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The Right to Effective Education
Article  in  The Behavior analyst / MABA · April 1991
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The Behavior Analyst 1991, 14, 79-82 No. 1 (Spring)
The Right to Effective Education
Beatrice H. Barrett, Chair
Fernald School
Ray Beck
Sopris West
Carl Binder
Precision Teaching and Management Systems, Inc.
Donald A. Cook
JHM Corporation
Siegfried Engelmann
University of Oregon
R. Douglas Greer
Columbia University Teachers College
Sarah Jane Kyrklund
Minnesota Intermediate District 287
Kent R. Johnson
Morningside Academy
Michael Maloney
Quinte Learning Center
Nan McCorkle
Fred S. Keller School
Julie S. Vargas
West Virginia University
Cathy L. Watkins
California State University, Stanislaus
Societies enable their members to lead
productive and enjoyable lives by effectively
educating their young. In most
cases, schools are entrusted with a good
Report ofthe Association for Behavior Analysis
(ABA) Task Force on Right to Effective Education.
Ogden R. Lindsley was the original Council Liaison.
He was followed in this capacity by Julie S.
Vargas and Kennon A. Lattal. This report was accepted
by the ABA Executive Council; however, it
does not necessarily reflect the view ofthe majority
ofABA members nordoes itconstitute official ABA
policy.
portion of that teaching. Schools are
charged not only with imparting specific
skills that enable students to act knowledgeably
in situations that may confront
them long after formal schooling is over,
but also with imparting ethical conduct
and cultural values of long term benefit
both to the individual and to the society
as a whole.
A good teacher or instructional system
must satisfy at least three criteria: (1) It
must be effective in helping students learn
more rapidly than they would on their
79
80 BEATRICE H. BARRETT et al.
own; (2) what students learn must benefit
both the individual and society as awhole;
and (3) it must employ positive rather
than coercive or punitive methods.
Because many of the opportunities
open to a person hinge on educational
accomplishment, the American goal of
equal opportunity cannot be realized
without effective schooling. Among the
rights grantedto American citizens should
be the right to an effective education.
PERSPECTIVE
For human societies to survive, individuals
must acquire many abilities and
skills in relation to a complex environment.
Terms such as "teaching," "learning,"
and "schooling" have traditionally
been used to designate the means by
which the relevant knowledge is transmitted
from one generation to another.
In most societies, teaching takes place
within a well-defined role, and some degree
oftechnology or skill on the part of
the teacher is usually recognized. The role
of learning in human society is almost
dictated by the protracted period of dependence
of the young human, together
with the importance of language in human
development. The general problem
of teaching is that of shifting the "reasons"
for behaving in specific ways from
the temporary orartificial ones employed
by the teacher, to those sustained by the
culture.
Just as the teacher has a role, so does
the student. Students are typically more
vulnerable than their teachers, ifonly because
of their relative youth and ignorance.
In most cultures, students are
brought up to trust that their teachers are
both effective and well-motivated and
that, for this reason, they will learn.
Moreover, because what they learn stands
them in good stead as they become more
independent, they will remain motivated
to continue to learn.
The stability and mutuality of these
teacher and pupil roles require that the
two broad purposes ofteaching-to serve
the culture being taught and to serve the
individual who acquires knowledge and
skills-mutually sustain each other. In
this sense, it is possible to speak of the
rights of pupils and students, and of the
obligations of those who practice the
techniques of education.
Ifthe culture has an imperative to educate
its young so that it may survive and
improve, then its young have the right to
be well-taught: to be taught effectively
and to be taught the things that promote
the adaptation ofthe growing individual.
Ineffective education may be traced to
two possible sources: teachingpoorly and!
or teaching the wrong things. The current
crisis in the American educational system
probably reflects serious defects in
both.
Since educational institutions never
seek to fail as an explicit goal, it is necessary
to be more specific about various
aspects ofeducational practice. It has become
clear that the use ofpunishment to
attain desired behavior is in some respects
antithetical to the aims ofthe educational
process. The suppression ofunwanted
behavior is often temporary; the
emotional effects ofpunishment may impede
the acquisition of more subtle but
desirable performances; and aversive
methods may generate contrary and rebellious
behavior. Yet at the same time,
alternative techniques that rely upon
positive methods are still not well-understood,
practiced, or implemented with
adequate technology.
An accepted norm in Western democracies
mandates that some form ofeffective
education be available for all. The
system should not create rejects. Educational
processes have usually included
choice points at advancing levels of education
and the use of tests for the purpose
ofsorting. But testingalone, without
a more generative approach to the instructional
process itself, is now seen as
only a partial and somewhat passive pro-
gram.
In achieving better levels of instructional
effectiveness, a more sound and
more comprehensive appreciation ofthe
uses ofmeasurement is important. Measurementcreates
the publicrecord ofwhat
has been achieved and serves as a contractual
instrument. It also provides a
scientific basis for decision-making. More
RIGHT TO EFFECTIVE EDUCATION 81
specifically, proper use of measurement
achieves two critical objectives: it removes
the statement ofeducational aims
from the realm of the unverifiable, and
it separates the description of outcomes
from the use of vague labels asserted on
the basis ofintuition or unexamined au-
thority.
