The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on ... · also improving in modest ways. Thus, the major claims ... improve our schools fail simply because they don't work.

S E L E C T I O N 3 5

The Manufactured Crisis: Myths,Fraud, and the Attack on America's

Public SchoolsDavid C. Berliner & Bruce]. Biddle

Much has been said of the inadequacies of America's schools—falling test scores, rising illiteracy rates, and misguidedappropriations of funds. Such topics become headline news with every new Gallup Poll and national education report. DavidBerliner and Bruce Biddle questioned these assessments of the public schools by politicians and the press and maintainthat the attacks on education are a "manufactured crisis." By examining the hidden agendas of various critics and politicalforces (primarily neoconservative policymakers who wish to undermine the public school system), Berliner and Biddle askwhether educators should be held responsible for certain outcomes often considered beyond the power of schooling. Themanufactured crisis has caused a loss of faith in public schooling, and they conclude their book by examining what theyconsider real problems confronting education and suggesting methods for improvement. The focus of their recommendations,treated through a series of principles for improving education, include providing parents more dignity and children more hope;establishing fair school funding; reducing school size; enlarging the goals of curricula; adopting innovative teaching methods(encouraging thoughtfulness); redesigning student evaluation; abandoning age-graded classrooms; strengthening school-community relations; and strengthening the professional status of educators.

Bruce J. Biddle (1928-) is professor emeritus of psychology and sociology at the University of Missouri. He is known forhis ground-breaking research on teaching, The Study of Teaching (1974) with Michael Dunkin. David C. Berliner (1938-) is theRegents' Professor of Education at Arizona State University. Other publications include Educational Psychology (with Nate L.Gage, 1975) and Collateral Damage (with Sharon L. Nichols, 2007).

In this excerpt, Berliner and Biddle describe their belief that the most fundamental way to improve schools is "to enhancethe dignity of parents and the autonomy and professional status of educators," calling for more research and more compassionas a method for reforming public education.

Key concept(s): nature of educational change

Citation: David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle, from The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's PublicSchools (Perseus Books, 1995)

Fundamentals of SchoolImprovement: Research and

CompassionBy now it should be clear that American education hasrecently been subjected to an unwarranted, vigorous,and damaging attack—a Manufactured Crisis. Early inthe 1980s, prominent figures in our federal government

unleashed an unprecedented onslaught on America'sschools, claiming that those schools had recently dete-riorated, that they now compared badly with schoolsfrom other advanced countries, and that as a result oureconomy and the future of our nation were seriouslythreatened. These claims were said to be supported byevidence, although somehow that evidence was rarelycited or appeared only as simple, misleading analyses oflimited data.

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David C. Berliner & Bruce J. Biddle The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on Americas Public Schools 191

Nevertheless, this attack was waged with great vigor,was eagerly supported by prominent figures in industry,and was widely reported and endlessly elaborated by acompliant press. And as a result, many of the claims ofthis attack came to be accepted by good-hearted Ameri-cans, including a lot of powerful people and leaders inthe educational community; and great mischief resultedbecause of the misunderstandings and poor policies thisattack created.

[We] examined the actual evidence bearing on majorclaims of this attack and found that most were unsup-ported. Instead, the evidence suggests that, on average,American schools are not only holding their own but arealso improving in modest ways. Thus, the major claimsof the attack turned out to have been myths; the Manu-factured Crisis was revealed as a Big Lie.

But these conclusions raised related questions. Whydid this attack appear in the early 1980s, and what didresearch suggest about the educational agenda beingpushed by those responsible for the crisis? [The] crisiswas indirectly generated by escalating problems, both inthe larger society and in education itself; but it was alsopromoted by specific groups of ideologues who were hos-tile to public schools and who wanted to divert attentionfrom America's growing social problems. [We] examinedevidence indicating that key educational policies urgedby promoters of the crisis would, if adopted, seriouslydamage America's schools and debase the educationalexperiences of its students.

Our analysis did not stop at this point, however.One of the worst effects of the Manufactured Crisiswas that it distracted Americans from the real prob-lems of American education and from thinking aboutuseful steps that we might take to resolve those prob-lems and improve America's schools. So, ... we exam-ined a number of dilemmas faced by America's schools,some created by serious and escalating problems in thesociety at large, some resulting from questionable tra-ditions for conducting education in our country. Andgiven these pressing dilemmas, ... we set forth a set ofprinciples that seem promising for improving Ameri-can education.

