Education: IBM Conant

In his historic study of the U.S. high school, James B. Conant spent one year inspecting 55 schools in 18 states to see if they were teaching what he believed they should be teaching. How well they taught is another matter. Last week a canny faultfinder was being tuned up by Nashville's George Peabody College for Teachers. The device: an IBM computer. Peabody believes the computer can spot the weaknesses of any school system, perhaps faster than Conant.

At best, schools now evaluate themselves on the basis of national norms: the entire student body's average on standardized achievement tests is compared with the U.S. average. Peabody's IBM probes deeper. Within two weeks, each student's answer to each question is compiled and analyzed. Result: a kind of cardiogram of teaching within every subject. For example, if a question involving multiplication with zeros is widely flunked, arithmetic teachers have a specific hole to plug.

Financed by a Ford Foundation grant, Peabody has tried out the computer on five school systems in the past year. It will soon publish instructions for any U.S. school that cares to try the method. "Without a computer." says Peabody's Professor Curtis Ramsey, "this work would take so long that results would be of historical significance only."