These principles concerning the use of
measurement are well accepted in many
areas of modem life-but not in education
to a consistent degree. Revolutions
ofmodem management and ofscientific
prediction and verification attempt to
stipulate desired outcomes in advance
and then marshall resources to achieve
them, adjusting methods until they produce
the desired outcomes. These revolutions
have not yet been seriously embraced
in the educational field.
Part of the needed revolution lies in
the assumption that the methods ofnatural
science can offer assistance in the
education enterprise. Some useful information
from science exists now. We must
create the conditions that permit application
of what we already know in the
task of teaching: teaching well, teaching
complex skills, teaching large numbers of
students, teaching in the face ofgreat variety,
teaching with the best blends of
technological and human means available.
At the same time, we must struggle
to advance the basic understanding of
learning and performance, which might
some day show us how to carry out these
tasks more effectively.
Given this perspective, we offer a variety
of recommendations. Each represents
a distillation in broad terms ofprinciples
we have learned as scientists and
as empirically-grounded practitioners
that can improve the educational opportunities
offered by the nation's schools.
As such, each then becomes an element
of every student's educational entitle-
ment.
ELEMENTS OF EDUCATIONAL
ENTITLEMENT
Educational Context
1. Students are entitled to social and
physical environments at school that encourage
and maintain academic achievement
and progress, and discourage socially
deviant or unacceptable behavior.
The regulatory aspects of the school environment,
however, should not impede
or impair the aims of the educational
process.
2. Students are entitled to attend
schools in which they are treated with
care and individual attention, comparable
to the attention they would receive
as members ofa caring family.
3. Students are entitled to school programs
that, when needed, provide support
and training for parents in parenting
and teaching skills.
4. Students are entitled to receive consequences
and attention at home that encourage
and maintain success at school,
based on frequent communication and
recommendation from school personnel
to parents or guardians.
Curriculum and Instructional
Objectives
1. Students are entitled to educational
programs based on empirically validated
hierarchies or sequences ofinstructional
objectives and measurable performance
criteria. These objectives shouldbe shown
to be of long-term value in the culture,
and their sequence in the instructional
process should be shown to promote cumulative
mastery.
2. Students are entitled to educational
programs with mastery criteria that include
a time or speed dimension so that
they mayworkto achieve fluent, accurate
performance.
3. Students are entitled to educational
programs with instructional objectives
that promote short-term and long-term
personal and vocational success, and that
will be maintained, once mastered, bythe
natural consequences available in their
everyday lives.
4. Students are entitled to educational
programs that include long-term retention
and maintenance of skills and
knowledge as explicitly measured instructional
objectives.
82 BEATRICE H. BARRETT et al.
Assessment and Student Placement
1. Students are entitled to assessment
and reporting methods that are sufficiently
"criterion-referenced" to promote useful
decision-making among employers,
institutions ofhigher education, parents,
and children themselves (that is, the consumers
of the educational process).
Methods that report categorical labels (for
example, "learning disabled," "gifted,"
"emotionally disturbed") are antithetical
to the desired assessment goals of specifying
actual levels of skills and knowl-
edge.
2. Students are entitled to placement
based on conformity between their measured
entering skills and the skills required
as prerequisites for a given level
in a hierarchically sequenced curriculum.
Instructional Method
1. Students are entitled to educational
programs that allow them to master instructional
objectives at their own pace
and to respond as rapidly and as frequently
as they are able during at least
some self-paced instructional sessions
each day.
2. Students are entitled to sufficient
practice opportunities to enable them to
truly master skills and knowledge at each
step in the curriculum.
3. Students are entitled to educational
programsthatprovide consequences from
teachers, materials, or teaching devices,
designed to correct errors and/or to increase
the frequency of responding. Instructional
consequences should be adjusted
on the basis of individual
performance until they enable students
to achieve desired outcomes.
4. Students are entitled to educational
programs that adjust in response to
measures ofindividual learning and performance.
This includes providing individualized
instruction when group instruction
does not produce desired
outcomes.
5. Students are entitledto use the most
up-to-date and most technologically advanced
equipment to assist in the process
of mastering the skills required for success
in our culture-with the proviso that
programs delivered via that equipment
incorporate the validated features described
elsewhere in this document.
6. Students are entitled to educational
programs in which teachers receive performance-based
training, administrative
and supervisory support, and observation
and evaluation in measurably effective,
scientifically validated instructional
methods.
Measurement and Summative
Evaluation
1. Students are entitled to educational
programs and assessment procedures in
which decisions are based on objective,
curriculum-based measures of performance,
with attention to data collection
and analysis comparable to that expected
in the medical profession.
2. Students are entitled to educational
programs that report achievement and
progress with objective measures ofperformance
and improvement, rather than
with merely subjective ratings, norm-referenced
comparisons, accuracy without
speed measures (which does not unequivocally
specify performance), or category
scales (e.g., letter grading).
Assumption ofResponsibilityfor
Success
1. Students are entitled to attend
schools in which there are frequently administered
financial and operational consequences
for school personnel, depending
on objective measures of student
learning and achievement.
2. Students are entitled to attend
schools in which primary responsibility
for student achievement and progress is
assumed by teachers and administrators
and the educational program in general,
and in which programs are changed until
students are able to achieve desired
learning outcomes.
3. Students are entitled to attend
schools that meet their educational needs
andto change schools or school programs
when their educational needs are not being
met.
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