The Curious Case of THE DOCTORED REPORT
LOWMAN 1, ELEANOR S.
I EDUCATION IN THE U.S.S.R.55^ 1 The Curious Case of THE DOCTORED REPORT liv.....¦ , , by ELEANOR S. LOWMAN 1 During November, 1957, the U.S. Office of Education released a comprehensive...
...government from 1950 to 1955...
...Office of Education and in 1957 she was employed by the Division of Scientific Personnel and Education in the National Science Foundation...
...Because of my strategic position in the government it was almost inevitable that I should be invited to undertake this assignment...
...The months went by...
...I was the author of that book...
...Office of Education started to pile up...
...Soviet children study a traditional curriculum...
...But it also implied that education in the Soviet Union was free only through the primary and secondary grades when in fact it is free from first grade through graduate study...
...It would have been of interest to a curious America to know some of the methods and techniques employed to solve many of the same problems confronting U.S...
...Many newspapers and magazines devoted full page spreads and long articles to the material in the book...
...In his second televised address to the nation following the launching of the Soviet sputniks, President Eisenhower cited one of the highlights in my book pointing out the very real challenge Soviet education presents...
...How were they being trained...
...Extra-curricular activities in the U.S.S.R...
...To do this I had to buy out of my own pocket all books and journals...
...There is no indication of the training the vast number of secondary school teachers get, as those curricula were deleted...
...over ten per cent of the national income was spent on education while less than three per cent of ours was...
...I interviewed people who had been to school in the U.S.S.R...
...How could a people subjected to authoritarian thought control possibly be doing anything worthy of American respect, much less concern...
...Office of Education released a comprehensive report, Education in the U.S.S.R., underscoring the size and intensity of the Soviet educational system...
...Unless the United States undertook new measures to increase our own facilities for scientific education, to attract a greater number of able students into science studies, Soviet scientific and technological manpower in key areas would greatly outnumber ours in the next decade...
...It was a systematic, efficient, methodical effort to supply the Soviet state with trained manpower of every conceivable type...
...I am buried in my own list of acknowledgments as the one who prepared the original manuscript...
...the story...
...Some saw only his teeth and his claws...
...As a result of this rewording on free education, all subsequent general references to it had also been removed...
...The U.S...
...Errors of omission are the public's loss...
...During 1956 she was a member of the staff of comparative education in the U.S...
...Their suggestions were carefully incorporated and integrated into the final draft...
...had been taken out and new paragraphs inserted on what we were doing and how we were doing it in the United States with respect to financing our education—interesting to be sure, but a bit out of place since there was now no data on Soviet financing with which to compare it...
...Especially valuable comments were supplied by former Soviet teachers and professors, some of whom are now teaching in the United States...
...I was greeted with: "The page proofs are here if you care to see them...
...I reviewed every book in the Library of Congress bearing on the subject of Soviet education, I believe...
...I spent hundreds of hours interviewing and reading the accounts of those who were there...
...It is being read for policy," I was told...
...Soviet teachers and government education officials visiting the United States readily answered specific questions...
...The mail in the U.S...
...Interestingly enough, while all of the former Soviet citizens I consulted had left the Soviet Union largely because of their detestation for the Communist regime and the Soviet way of life, they nevertheless tended to look back upon their education with respect...
...With parts of these everyone who knows anything about Soviet education would disagree...
...I had not planned to do so...
...True, Soviet biology had suffered in the field of genetics as a result of politically supported but scientifically unacceptable data...
...He said he felt strongly about the value of keeping abreast of Soviet educational achievements, commenting—with greater foresight than he realized— that "the importance of these studies may not be recognized fully within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare...
...One of the finest editors in the Office of Education then worked on the manuscript for three months—checking statistical tables, eliminating repetitious material, culling for inconsistencies, hunting for possibly misleading statements...
...And then there were the reports of tourists returning from the Soviet Union...
...Numbers, though, are only half ELEANOR SATHER LOWMAN, a recognized expert in the field of Soviet education and scientific training, was an intelligence officer for the U.S...
...Sections outlining the method of financing education in the U.S.S.R...
...It was not a particularly outstanding book, but under the circumstances and in the time allotted, it was a reputable job...
...Those who had also studied in the United States or in Western Europe were particularly questioned for their opinions about differences, similarities, things well done, things done poorly...
...My name does not appear as the author...
...It had to produce...
...But in the physical sciences and in engineering, ideology gave way to fact...
...There was no more money, I was told, to keep me on the staff...
...These were a few of the questions raised by my colleagues in the government...
...Some saw the tail of the Russian bear...
...Some were humorous: "As the preceding examples show . . ." There were no preceding examples...
...Substituted for a carefully compiled selected reading list was a mere enumeration of those sources cited in footnote references throughout the manuscript...
...they had been cut out...
...examples of curricula in higher educational institutions, draft deferment of students...
...The other half of the conclusions have nothing to do with highlights of Soviet education...
...Why did I write a letter of protest...
...Thus, Soviet kindergartens are described as child care centers, when, in fact, they provide carefully planned educational activities of a greater scope than exist in any American kindergarten...
...In closing his letter he wrote that his department considered my work on Soviet education "a valuable contribution to national security...
...Office of Education publications...
...What about quality...
...In the chapter on teacher training, for example, illustrations of the curricula for each type and level of training were given...
...serve the same function as do such activities in the United States—to provide children with opportunities for engaging in pursuits of special interest: photography, sports, language conversation, glee club, orchestra, chess, and journalism...
