William J. Bennett
Secretary of Education

	Unlike many government reports,  this report is addressed 
to the American people.   It is intended to provide accurate  and 
reliable  information  about what works in the education  of  our 
children,  and it is meant to be useful to all of us--parents and 
taxpayers,  teachers  and  legislators,  newspaper reporters  and 
newspaper  readers,  principals and school board  members.   But, 
first  and foremost,  this book is intended to be useful  to  the 
adult with a child--or grandchild, niece, stepchild, neighbor--in 
school  or  soon to enter school.   It is designed to assist  the 
adult who cares about the education of that child,  both at  home 
and in school.
	The  preparation of this report has been in my mind since 
the day,  a year ago,  when I was sworn in as Secretary of Educa-
tion.   In my first statement upon assuming this office,  I said, 
"We  must remember that education is not a  dismal  science.   In 
education  research,  of course,  there is much to find out,  but 
education,  despite  efforts to make it so,  is  not  essentially 
mysterious."  In an interview shortly thereafter, I added that "I 
hope  we  can  make sense about education and  talk  sense  about 
education  in terms that the American public can  understand.   I 
would  like  to demystify a lot of things that don't need  to  be 
mystifying.   I would like specifically to have the best informa-
tion  available  to the Department and therefore to the  American 
people...."
	The  first and fundamental responsibility of the  federal 
government  in the field of education is to supply  accurate  and 
reliable information about education to the American people.  The 
information  in this volume is a distillation of a large body  of 
scholarly research in the field of education.  
I trust it is a useful distillation.   Of course,  it is a selec-
tive  one.   It consists of discrete findings about teaching  and 
learning  that are applicable at home,  in the classroom,  and in 
the school.   Many larger policy questions, many important educa-
tion issues,  are not addressed in this volume.   And research on 
other important issues that could have been addressed was  judged 
too  preliminary  or tentative to be included.   But we now  know 
certain  things  about teaching and learning as a result  of  the 
labors of the scholarly community.
This  book makes available to the American people a synthesis  of 
some of that knowledge about education.
Primary responsibility for assembling the material in this report 
has been borne by Dr.  Chester E.  Finn, Jr., Assistant Secretary 
for Research and Improvement,  and his staff.   Immediately after 
Dr.  Finn took his oath of office, I assigned him the preparation 
of this document as his first task.   As he explains in the brief 
introduction  that follows,  many have contributed  their  ideas, 
knowledge,  and energies,  and I am grateful to them all.  Beyond 
these  individuals,  though,  we all have cause to be grateful to 
the  scholarly community whose research is  distilled  here.   We 
salute  their accomplishments by paying them the highest possible 
compliment:   taking  their work seriously and trying to make  it 
accessible to the American people.  Many readers may find some of 
the  research findings suprising.   Most readers will,  I  think, 
judge  that most of the evidence in this volume  confirms  common 
sense.  So be it.  
Given the abuse common sense has taken in recent decades,  parti-
cularly  in the theory and practice of education,  it is no small 
contribution  if research can play a role in bringing more of  it 
to American education.   Indeed, the reinforcement these findings 
give to common sense should bolster our confidence that we,  as a 
people, can act together to improve our schools.
I for one am confident that the American people are ready,  will-
ing,  and  able  to improve their schools,  and to  assist  their 
children to learn.   The principal contribution that the  federal 
government can make is to supply good information to the American 
people as they embark on this endeavor.  Armed with good informa-
tion,  the  American  people  can  be trusted to  fix  their  own 
schools.  As this report makes clear, there is also much they can 
do at home.
This volume is not the only effort that the Department of  Educa-
tion  is  making  to supply the American people  with  important, 
accurate,  and useful information.   We publish regular data com-
pilations,  such as the annual Condition of Education.   We  have 
produced  pamphlets explaining to parents what parents can do  to 
assist  their  children  to acquire some of  the  basic  academic 
skills.   We  have supported work by others that has yielded such 
exemplary reports as Becoming a Nation of Readers (the Report  of 
the Commission on Reading, many of whose findings and conclusions 
are cited in this volume).
Nor do we intend to stop.   I would, in fact, welcome suggestions 
for future efforts that would be helpful and informative, as well 
as comments and criticisms about this volume.  And please use the 
comment  card inside the back cover of this volume to pose  ques-
tions about education not addressed in this report.   For now,  I 
am  pleased to offer this volume to the American people.   I  be-
lieve  that it represents an important step toward fulfilling the 
mandate of Congress,  dating back to 1867,  that the federal gov-
ernment  should provide information to the people of  the  United 
States  so  as to "promote the cause of education throughout  the 
country."