As we've seen then, the average American school is alot more successful than those responsible for the Man-ufactured Crisis would have us believe. This does notmean that our schools are perfect; indeed, they face seri-ous problems, and their programs and achievements varyenormously. But this variation is due, in part, to huge dif-ferences in income, wealth, and support for schools inour nation. Thus, whether or not one accepts the princi-ples for improving education that we outlined ..., the taskof improving our schools remains a serious and ongoingchallenge for Americans.

Since this challenge is unlikely to go away, it is use-ful to suggest conditions that will govern how well thatchallenge is to be met.

The Need for More ResearchKnowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a peoplewho mean to be their own governors must arm them-selves with the power knowledge gives.

—James Madison (1822)

Americans share many concerns about education,and because of our energy, optimism, and willingnessto tinker with social institutions, we often set out to"reform" the public schools. And yet, most programsfor improving education fail. Many turn out to have fewgood effects, others are unworkable, others cost a lot morethan anticipated, and still others are found to create seri-ous problems for educators or students. As a result, mostprograms for improvement are eventually abandoned.

And yet, some attempts to improve education succeed,and America's schools clearly do change over time. Whatmakes for a successful improvement proposal? How canwe tell ahead of time whether a reform effort is Likely tosucceed or fail? These questions have been addressed byvarious scholars, and we offer here a brief summary ofonly some of their ideas.

In general, reform proposals are more likely to suc-ceed if

• they reflect genuine (rather than fictitious) problemsfaced by schools;

• they are based on attainable goals that are shared bythe people concerned;

• they are planned with an understanding of struc-tural forces in the society and the education systemthat will affect the proposed changes;

• they encourage and respond to debates about alter-natives among educators, students, parents, andothers affected by those proposals;

• they involve plans for both starting and maintainingthe program;

• they enlarge (rather than restrict) the lives of affectedpeople; and

• they are adequately funded.

This list sounds impressive, but it actually skirts atruly crucial criterion. Attempts to improve education aremore likely to succeed if they are associated with researchsuggesting that they actually work.

Thus, plans for improving education should solvethe problems they were supposed to solve or generateother lasting benefits that educators, students, parents,or others concerned with education can detect. Unfortu-nately, only a few improvement efforts actually generatebenefits—positive and detectable outcomes; and this issurely a major reason why most reform efforts are aban-doned. Despite good intentions, a lot of effort, and nolittle expense, a great many programs designed toimprove our schools fail simply because they don'twork.

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Is there no way to detect ahead of time which propos-als for improving education are likely to work and whichare not? To answer this question we need only look atother arenas of endeavor in which policy decisions arecontemplated. Suppose our community, state, or nationwere thinking about building a bridge, sending astro-nauts to the moon, or authorizing an expensive programto control a disease. In each case, we would want to baseour decision about the issue on research—on relevanttheories and evidence that investigators had assembledconcerning our decision. Moreover, in many cases wewould demand to see the results of that research before wemade our decision, and if the research had not yet beenconducted, we would commission that research as a neces-sary step before we took action. Thus, for such crucial mat-ters, we would turn to research to reduce the chances thaterrors would be made. But education can surely be studiedand is no less crucial in its effects on us and on the futurelives of our children. Thus, it is reasonable to believe thatAmericans would also turn to research to avoid makingerrors when planning ways to improve education.

Unfortunately, they don't. Only a few efforts to changeeducation seem to be based on knowledge generated byresearch. In all too many cases, reform programs that areset in motion by our federal government, state legisla-tures, school boards, or local educators are based neitheron evidence nor on careful reviews of relevant theory—and it would be difficult indeed to find cases where adecision-making body refused to consider a proposal forimproving education because the relevant research hadnot yet appeared. For example, various states passedlaws in the 1980s that attempted to reform education byintensifying school curricula or standards. As we notedearlier, these laws were not based on research evidenceor on the analytic scholarship of the research community,and most did not work. Similarly, current federal effortsto promote programs for gifted students fly in the face ofboth theory and evidence. "In short, the 'radical' notionof supporting calls for educational reform with researchknowledge seems not yet [to be] popular among manyreformers."1 And Americans pay the price by institutinga host of reforms that cannot, and do not, work.

