“It still stands today as the most comprehensive, long-range, experimental educational research study ever conducted in school settings, and its lessons are many and as pertinent today as they ever were.” (Lounsbury, 1998, p. 1)
What was the Eight-Year Study?
The Eight-Year Study (8YS) has quickly become one of my favorite historical events. It is a story of innovation, politics, history, and leadership. In 1930, a convening of nearly 200 educators from private and public institutions brainstormed ideas to improve secondary education at a deep and structural level. There was a clear consensus: the traditional college admission process was the biggest obstacle to innovation and fundamental reconstruction of secondary schools. Specifically, the system of required courses (i.e., Carnegie units) and lack of flexibility around standards left schools unable to make structural changes without negating college viability. Ironically, this is still the biggest obstacle progressive educators face today with regards to improving secondary schools. It took a few years, but a plan eventually came together and the 8YS began in 1933.
Roughly 300 colleges and universities across the nation agreed to waive acceptance requirements from a set of 30 high schools until 1940. The high schools, which included public, private, and laboratory schools, were given a blank check for what they wanted to change and still have students go to college. The study’s architects did not dictate the depth, breadth, or type of changes that the schools should undergo, but a major guiding principle of the study was “that the high school in the United States should re-discover its chief reason for existence” (Aikin, 1942, p. 18). Changes included entirely redesigning curriculums and graduation requirements, altering schedules, making courses only interdisciplinary, eliminating standardized assessments, and reassessing every function of the high school education experience.
The Findings
In Tyack and Cuban’s (1997) Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform, they summarize the findings of the study succinctly. Namely, the researchers found that although the collegiate grades of the students from those 30 schools were about the same as other college students, the students involved in the 8YS were more active in “collegiate social, artistic, and political life” (p. 99). The researchers also found that the graduates from the most progressive schools in the study did the best in college scholastically.
Then…
This is where the story gets interesting. Following the most comprehensive education study that has ever taken place, researchers found that the traditional “grammar of schooling” (Tyack & Cuban, 1997, p. 5) structures, such as traditional desks, classes, schedules, and courses, are worse for preparing students than the innovative approaches used by the schools in the study. However, the school leaders in the study eventually fell back into their traditional practices. While there were some lasting impacts, such as the expectations of teacher collaboration through professional learning communities (PLC), the overwhelming findings of the study seemed to have had no impact.
As a progressive educator, I am appalled at the lack of action from the education community when I consider the 8YS. Many of the ideas that I presently push for are neither unheard of or recent and we have this massive study that supports these ideas. Why were the findings essentially ignored? The most commonly named culprit: poor timing.
The 8YS concluded in 1940. Much like the unfortunately timed release of The Strokes’ hit New York City Cops (They Ain’t So Smart) in late summer of 2001… the study’s findings were easily overshadowed by every international incident from the 1930’s and 1940’s. Even more important, however, is our domestic tendency to unite around more conservative ideals during wartime. This conservative inclination spreads into education as well. Despite the profound findings of the 8YS, education is ultimately a democratic ideal in the US and if the public is united under a conservative umbrella, there is no room for sweeping education reform.
References
Aikin, W.M. (1942). The story of the Eight-Year Study. New York, NY: Harper.
Lounsbury, J. H. (1998). The Eight-Year Study: Connecting our past to our future. In The Eight-Year Study revisited: Lessons from the past for the present (pp. 1-16). Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.
Tyack, D. B. & Cuban, L. (1997). Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Learning V. School 