In “The Shame of American Education,” B.F. Skinner criticizes the proposals that have been made for fixing American schools.  Recommendations to make students attend school longer, fire ineffective teachers, disband colleges of education, or study cognitive processes fail to address the root of the problem, a reliance on the wrong theory of learning.  Behaviorism, which proposes that all learning is merely a change in behavior resulting from schedules of reinforcement, can be the basis for a more effective education system.  Through the use of carefully designed instruction, students can learn more in shorter periods of time.  They will be motivated and less disruptive in schools because they will be reinforced by their success through the instructional sequence.  Because the culture has not embraced the theory of behaviorism, colleges of education are not training teachers appropriately, teachers don’t have the tools to perform their job, and students are not learning in the most effective manner.

                Very little has changed in the 29 years since Skinner wrote this article.  Behaviorism is still considered outdated, and our schools are still disintegrating.  Skinner would be disappointed.  There are a few exceptions.  The School of One in New York has adopted some of Skinner’s tenets.  It enables individual students to progress through the curriculum at their own pace and receive reinforcement through daily feedback on their efforts.  As Skinner predicted, students are more motivated and teachers have more time to really teach.  It does not fully incorporate Skinner’s model because the instruction is not carefully designed to elicit the appropriate response and avoid reinforcing wrong answer, but I think Skinner would consider it a major step in the right direction.  By using computer-generated algorithms to respond to the behavior of each student, the School of One emphasizes patterns of behavior rather than the concept of “choice”.  Skinner would agree with this approach.  He considered “free will” an illusion.  All behavior has a cause, and if the causes can be known, then behavior can be controlled.