Why do so many reformers behave this way when itcomes to education? This question has elicited a lot ofinterest, and scores of scholars have written about it.3 Inpart, most research on education is conducted by socialscientists, and social research is not thought to have the"definitive" character, the importance, that is accordedresearch in the physical and biological sciences.4 In part,also, our society has not yet evolved efficient mecha-nisms for getting the knowledge generated by researchon education to those who must make decisions aboutour schools. In part, research on education also cameunder direct attack as part of the Manufactured Crisis,so that many concerned Americans have been given thefalse impression that educational research is less valid oruseful than research in other fields.5 And in part, since

most Americans have had personal experience with pub-lic schools, they seem to think of themselves as "experts"on educational topics; hence, they feel little need forguidance from research when making decisions aboutschools.

Above all, however, research on education is notused because there is so little of it! Some readers mayfind this statement surprising, given our extensive cita-tions of research evidence in the first six chapters of thisbook. However, we were lucky. The educational topicswe reviewed for this effort are among the few for whichresearch truly has been accumulated. Indeed, whenconstructing the Manufactured Crisis, those hostile topublic education chose topics for which research hadbeen conducted; and to counter their myths, all we hadto do was to look at the evidence they had misrepre-sented. Research has simply not yet appeared for manyimportant educational issues. For example, we cited rela-tively little research evidence on ways to improve edu-cation in Chapter 7. The reason is that little research hasyet appeared that bears directly on most of the topics wereviewed in that chapter. Good ideas and relevant schol-arship have appeared, true, but empirical studies on mostof these topics have not yet been reported. Thus, thosewho look for research that will help them plan a specificprogram for improving education may find their searchto be fruitless.

The reason why so little educational research existsis that funding for it is almost nonexistent. Most sup-port for research in many fields comes from the federalgovernment, of course, and Americans annually spendbillions of their tax dollars to support research in thephysical and biological sciences. Annual federal supportfor research in medicine alone is now running at morethan five billion dollars, and billions more are spent eachyear on research relevant to defense. And yet, the entirefederal outlay for research on education—including thaton the costs of keeping records of the nation's schools,all research on school issues funded by all federalagencies, and the salaries of all those who administereducation—research budgets—currently amounts to onlya few hundred million dollars each year. And in recentyears the annual amount set aside by the Office of Edu-cational Research and Improvement for new studies bycompetent and motivated scholars has been a piddlingfive hundred thousand dollars—or about what it wouldcost to fund fully the research efforts and staff of threescholars in the fields of biology or medicine.

Or perhaps percentage figures would make moresense. Our federal government currently funds nearlyall of the costs of defense but only about 6 percent of thetotal cost of primary and secondary education (downfrom about 10 percent in 1980).6 Nevertheless, "while 15percent of the federal dollars that go for defense are usedto support research, only 0.1 percent of the federal dol-lars spent on educational programs are used to supportresearch."7 This is indeed peanuts.

David C. Berliner &> Bruce J. Biddle The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools 193

For the government to provide such picayune supportmakes no sense. Each year scores of decisions are madethroughout the country about new programs for improv-ing or reforming American schools. Many of those pro-grams will fail and thus will waste a great deal of moneyand possibly disrupt the lives of educators, students, andparents. Much of this waste of tax dollars and needlessdisruption could be prevented if Americans would onlydemand that reforms in schools not be initiated withoutbenefit of relevant research and that a good deal morefunding be set aside for research on pressing issues ineducation.

Education is not fundamentally different from otherfields of human endeavor. It is perfectly possible to con-duct research that bears on major decisions we need tomake concerning the organization, staffing, curricula, andteaching methods appropriate for America's schools. Whenthat research is conducted, it can produce knowledge thathelps us avoid serious and costly errors. But good researchdoes not come cheap. It requires competent and highly-trained workers. It also requires forethought and planning,and it always takes more time than decision makers wouldlike. But if America is to avoid the wasted dollars and dis-rupted lives that poor policy decisions in education gener-ate, we must step up our regular investment in educationalresearch. Certainly, failure to fund educational research is acase of "penny wise, pound foolish."

