Daring to Be Independent: Revisiting the Eight-Year Study

Independent Schools are fortunate to be able to be forward thinking, innovative and experimental.

Do they exercise that opportunity? Here’s a piece of history on why they why they should.

….The Eight-Year Study was an evolutionary and diverse project that actually combined three interrelated studies carried out primarily by the PEA but sought out and involved a number of organizations, the Carnegie Foundation being one of the more prominent ones.    The goals of the study were “to establish a relationship between school and college that would permit and encourage reconstructions in the secondary school” and “to find, through exploration and experimentation, how the high school in the United States can serve youth more effectively.” (W. Aikin quoted in Kridel & Bullough, Stories of the Eight Year-Study, p. 3).  The study arose out of concerns regarding the call for more uniformity in secondary educational preparation in response to complaints from the university level about the need for a “standard” college preparation and the dismay of progressive educators seeking to recreate the high school experience without disadvantaging their students in the college admissions process or in preparation for their studies at that level.   

Perhaps the most pertinent and compelling findings  in the Eight-Year Study for independent schools is the comparative study of the “experimental programs” of secondary education with those more traditional programs.  This smaller study paired schools and programs to follow students from high school to college and track their progress at the undergraduate level to see which students had greater successes.  The point of this project was not to distinguish the success of progressive versus non-progressive education, but to explore the implications and results of “freedom from a fixed pattern of preparation for college versus the traditional preparation.” (notes from the 1939 PEA Board of Directors quoted in Kridel & Bullough, p. 6). 

Within this particular project, there was a “Study within a Study” that paired 323 students from six very experimental schools with students from traditional programs.  The findings were quite startling.  “The graduates from the six most experimental schools substantially outperformed their peers in terms of academic averages and honors, intellectual traits, and personal and social responsibility.” (Kridel and Bullough, p.7). 

Unfortunately, this study is not well-known or even taught in many mainstream teacher education programs and is reserved for those interested in educational and curricular history.  Because of the timing of the end of the Eight-Year Study and the release of its results, it was overshadowed by the end of World War II and the rebuilding of the country.   Yet, the study stands as a strong argument and support for the task of independent education and the public purposes it serves.

Independent education is fortunate to be able to experiment and modify the elementary and secondary schooling experience.  We have the freedom to immediately respond to the times in which we live.  The economic and political circumstances of our time do not manifest themselves in the same ways in every locale nationwide.  The current call for a national program of education and greater uniformity disregard the great diversity of our country, which is one of the most attractive and unique characteristics of the United States .  National mandates discourage the energies of individual educators in shaping meaningful and unique learning experiences and opportunities for students. 

Independent education can stand as a place of experimentation and innovations in opposition to this call for uniformity.  In fact, it might be said that it is one of the responsibilities of independent education.  We have the opportunity to speak out against the supposed inability of individual teachers and educators at the local level to make a meaningful contribution to curricular decisions and the shaping of school policies.  We have the possibility of showing how communities of parents, educators, students, administrators, and businesses can cooperate to build schools that are diversified and unique but that still adequately, and usually superbly, prepare students for college, life beyond school, and to be responsible and productive citizens.

In the current economic climate in which enrollment in independent schools seems to be fluctuating, we may be especially weary of experimentation.  Such a time seems to make us tentative about straying too far from what is considered mainstream, yet if we forget about our responsibilities and own histories of independent education, we may well forfeit much of what makes us a valuable segment of education.  Perhaps it makes our communities idealistic, but I believe many of the stakeholders in independent education work and support our schools precisely because we are not mainstream.  If we revert to offering programs and services that are not radically different from other private institutions and other public schools in our area during a not-improving-quick-enough economy, we will continue to have difficulty filling our seats.  We will also be doing ourselves and our communities a disservice in not offering a meaningful educational alternative.

Independent schools and educators should remember that we are not just serving our students alone but the communities and society in which we live.  Being independent does not mean divorcing ourselves from the larger conversations in education or disregarding best practices and theories.  It means studying these carefully and critically and then adapting them and our own creative approaches to the tasks of teaching and learning so that they are appropriate for and best serve our constituents and communities.  When considering economic forces and the temptation amid market forces to adopt more conservative positions and policies in an effort to avoid controversies in our own communities, the Eight-Year Study stands as a strong argument to remain “independent” in many senses of the word.  Our strength as independent schools lies in our ability to stand outside of the umbrella of federal and state educational mandates.  Educating our own communities and the educational community at large to the purposes and public good of this unique position remains an important goal of independent education.