Assuming That Everyone Can Learn Everything, Will Some Learn Less?

Benjamin Bloom's newest book, Human Characteristics and School Learning, is one of the most optimistic assessments of the potential of schools for meeting important social needs that has appeared in some time. In the face of growing belief in scholarly circles and elsewhere that the schools have little social impact, that family background and other individual characteristics account for virtually all differences in outcome, Bloom makes a potentially radical claim. Everyone, he asserts, can learn everything the schools have to teach. Furthermore, individual differences in learning can be reduced to zero. All of this can happen now, with techniques already available to us and proven in effectiveness. This is an arresting and provocative claim, one that surely demands our most thoughtful consideration. For if Bloom is right-if schools can even approximate the expectations he raises for them-we can look forward to a significantly changed and more satisfactory role of schooling in our general social life than we now enjoy. Bloom's argument is based on a model that assumes school learning to be a function of (1) student characteristics, including what Bloom has labeled Cognitive Entry Behaviors and Affective Entry Characteristics, and (2) the quality of instruction. Learning outcomes considered in this model include the amount learned (level and type of achievement), the rate of learning, and various affective outcomes. The three kinds of learning outcomes are not independent. Level and rate of learning are assumed to modify affective outcomes such as self-concept and attitude toward learning. Rate of learning and level of learning interact in ways determined in part by the nature of the instruction offered. Two learners may be able to achieve the same amount of learning (master the same material), but may need differ-