The Need for CompassionNo poor, rural, weak, or black person should ever againhave to bear the additional burden of being deprived ofthe opportunity for an education, a job, or simple justice.

—Jimmy Carter (1971)

Research will certainly help, but it alone is not suffi-cient if America really wants to reform public education.Thus, we turn to a second, crucial criterion for success-ful reform. Public schools can never be judged successfuluntil they provide equal opportunities for all, and trueimprovements in public education will not come aboutunless they are based on compassion.

Of all the ugly assumptions of the Manufactured Crisis,two of the worst are the ideas that useful improvementsin American education can be initiated by scapegoatingthose who labor in America's schools and that educationfor poor and minority students doesn't matter. Time andagain, those responsible for the crisis told us how rottenour schools were—how the performance of those schoolshad declined, how they had lost direction, how theirstandards and discipline had been debased—and thatthis was all the fault of the untalented, poorly trained,unmotivated teachers and administrators responsible forthose schools. And when the critics grew tired of bashingeducators, they tried to blame America's students as well(and, indirectly, their parents) for the supposed short-comings of our public schools.8 In addition, the same crit-

ics consistently asserted that too much attention has beengiven to America's poor and minority students (manyof whom must attend the country's most poorly fundedschools), and they have tried to cut funds for programsthat support those students—by fair means or foul.9 Andthe critics have studiously ignored evidence indicatingthat, although those students are now making betterprogress, they still need additional help.

We simply cannot believe that effective reforms ineducation can follow from premises that scapegoat edu-cators, blame students, or heap indignities on minoritiesand those who are impoverished. Rather, we believe thatall Americans respond best when they are treated withdignity and respect; and this clearly should be the casein public schools, which are, above all, institutions thatshould teach and exemplify intellectual values and moralconduct. Most of the poor reform ideas we reviewed inChapter 5 would treat educators as if they were unskilledhacks, punish students for unsatisfactory conduct, orredistribute tax support so that schools for the poor arefurther debased and those for the rich are given evenmore support. Such proposals are almost guaranteed toharm both the intellectual and moral efforts of America'spublic schools.

Let us return to basic principles. Public schools wereinstituted in our country to ensure that all children wouldhave access to a common store of ideas, skills, and moralinstruction so they could learn how to live in harmonywith each other and how to build useful adult lives andinstitutions. And those schools were to be staffed byprofessional educators who could both impart the com-mon store of knowledge and respond to the needs ofindividuals, thus helping all students to develop a love oflearning. Great harm can result if we forget these ideals.

If we pay teachers substandard wages and treat themlike recalcitrant incompetents, won't they eventuallycome to think of themselves in this light? And if we fool-ishly structure schools so that many students are regu-larly bored, threatened, or punished in them, who wouldbe so naive as to assume those students would thereafterlove learning?

Above all, if we structure our public school system sothat large groups of students are not provided equitableeducation, we create a host of problems. Students whoare not exposed to common moral standards learn tolie, cheat, steal, and assault other people. Students whoare forced to attend badly underfunded schools becomeangry and alienated; indeed, they may eventually formdissident movements and seek to destabilize our gov-ernment. Students who are not provided good school-ing wind up ignorant, and ignorance is expensive. Thosewho know nothing contribute nothing; rather, they blun-der and make messes with their lives that others mustclean up. But, as we now know, America's current systemof public education is massively inequitable and imposesbadly underfunded schools on some of America's needi-est students. And the result is that many young people in

194 Conceptions of Educational Change

the country today are violent, angry, and alienated, andlead ignorant, messed-up lives.

Of course, these social problems are not solely theresult of inequities in our public-school system. Violence,anger, alienation, and ignorance are also the results ofpoverty, drugs, gang warfare, police brutality, poor jobprospects, discriminatory treatment, mindless television,and other features of contemporary American civiliza-tion. But surely what goes on in our public schools alsohas an effect. Who, then, would be surprised to learnthat rates of violence, anger, alienation, and ignoranceare lower in other industrialized countries where publiceducation is more equitable?

