Reviews

The news media have reported the results of a study by the National Association of Secondary School Principals' Department of Research of “34 high schools around the country that have successfully resisted the trend toward falling [Scholastic Aptitude Test] scores” (New York Times. 28 March 1978). The news stories stressed the study's major conclusion that schools whose SAT scores have been stable or rising have emphasized academic coursework, but the stories gave as much or more weight to the suggestion that schools whose scores declined were too responsive to educational fads. Although the study specifically noted that one could not stereotype the schools according to innovative or traditional instructional methods, reporters and editorial writers read the study as condemning such innovations as the open classroom concept. The headline of the news story in the Atlanta Constitution on 2 April 1978 was typical: “Schools Avoid Fads, Students Do Better.”