Early in this century, John Dewey revolutionized educational theory with books such as The Schools of To-morrow. Dewey, strongly influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, rejected "the piling up of information" in favor of a developmental approach that relied on imparting general reasoning skills. After more than eight decades, many educators still consider Dewey's approach progressive. It is the basis for curricula that seek to teach "critical thinking," or "learning how to learn." There is really only one problem with this approach: it doesn't work.

Prior to Dewey, American children were required to read literary classics in high school which no longer are required reading at many colleges. Although many adults were illiterate then, it was largely because they had not attended school. Today, even a high school diploma is no guarantee of literacy.

Integrated curriculum, currently being introduced in Plano schools, is a good example of the "progressive" approach. In one module, the curriculum requires second-graders to debate the merits of cutting down a tree to make room for a new road. The purported intent of the exercise is to teach students to think, without guiding them to any particular conclusion. Unfortunately, second-graders don't know the first thing about the relevant economic, political and environmental issues, and the curriculum makes no attempt to teach them. Thus, rather than helping students determine the truth by examination of facts, the exercise explicitly dismisses the importance of both truth and facts. In short, it is neither a debate, nor an education, but it does waste a great deal of precious classroom time, which could be spent learning things.

Learning things, sometimes by rote, is often derided by professional educators as simplistic and out-dated. Yet the sophisticated, modern approach consistently fails, because, as much as human society may change, the operation of the human mind does not. In the 1940's, Dutch psychologist Adriaan DeGroot conducted pioneering research in cognitive psychology. In findings supported by volumes of later research, DeGroot showed that much of what we consider higher reasoning skill is largely a function of memory, and content-specific knowledge. Later studies clearly established that general, cognitive skills, like critical thinking, simply cannot be taught.

Think of the chess-playing computer at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Against the many novices who daily challenge the machine, it almost never loses. Yet we know that computers cannot think, or reason. What the computer has, and its challengers do not, is a comprehensive knowledge of chess. Like the computer, human chess champions are able to make the right moves, and anticipate opponents' moves, largely because they have seen the moves before. They win at chess not because of a vastly superior reasoning ability, but because they are intimately familiar with the board, the moves and the strategies required to win.

This is not to say that there are no differences in skills or reasoning ability between people. Clearly, there are, but these differences are largely inherent. They cannot be instilled, or improved, independent of knowledge. In short, children cannot be taught to how to think if they don't know anything, nor how to learn if they have not learned anything.

Still, despite having failed every test of common sense and practical experience, the Rousseau-Dewey theory remains pre-dominant in the education establishment. Integrated curriculum is moving full steam ahead in Plano schools. Grades, and the achievement they are designed to measure, are being replaced by free-form portfolios. Homework for parents is replacing academic instruction in classrooms. Plano schools still post higher scores on standardized tests than many districts, but edging out dismal failure is hardly a glowing achievement.

For years, schools throughout the country have gradually abandoned academics, believing that if only children could think critically, learning would take care of itself. As achievement tests showed the folly of this approach, educators sought to camouflage the failure by eliminating objective grades. Dallas school superintendent Chad Woolery proudly extols an evaluation system in which "it doesn't matter if schools...have high-performing or low-performing students." Every time standardized tests are proposed, it is the public school establishment which fights them hardest, or, as on this year's SAT, raises student scores by lowering the standard.

As a result, employers are no longer interested in diplomas or grades, because diplomas and grades no longer demonstrate knowledge or ability. Every real measure of knowledge and literacy shows that our children are learning little in school. The unabated expansion of failed educational theories shows that the adults have learned little more.