If we are truly to improve American education, andthrough those improvements help to solve serious prob-lems in our country, we must change our public schoolsso that all those who labor in them are treated with com-passion. We will stimulate the best efforts from educa-tors if we treat them as responsible professionals. Ourstudents will grow most effectively if we encourage theirachievement and project images of adult responsibilityfor them. And our poor and minority students are morelikely to realize their dreams and join the mainstreamof American society if we provide them with genuinelyequal opportunities through our public school system. Toparaphrase Goethe: If you treat people as they are, theywill stay as they are. But if you treat them as if they werewhat they ought to be, they will become what they oughtto be and could be.

To summarize then, Americans hold high expecta-tions for their public schools. Moreover, they assumethat those schools are responsive and that their pro-grams can be improved. Thus, efforts to improve thoseschools will surely continue in our country. For the pastdecade many of those efforts have been misdirectedby the myths and false premises of the ManufacturedCrisis. As Americans turn away from these damagingideas, we will want to address the real issues that thepublic schools of our country face—issues that are tiedto serious and growing social problems in the nation.And as we debate ways to address these issues and planprograms that we hope will improve our schools, weshould remember that reforms in education are far moreeffective when they are based on knowledge derivedfrom research. Research is not a frill; rather, it is badlyneeded if our efforts to improve public schools are to beeffective.

In addition, compassion is needed if Americans trulywant to realize the goals of public education. Compas-sionate reforms are not only moral, but they are requiredif we are to improve education and enable our schoolsto help solve some of America's worst social problems.In Lincoln's words, it has always been clear that effec-tive reform of education must begin "with charity for

rall." We now suggest that compassion in education is anutter necessity if we in America are to realize our long-held aspirations for equality, justice, true democracy, anda decent standard of living for us all.

Notes1. See, for example, Astuto et al. (1993), Cohen & Caret (1975),

Cuban (1990), or Glickman (1993).2. Biddle & Anderson (1991, p. 3).3. Anderson & Biddle (1991) discuss this issue and provide a

useful collection of articles concerned with the topic.4. Misconceptions about social research are discussed by

Biddle (1987).5. See, for example, the hostile attack by then Assistant Secre-

tary of Education Chester Finn (1988).6. National Center for Education Statistics (1994).7. Shavelson & Berliner (1988, p. 12).8. Indeed, in November of 1990 the Bush administration's Office

of Education assembled a conference of researchers who wereasked to explain how the supposed "failures" of America'sschools could be linked to the "inadequacies" of America'sstudents and parents. This request was resisted by the morethoughtful people who attended the conference.

9. At one point the critics attempted to have ketchup declareda "vegetable" to reduce pressure for federal nutrition pro-grams for poor students.

References

Anderson, Don S. & Biddle, Bruce J. (1991). Knowledge for policy:Improving education through research. London: Palmer Press.

Astuto, Terry A., Clark, David L., Read, Anne-Marie, McGree,Kathleen, & Fernandez, deKoven Pelton (1993). Chal-lenges to dominant assumptions controlling educational reform.Andover, MA: Regional Laboratory for EducationalImprovement of the Northeast and Islands.

Biddle, Bruce I. (1987). Social research and social policy: The the-oretical connection. The American Sociologist, 18,158-166.

Biddle, Bruce I. & Anderson, Don S. (1991), Social research andeducational changes In Don S. Anderson & Bruce I. Bid-die (Eds.), Knowledge for policy: Improving education throughresearch (pp. 1-20). London: Palmer Press.

Cohen, David K. & Caret, Michael S. (1975). Reforming edu-cational policy with applied social research. HarvardEducational Review, 45(1), 17-31.

Cuban, Larry (1990). Reforming again, again, and again.Educational Researcher, 19(1), 3-13.

Finn, Chester E., Ir. (1988). What ails education research. Educa-tional Researcher, 17(1), 5-8.

Glickman, Carl D. (1993). Renewing America's schools: A guidefor school-based action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

National Center for Education Statistics (1994). The condition ofeducation, 1994. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Edu-cation, Office of Educational Research and improvement.

Shavelson, Richard I. & Berliner, David C. (1998). Erosion ofthe education research infrastructure: A reply to Finn.Educational Researcher, 17(1), 9-12.