by Edgar F. Borgatta,Herbert J. Klausmeier,

and Philip Lambert

Enrichment Is Not EnoughOur bright students need not spend 12 years inelementary and secondary school. Planning is neededfor a successful acceleration program.

Twenty to thirty years ago a great many UnitedStates school systems changed from the "semester"or "term" system to the "year" or "grade" system,in which formal enrollment, promotion, and corn­mencement take place only once a year instead oftwice.

The reasons for this shift were complex andsometimes murky, and it is difficult to isolate allthe contributing factors. Obviously the mechanicsof the grade system are cheaper and simpler forschool adminstrators, since they involve less paper­work and provide greater stability of enrollment.It is possible also that they use fewer classrooms.

The advantage most frequently cited for thechildren is stability and security. Since the pupilsand the teacher are together for a full year, theycome to know each other better, and the emotionalcosts of more frequent readjustment should be less.Planning can presumably be done on a longer andmore realistic scale. Of course, under the gradesystem the age span within each class is twice asgreat as under the term system, and the age dis­parity is proportionately greatest in the sensitivelowest grades. Such criticisms, however, are usuallyregarded by educators as lacking in cogency.

One effect of the changeover to the grade sys­tem has been the decline of extra promotions-or"skipping" courses-by which bright childrencould frequently complete twelve grades in fewerthan twelve years. For it is obviously far easier andmore simply handled if a student skips a semesterthan a whole year. After all, educators ask, can achild ever really make up a whole year? And evenif he managed it academically, wouldn't it beemotionally and socially harmful to him to be sud­denly placed among students so much older andmore advanced?

January 1964

Some parents have made a wholly predictableresponse: they try to enroll their children as earlyas possible. Ambitious parents of children whosebirthdays fall close after the school's cut-off date

will not be reconciled easily to the apparent lossof almost an entire year, especially if they con­sider their children exceptional-a belief not un­common among parents. Some school systems havetried to meet this objection by testing the childrenand allowing them to enter the class a year aheadif they seemed to meet their standards in intelli­gence and ability.

Commonly, however, parents have accepted thegrade system and its lack of acceleration with very

little resistance, even though many school systemsspecify a rigid minimum age for entering firstgrade, and have clung to that limit for many years.Since students may not enter such schools beforepassing a certain birthday, and since they may not,for all practical purposes, ever move ahead of theirclasses, many of our brightest young people arenot graduating from high school until eighteen ornineteen, and are often twenty-two before receivingtheir bachelor's degrees.

Assumptions vs. Studies

Educational assumptions, if accepted longenough without challenge, can easily become en­crusted with sanctity and certainty. But HerbertKlausmeier, one of the authors of this article, hasrecently (1963) presented findings from a study

on acceleration that directly challenges these es­tablished ideas. It is not a study of extreme ac­

celeration; it does not "rock the boat" by sug­

gesting anything as revolutionary as skippinggrades without preparation. Only older children

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within the grade were used, and they were accel­erated only after preparation that involved ex­posure to work that would otherwise have beenskipped. These students received additional trainingduring the mornings of five summer weeks beforebeing put ahead.

In their new classes, their school work was fullyup to their own previous standards, and to those ofthe children about them-in fact, though Klaus­meier does not emphasize the point, the data clearlysuggest that the accelerated students were doingbetter than the older students. Nor did they sufferthe discernible emotional or social disturbancesfrom the experience that are often predicted.

These findings do not merely suggest "possibili­ties." They directly challenge existing beliefs andpractices and demand consideration. They can­not be ignored. This challenge can only be answer­ed by further systematic research.

One program frequently offered to brighterchildren, as a substitute for acceleration, is "en­richment." These superior students must be stimu­lated and kept occupied. To stimulate them by let­ting them work ahead, however, would only makematters worse if they did not also go ahead; for,sooner or later, the material would have to be re­peated. Enrichment therefore brings in material notordinarily offered children in the same grade. Butis this really "enrichment" in the usual sense ofnew learning? If so, why doesn't it accumulate,moving the student forward in knowledge? If itdoes accumulate, however, then it must anticipatefuture course work, meaning that the enrichedstudent and his group must at some point repeator slow down. Beyond this, enrichment can onlymean more work, a greater diversity of subjects,always over and beyond what the other childrenof the same age are required to do, but carefullyavoiding advanced work. Is this really encourage­ment to excel? How much real challenge is therein such a system of enrichment? By contrast, theaccelerated child is always challenged; challengeis built into the process.

