Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

I missed Joe Nathan's Commentary on improving schools by reforming college admissions (related story ) but I caught Ronald D. Thorpe's response in "Schools, Colleges, and Mending Reform" (related story). The schools, Mr. Thorpe argued, may have to do it themselves. He refers to the "Eight-Year Study," begun in the mid-1930's, which gave clear proof of the superiority of progressive education. A recent and generally similar progressive experiment in Littleton, Colo. (related story ) has already failed. Another in LaSeur, Minn. (related story) needs encouragement.

For the Eight-Year Study, over a wide spectrum of colleges, admissions offices waived all entrance ~requirements but the principal's recommendation for 1,500 candidates from 30 participating schools. The Rockefellers poured in money; a peripatetic staff of John Dewey's converts assisted; the assessment Nestor, the late Ralph Tyler, led the evaluation; and a watchdog committee of conservatives added their endorsement to a five-volume report, ~Adventure in Education (1941), edited by Wilfred Aikin. The progressive group had done better than an otherwise comparable 1,500...