Of all the problems touching teachers, that of their training in service is perhaps the most important. There is a great deal of very blind and ineffective effort expended each year in futile attempts to meet this problem. A great deal of required reading is done by teachers, and a great many meetings are attended which could be turned to better account if there were well-organized systems of training in service and of parallel promotional requirements.
Standardization by Measurement of Results
A third group of problems are those which have been referred to in the chapter on standardization. The results of classroom work must be evaluated and comparisons must be made on a large scale to guide the future work of the pupils. In some measure this is a problem for teachers. But so far as the individual class teacher is concerned, there will have to be dependence on central agencies for the collection of material which can be used in comparisons.
At the present time a large share of the standardizing material is being collected by private agencies. Men and women who are interested in the promotion of educational science are making individual studies and are bringing together bodies of comparative material. This is entirely legitimate so long as the movement of standardization and quantitative treatment of results is in what may be described as an experimental stage. As soon as the utility of measurements has been proved, it becomes a public obligation to provide agencies for this work.
The growth of the movement toward the addition in all large school systems of one or more officers whose duty it shall be to measure results has been commented on in earlier connections. There is a national organization of school-efficiency officers with a membership including representatives of some twenty of the leading systems of the country. This shows in a concrete way that the demand for central officers of standardization is beginning to be met.
An Example of Public Recognition of the Need of Efficiency Measurements
A single example of a personal type may serve further to impress on the reader the character of this movement. Mr. S. A. Courtis, who is widely known as the author of a system of arithmetic tests, began his work in testing as a teacher in a private school for girls, the Liggett School of Detroit. He devised tests to find out how well his pupils were doing their work. He found at once that he needed comparative material because he saw that the success of his classes was in a measure a comparative matter. He published his first findings, and secured the coöperation of other interested teachers and school officers. Soon he became a center for arithmetic tests. He was compelled to give up more and more of his time and energy to a task which was broader in its scope than the task of teaching his classes. The school was intelligent enough to recognize this general service to all schools and gave him time and assistance in organizing his tests. The individual work of a scientific student thus began to develop. He was called to all parts of the country to discuss his methods and results, and centers of interest were established where his tests were used.
Ultimately Mr. Courtis was called to assist in the survey of New York City and in the surveys of other systems, notably Gary, Indiana. He was also asked to organize for the city of Detroit a department of investigation as a permanent division of the administration of the city schools.
Scientific Studies and Central Supervision
Example after example could be given of the organization of public supervision on the basis of private scientific investigation. These examples are important not only as exhibitions of the demand for more central supervision but also as demonstrations of the demand that all the larger problems of the school system be approached in the scientific spirit. The school system of this country, like all public institutions, has passed through the period of first organization. This was a period of urgent practical demands. Work had to be done by any means that came to hand. The situation was like all pioneer situations. In many cases teachers who were meagerly trained had to administer unorganized courses of study, and the public had to be satisfied with results which were, to say the least, uncertain. The pioneering period is not altogether passed yet, but there is wealth enough in most communities to support a more deliberate type of organization. There is a perfection of the instruments of education, an organization of the agencies of education, and a standardization of results which were impossible in earlier days.