DEVELOPMENTALISM IN EDUCATION

DAP?  It’s Mush to Some, Meat to Others, a Mandate for Everyone

Meeting in Wise County out in the great Southwest last week, the State Board of Education held a quiet funeral for attitudes laden Outcome-Based Education.  Now the question is whether OBE will return as a federal mandate in the Rodham-Clinton “Goals 2000” legislation, which is expected to go to the House floor by mid-month.

Meanwhile, OBE-style self-esteem programs already are in place in many schools under other names and acronyms – DAP, for example.  The concept behind those letters should be of major importance to families sending little ones off to kindergarten with the expectation they will receive a sound academic foundation in elementary school.

DAP stands for “developmentally appropriate practice” in early childhood education (ages 5-8).  Here again, the education jargon is intentionally pre-emptive. After all, who can be for developmentally “inappropriate practice – or education without “outcomes”? But it turns out that DAP is a specific term for a distinct brand of education dogma – one that not all school patrons will find agreeable.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) decreed what’s developmentally appropriate – and inappropriate – in primary schools in 1987.  And state departments of education in such places as Oregon, Kentucky, and yes, Virginia have signed on to DAP as a key element of school restructuring.

Last year a requirement that local school systems adopt early-childhood programs emphasizing DAP went into the Standards of Quality as approved by a General Assembly that most likely hadn’t a clue what it was endorsing.  The SOQ is law.  This isn’t something that Doug Wilder can order off the table.

Virginians may be shocked to learn that now, by official definition, just about all traditional and structured teaching methods through third grade a deemed “inappropriate practice.”

A teacher standing in front of the class leading pupils in phonic drills out of a basal textbook?  Inappropriate.  Teaching English, science, math as separate subjects in distinct time segments?  Inappropriate.  Expecting pupils to sit quietly at their desks while the teacher is giving a lesson?  Inappropriate.  Tests, grades, punishment for unruly pupils (such as losing out on recess)?  All inappropriate, according to NAEYC gospel.

What’s appropriate?  Children working cooperatively in multi-age groups (5 to 7, for example) and moving from one learning center or “playful activity” to another as they wish.  “Peer tutoring” – children teaching children.  Subjects being taught together in themes – for example, from NAEYC’s guide, “math skills are acquired through spontaneous play, projects, and situations of daily living.” Teacher narratives replacing grades.  No child failing or being retained – the better to bolster self-esteem.

Last year, the State Department of Education designated as a vanguard DAP school Hanover County’s Beaverdam Elementary, which on its own had started an Early Childhood Developmentally Guided Education Program (EDGE) in 1990.

On a visit last spring, state schools chief Joe Spagnolo was beside himself with delight.  “That’s fantastic” he said.  “That’s what we want to create.  I have yet to see anyone sitting in their seats listening to teachers talk at them.”

Not all Beaverdam parents share that enthusiasm.  Judy Hall and Susan Nepomuceno, who were on an EDGE design team for parental involvement, recently have voiced their concerns about academics and discipline in a child-directed environment. They told me of some “children coming home bored.  They had learned to read, only to regress to shapes and colors.”

To be sure, many (perhaps most) Beaverdam parents and teachers appear to support the program, which they deny is OBE or anything except a community program with the flexibility to help children succeed. In an officially arranged visit yesterday to Donna Kouri’s K-1 class, I saw a blending of traditional and progressive methods.  She led the whole class – seated Indian-style (since there are no desks) – in an enthusiatic discussion of number patterns and rhyming words.  Then began the creative chaos of four-learning centers (computers, blocks, counting, sounds) clicking simultaneously and somewhat noisily.

With dedicated teachers like Ms. Kouri , it’s possible to envision good things coming from such a class.  However, on the day of my visit, there were four other adults in the class (not to mention the principal and a central administrator) to monitor activities.  Surely that is a lot more help than a teacher typically has.  A traditional, structured environment may work better for some pupils – and teachers.

What I find outrageous is that the Hanover central school office doesn’t permit objecting parents to transfer to other schools.  Of course, in that respect Hanover is no different from most other Virginia school divisions.

Principal Richard Waldrop says the program is “not experimental” but instead “based on research.” But not all researchers agree.

Last spring’s issue of the journal Effective School Practices, published by the Association for Direct Instruction in Oregon, reported that DAP had been extensively implemented in England as “progressive education” and in America in the 1970’s’ “open classrooms.”  And in both cases – wrote University of Oregon researcher Bonnie Grossen – achievement plummeted.  After a 25-year fling, England abandoned progressive education last year.

DAP typically relies heavily on “whole language” to teach reading.  Ms. Grossen continued, despite “the weight of evidence in support of systematic phonics instruction provided by three comprehensive reviews of research on reading.”

Dap will remain a state mandate unless the General Assembly modifies the SOQ next winter.  It should.  Teachers should be able to choose a practice that suits their style instead of having to conform to a statist model.  Likewise, parents should have the right to choose among different kinds of schools.