Prologue to

The article Professional Standards in Education makes the case that the field of education is not accountable, although there are professional standards in areas that have a lot in common with education, like psychology. There are professional standards for psychologists—sensible rules for what psychologists do and don't do. Why aren't there any for education? Why does the field persist in brain-dead procedures for adopting programs and for evaluating published educational products? No DI program has ever been adopted in any of California's adoption cycles. Why is that?

Part of the problem is that textbook adoptions are high-ticket items, with billions of dollars changing hands. In other fields there is controlled obsolescence. I have cookware that is over 20 years old with Teflon finishes that show almost no sign of wear. I have other cookware that is less than two years old and has no no-stick finish left. Education goes a step farther, however. It has uncontrolled obsolescence. Imagine having to update reading programs every seven years. Why? Have kids changed so much that we must fine-tune the programs to their current unique sensitivities? Baloney. Sure, for books that deal with "current events" current revisions are necessary. But face it: The driving force behind all the seven-year adoptions is expressed with dollar signs. It is enormously profitable for those publishers who hit the big time.

The field of education will continue to do things that cruel and demonstrably damaging to kids until it establishes some form of true accountability for the performance of teachers and kids. A huge part of that accountability has to do with controlling how much experimentation is permitted with human subjects. The field has already raped millions of kids through whole language. Now the field is slowly getting its act together in reading but espouses math programs that are little more than cruel and unusual punishment. The field needs more than information. It needs meticulous control over the manner in which it permits instructional programs to be developed, disseminated, and adopted. It needs sensible standards.