Beginnings of the Movement
The way in which this movement began and the rapidity with which it has progressed are vividly described by one of its chief exponents as follows:
Eighteen years ago the school superintendents of America, assembled in convention in Indianapolis, discussed the problems then foremost in educational thought and action. At that meeting a distinguished educator[69]—the pioneer and pathfinder among the scientific students of education in America—brought up for discussion the results of his investigations of spelling among the children in the school systems of nineteen cities. These results showed that, taken all in all, the children who spent forty minutes a day for eight years in studying spelling did not spell any better than the children in the schools of other cities where they devoted only ten minutes per day to the study.
The presentation of these data threw that assemblage into consternation, dismay, and indignant protest. But the resulting storm of vigorously voiced opposition was directed not against the methods and results of the investigation, but against the investigator who had pretended to measure the results of teaching spelling by testing the ability of children to spell.
In terms of scathing denunciation the educators there present and the pedagogical experts, who reported the deliberations of the meeting in the educational press, characterized as silly, dangerous, and from every viewpoint reprehensible, the attempt to test the efficiency of the teacher by finding out what the pupils could do. With striking unanimity they voiced the conviction that any attempt to evaluate the teaching of spelling in terms of the ability of the pupils to spell was essentially impossible and based on a profound misconception of the function of education.
Last month in the city of Cincinnati that same association of school superintendents, again assembled in convention, devoted fifty-seven addresses and discussions to tests and measurements of educational efficiency. The basal proposition underlying this entire mass of discussion was that the effectiveness of the school, the methods, and the teachers must be measured in terms of the results secured.[70]