children with limited English proficiency. As the portion of diverse learners in America's schools grows, so too are the demands and expectations for student achievement. Education is not meeting these challenges, in large part because education lacks the infrastructure of other professions, i.e., supports and controls from the profession, from government bodies, and from independent, external groups. This underdeveloped infrastructure diminishes the role of rational, scientifically supported methods, with other groups dominating the field. A rational process for transforming education is briefly described, as are the attendant changes in the relationship .among the groups that control American education. The need to improve student learning across the disciplines, including critical thinking and problem solving, has received great attention for over a decade. Numerous groups have recommended changes for bringing about these improvements-innovation, reform, restructuring, and choice. The thesis of this article is that too much attention has been paid to change as an end in itself and too little attention to change with improvement. It is crucial to look beyond a change per se to the effects of a change on students. This focus on results is becoming increasingly important as the makeup of America's schools becomes more varied and poverty stricken. Moreover, today's students face growing expectations in the context of a global economy. The weak professional infrastructure of education exacerbates these challenges. Supporting understanding and action concerning education's weak infrastructure is the primary purpose of this article. Specifically, education lacks supports and controls available to other professionals-from the profession, from government, and from external groups. Developing these supports and controls requires a shift in how decisions are made in education. In particular, scientific evaluations and rational methods will have to become more influential. A discussion of how this might come about concludes the article. The general public probably believes that educational changes occur in a manner similar to other disciplines: New knowledge is acquired through rational methods, that knowledge is widely publicized, and change takes place based on the findings.