The Copernican Plan Evaluated: The Evolution of a Revolution

Abstract

Given what we now know from evaluations of Copernican schedules in eight very different high schools, continuing to rely on the traditional Carnegie structure raises the question of professional malpractice, Mr. Carroll asserts. I HAVE bad news and good news. bad news is that our schools, particularly our high schools, are in serious trouble and may be replaced by new institutions of choice, both public and private. Our education efforts are failing to produce either a work force capable of competing with those of other industrialized nations or a citizenry capable of meeting its critically important responsibilities under our form of government. good news is that all we have to do is apply what research tells us about better instruction and we can meet those economic and civic demands. How? Let me start from the beginning. Evolution of a Copernican Change When I was the assistant superintendent for research, budget, and legislation for the District of Columbia Public Schools in the mid-1960s, we found ourselves with a financial windfall. A proposal was made and approved that the money be put toward are. medial summer school for academically troubled students. students in that summer school studied math and English for four hours a day, five days a week, for six weeks -- a typical summer program. What was atypical was that we evaluated quite carefully. Based on traditional pre- and posttests for these students, the average student's gains were equal to the gains achieved in about two years in regular classes. And the teachers' reports on the climate in the classroom, attendance, and so on were equally good. We were elated. But then we were struck by a very logical question. If we can do this well in 30 four-hour summer classes in nonairconditioned D.C. public schools, why can't we do better in our traditional 180-day programs during the regular school year? We thought of many possible reasons, but my only conclusion was that we probably knew a lot more about teaching than we did about how students learn. I followed up on this experience when I became superintendent of the Los Alamos (New Mexico) Public Schools in the early 1970s. There we were able to offer students regular credit-bearing high school courses on a nonremedial basis as part of our summer school program. Each class met in a four-hour macro-class each day, five days per week, for six weeks -- which was about 20% less total time than was provided for a course under the school's traditional 180-day school year. This fact was never questioned, but it interested me greatly. teachers in the summer program had been asked to apply the same standards that they used to grade their students during the regular year and to let us know if the summer students could not meet the district's usual standards in this format. Again the results were excellent, and the teachers reported exceptionally good relations with the summer students; the coke breaks were enjoyable. But what to do with this information? We seemed to have a solution looking for a problem! problem surfaced when I was superintendent of the Masconomet Regional School District in Massachusetts. A tax limitation referendum had passed in 1980, and by 1982 our district had lost about a sixth of its teaching staff. Keeping the program intact was going to be very difficult. Necessity breeds invention, and it occurred to me that macro scheduling might address this problem. Thus began a long planning process. In the fall of 1983 I distributed a document to the staff and school community called The Copernican Plan: A Concept Paper Concerning the of Secondary Education at the Masconomet Regional School District. I had finally put it all together. However, my enthusiasm was shared by few members of the Masconomet community, which was no surprise. Restructuring wasn't a hot topic at that time. Masconomet had an excellent academic reputation, and there weren't too many people who felt the need for major change. …

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 70 citations exist upstream.