Other Relevant StudiesIt is only possible here to refer to a few other

studies, but some are extremely relevant. In an ar­ticle now in process of publication, Klausmeier re­ports his findings that bright junior high schoolstudents have completed, and can readily com­plete, the usual three years work in two years, aswell as three years of mathematics in two years.Toward the end of the eighth grade, the students

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being studied scored as high in algebra and generalscience as did equally bright ninth-grade studentswho did not take these same courses until the ninthgrade. Obviously the older group could have doneas well in the eighth grade; in essence they losta year. Another example: in several Wisconsincities, superior junior high students now take thei ralgebra and general science in the eighth grade­even though they go along with the rest of theclass and spend six full years in junior and seniorhigh.

In New York City there is a rapid advanceprogram that allows junior high to be completed intwo years and senior high in three. Joseph Justman,in two articles in the School Review, 1954, reportedonly good results from this program.

Klausmeier suggests two very definite ways ac­celeration would benefit the community and nation.First, since the accelerated student spends less timein school, he uses less facilities, space and time,and costs less money; the savings to schools, tax­payers, and parents are obvious. Secondly, his

Edgar F. Borgatta is professorand chairman of the sociologydepartment of the Universityof Wisconsin. His recenthooks include Social Workers'Perception of Clients and AnExperiment in Mental PatientRehabilitation.

Herbert J. Klausmeier is pro­fessor of education at theUniversity of Wisconsin andauthor of the recent book,Learning and Human Abili­ties. He has published numer­ous other articles and bookson the identification of growthfactors in children related totheir success in school, learn­ing efficiency in arithmetic,and creativity of gifted ele­mentary and high schoolpupils.

Philip Lambert is professorand chairman of the depart­ment of educational psychol­ogy at the University of Wis­consin. His recent research isconcerned with team teachingand the use of teachingmachines in elementary andsecondary schools. He is alsoprincipal of the WashingtonLaboratory School on theUniversity of Wisconsin cam­pus.

Trans·action

skills and educated talents would be available tothe nation sooner, and his productive years startearlier.

Perhaps an even more important effect wouldoccur within the student himself. He is rewardedfor being bright by being challenged to learn asfast as he can; he is taught, in effect, that learningfast and well are desirable and important- a les­son of great significance in a world of extremelyrapid change. The present non-acceleration pro­gram at best teaches him to mark time.

The bad effects of acceleration so often men­tioned-the social and emotional stunting-havenot been discernible in the studies undertaken. Onthe contrary, there are long term and desirableeffects which should materialize if acceleration isever adopted generally. The talented women who

now give up or postpone for many years theircareers for marriage-or those who sacrifice mar­riage for careers-might very well be able to haveboth if they could get their degrees a few yearsearlier. The master of several disciplines, so high­ly respected in earlier generations, might becomemuch more common if it did not take him so longto finish one discipline.

The research on this problem is strongly in favorof the acceleration of bright students, althoughwithout omitting subject matter. But we need muchmore study, going far beyond this. We need to knowthe limits, if any, to the number of years that canbe omitted without harm.

Not only students stand to gain from a success­ful acceleration program in our schools. The nation,the economy-all of us-stand to gain.

Planning for change

by Ronald Lippitt

The Collusion

This is the first of a series of articles in Trans­Action which will discuss the principles of plannedchange. These will include methods for bringing aboutdesired change in small groups, in large organizations,or in personal relationships.

Change is not resisted by isolated individualswho by themselves- courageously or stubbornly­fight against it in splendid isolation. Men collabor­ate in keeping one another resistant to change.

There are two major ways by which we do this.In one, we simply fail to comunicate, and remainignorant of the fact that both--or all-of us desirechange. We are thereby inhibited from takingaction each would like but none is aware the otherswould support. This is the collusion of ignorance.

In the second way, we are involved in an un­pleasant cycle of mutual distrust that no one willtake the initiative in resolving. Often, no one thinksit even possible to change the situation. So theunpleasantness goes on, usually becoming progres­sively worse, however much the groups and personsinvolved dislike it, deplore it, suffer from it, andwish that it were at an end.

January 1964

of Ignorance

One example of the collusion of ignorance wasdemonstrated in a study, done by two of our re­

search teams, on thirty college fraternities. A ma­jority of the men in every house but one wantedchanges in their membership rules which discrimi­

nated against Negroes, Orientals and Jews. Butan even larger majority in each house, includingmost of these same men, believed their fraternitybrothers to be overwhelmingly against such change.

As a result, the subject was carefully avoided inhouse meetings, bull sessions and at meals-where­

ever sizeable groups gathered. Since no one brokethis unconscious conspiracy of silence, they re­

mained ignorant of each other's feeling, and dis­crimination went on.

In confidential sessions in each house, when welater revealed our findings, there was great surprise,and then a sort of eager rush by the men to tell each

other what they had believed all the time-nowthat they felt it safe and legitimate to reveal it

without offending or antagonizing others.

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