When Goals Collide…

Almost 50 years ago, between 1978 and 1979, researcher Dolores Durkin conducted a literacy study in 66 schools to evaluate both reading instruction among 1,784 teachers and student comprehension in grades 3 to 6. Her findings set off alarm bells. Durkin found that teachers spent only 1% of instructional time teaching reading comprehension. Her study proposed multiple research-based practices for correcting the problem. These were largely ignored in the decades that followed, as substantiated in 2025, in the peer reviewed journal Scientific Studies of Reading.

Over the years, in English classes, instructional time given to comprehension has modestly risen to 23%. Despite the urgent need to be competitive in today’s rapidly changing world, purposeful, strategic, and knowledge-building education continues to take a back seat to rote learning. The question is why?

There is enough blame to go around.

Most articles point toward teachers taking the easy way out in the classroom by turning to PowerPoint presentations, reading to the students, asking rote or simplistic questions that beget rote and simplistic answers. There is scant time for inquiry, discussion, and exchange of ideas. Again, the question is why?

Another contributing factor is that teacher training – both during college and in professional development courses – offer few research-proven strategies to improve comprehension. And again, the question is why?

The answer to all of the above questions is that different factions have different, often contradictory goals. When they collide, the group with the most power prevails. And students are the losers.

At the top of the hierarchy, federal and state political leaders who control educational purse strings crave top placements in math, science, and reading on the international PISA* scale. A high ranking produces more than bragging rights. It woos potential investors by adopting the correlation that strong educational systems will produce strong economic growth to their benefit.

For the record, PISA scores are compromised because they do not factor poverty levels of participating countries and schools, both of which impact results and standings. Consequently, PISA results cannot be definitive indicators of future success. To date there is no direct correlation between strong PISA scores and a country’s future economic growth. Importantly, an individual student’s results on a standardized test are in no way predictive of his/her potential or future success.

Conversely, there are centuries of proof that holistic education of the whole child produces the best and long-lasting results – academically and emotionally. Before Durkin, methods of child-centered learning are found in the practices of innovators like Rousseau, Froebel, Dewey, Montessori, and Vygotsky. Since Durkin, ed reformers, including Sizer, Meier, and Littky, have continued the legacy. Each has demonstrated that time invested in fun, exploration, artistic endeavors, social interaction with peers, discussion and inquiry in the classroom will lead to academic success and the development of vibrant, independent, unique, and thoughtful individuals who contribute to society.

Teachers would agree.

Yet, beyond all reason, mandates from federal and state officials ignore the research. Their goal and persistent demand to leaders in school districts across the country is to produce proficient scores on standardized tests - international and national. As a result, superintendents, principals, and other administrators enter a complicated game of double talk: Following orders while professing to champion the Socratic ideals of critical thinking and deepened understanding based on inquiry, rigorous debate, reflection, and refinement of views.

Teachers are caught in a vise. Ordered to teach to the test. Their evaluations tied to the success or failure of their students. Further, teachers are also judged by their abilities to engage, motivate, and facilitate students’ ability to think critically and deeply. Although the latter is their primary goal, time constraints make it impossible for teachers to deliver on two conflicting paradigms. They have no choice but to follow their administration’s priority to safeguard funding through test proficiency and rising graduation rates.

The conflicting goals of teachers and administrators have a negative impact on students. Courses that motivate are replaced with chronic test prep classes that prepare students to pass standardized tests by memorizing answers to “most likely” questions with little context or connection. No wonder our educational system, nationwide, is infested with rampant absenteeism as well as grade inflation that guarantees passing grades to every student, regardless of attendance or day-to-day performance.

It is a sham.

Are we really going to prepare our students to compete effectively and successfully in an AI world if they cannot read beyond a third-grade level or understand what they read? Do we really believe that inflated grades and GPAs will mask what students do not know? Or bolster their confidence, ambition, and independence? Do we really believe they will become happy, emotionally fulfilled, and productive citizens if they are deprived of recess, the arts, hands-on fun activities in favor of endless test prep?

The path we are on is wrong. Destructive. The educational and emotional fallout is already happening. It is up to us to prevent a full-on collision. Teachers want a different path. So do students. So do parents. We know what works. So, let’s speak up. At school committee meetings. In our communities, to our legislators. Let’s meet with members of schools that are doing it right so we might learn from them. And if we cannot effect change in our own town, we can do what so many have already done: Start our own school.

*PISA is the Programme for International Student Assessment. It is a study conducted by OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development) to assess the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in core subjects.

Answer to Unpacking Education, No. 37, Question of the Day:

Since Durkin’s research, there has been a steady decline in reading proficiency beyond Grade 3 and in reading comprehension overall. So, the correct answer is c) 50 years.