In the city of Detroit there has been carried on for the last three years a systematic series of tests in the fundamental school subjects. The teachers-in-training in the city normal school are given courses in tests and in the interpretation of results so that they carry into the school from year to year the type of preparation which makes them intelligent and sympathetic from the first.
At first some unhappy results followed the wholesale measurement of results. Many of the teachers thought that the method was arbitrary and that their work would be misrepresented. Even the good teachers were afraid. They had been accustomed to the purely personal type of supervision based on opinion and answerable, when occasion demanded, by opinion. The teachers who were not sure of the success of their work were violent in their objections. The Board of Education, which at the beginning of the testing was composed of some of the cheapest politicians in the city, led the attack on what they termed a fad and a theory.
Experience has, however, justified in fullest measure supervision by a measurement of results. It has become increasingly clear to all teachers that tests show clearly where the work is strong and where it is weak. Not only so, but the tests help the teacher to determine with precision the exact points where the results need to be improved.
Above and beyond this, however, is the advantage which has come to the schools in their relation to the community. No longer is it necessary for teachers to speak in uncertain terms of their work. If the community will listen, it is possible for the Detroit school officials to make clear by scientific reports based on tests exactly what is going on in every school and in every grade.
The community showed its appreciation of the type of school management which was intelligent enough to base itself on exact studies of results by doing away absolutely with the corrupt and inefficient board and electing in its place a group of thoroughly representative citizens who are supporting scientific management and developing the schools along lines dictated by such management.
The example of Detroit is by no means the only one which could be cited. An increasing number of cities are revising their courses, training their teachers, and educating the communities by similar methods.
A Study of the Building Needs of a City
One other example must suffice for the present, since the subsequent chapters of this book are devoted to the treatment in outline of the various types of scientific inquiry which ought to govern school organization. This example is borrowed from a report prepared in 1916 by the superintendent of schools of the city of Minneapolis.
In a pamphlet entitled “A Million a Year” there is laid before the citizens of Minneapolis a clear statement, first, of what they had been doing in the way of erecting school buildings for the seven years preceding the report. The report then shows in detail what buildings cost, through a careful analysis of the records for earlier buildings. Then come statements of the uses of schools and the conditions which determine the kind of building which should be put up in each section of the city. Estimates are given in great detail of the needs for five years, and the city is asked to act on the situation as thus described.
The spirit of the study can be clearly seen from the introduction, which is worth repeating in full.