...No one in Health, Education, and Welfare has ever expressed any curiosity about the errors or asked me what was specifically wrong...
...How good were these Soviet graduates...
...I was not ashamed to sign my name to it...
...They were replaced out of order and out of context...
...Long after the letter became public and the furor had died down, I received a courteous letter from Secretary Folsom thanking me for my interest...
...The next morning I was down at the office to see my book in page proof...
...After all, I had had a unique opportunity to become acquainted with the most up-to-date information then available...
...Soviet newspapers were scanned for educational statistics...
...While there were many more people in the United States with a higher education and advanced training in science and engineering than there were in the U.S.S.R., when it came down to actually being employed in the economy, both countries had about the same number...
...The picture for other important fields of science was the same...
...The manuscript had been cut in half, but not with any discretion...
...One was from the Secretary of Defense and one was from the Secretary of the Air Force...
...Errors of distortion were numerous...
...Many of them spent long hours checking it over at no compensation for their time and effort...
...The entire chapter on administration of Soviet education—difficult to understand at best—was now cut up, devoid of its explanatory chart, and inserted at random throughout the book...
...It had to show a profit to the state for the time and money expended by graduating specialists fully as competent as those in the West...
...Chemistry and physics, too, were found to be healthy and flourishing...
...others saw his ears...
...The book is still being distributed by the Department...
...I left...
...The Office of Education says the book is a staff study, although no other contributing authors are listed...
...But perhaps the details are unimportant...
...refresher courses for teachers...
...Donald A. Quarles, then Secretary of the Air Force, wrote that, in preparing briefings for technological planning in the Department of Defense, the Air Force placed "much reliance" on my work...
...military training programs in civilian and military schools...
...Some errors were careless: In discussing such qualitative factors affecting higher education as the national figure of over three applicants per one acceptance, the passage reads "three applicants per vacancy in the philological faculty of Leningrad University . . ." The idea had been to show that while the national average was over three, the range was from as many as 14 applicants per vacancy at the philological faculty of the University of Leningrad to a low of 11 applicants for 300 vacancies in Kharkov Institute for Librarians...
...The flood of mail prompted the Office to obtain the services of someone to write a factual presentation of the Soviet educational system...
...The data began to stack up...
...It not only said that education was compulsory through grade ten when in fact it was compulsory only through grade seven...
...To my knowledge no effort has been made to correct any of the errors in subsequent printings...
...It all began some eight years ago in Washington, D. C, with a stack of charts...
...But the now almost obsolete program for primary school teachers was set forth as representing the training all Soviet teachers get...
...For some reason many paragraphs had been completely reworded with the result that they not only contained errors but were longer than the original paragraphs...
...The published version does reveal the scope and to some extent the "Dear Boy, Where Have You Been Keeping Yourself...
...Some errors of fact were minor: for example, understating the number of Soviet students enrolled in higher educational institutions by a million in a text passage, leaving it correct in a statistical table...
...This, despite a specific request from the Defense Department that the Soviet studies be continued...
...There had been no attempt to keep a balanced presentation or to eliminate less essential material...
...And he charged Americans with re-examining their local school curricula...
...These charts showed clearly the spectacular rate at which the Soviet Union was increasing its reservoir of scientists and engineers...
...The United States was training large numbers of engineers each year, but the Soviet Union was annually turning out twice as many...
...Every Soviet educational journal— and our country has fairly complete collections—was read and notes were made of the discussions being carried on by Soviet educators regarding the strengths and weaknesses of their educational practices...
...Air Force, the Office of Defense Mobilization, the Academy of Science, the Center for International Studies at MIT, and the State Department...
...Later I became a consultant to the State Department on Soviet education...
...It was completed in spite of the complete lack of administrative support...
...As such, the education to which they were subjected had to be effective...
...Charles E. Wilson expressed appreciation for "the assistance" I had given to the Defense Department on Soviet education, commenting that it "was of the highest quality...
...A week later the nation's newspapers carried the story of charges of "suppression, inaccuracy, distortion, and delay of material of national import," charges made by the author of Education in the U.S.S.R., in a letter to Secretary Folsom...
...A few felt his soft fur...
...I also surveyed the reference material at the Hoover Library at Stanford, the New York City Library, and the libraries at Harvard and Columbia Universitties...
...I sincerely hope, however, that more foresight, discretion, and care are displayed by those charged with this effort than were shown by those in the Office who were responsible for making known the facts of Soviet education...
...The implication...
...But there would be a desk for education in Latin America, for Western Europe, for the Far East, and for the Middle East and Africa...
...The Office of Education simply was not geared to cope with an iron-curtain country...
...The task of informing the American people about the Soviet effort in science and education was begun...
...It was a difficult job...
...In discussing the page proofs I pointed out the more significant errors of fact which could have been corrected at very little cost...
...It was submitted to the editorial division...
...50 per cent were science majors...
...The meat of the chapter on teacher training and the teaching profession was cut to the point of inconsequence, while the relatively less important chapter on vocational and agricultural training remains voluminous...
...I was told there had really been no reason for my giving it a last reading...
...in the U.S.S.R...
...programs for blind, deaf and dumb, and mentally retarded children...
...Although no new material on Soviet education was added to the book, some one or some group of people in the Office of Education added three and one-half pages of conclusions...
...The trends were even more startling...
...It was marked for the press and ready to go October 1, 1956...
...There was no one in the Office of Education competent to examine the book critically, I was told, so I asked colleagues in other branches of the government and various specialists in the field of Soviet affairs to go over separate sections and over the manuscript as a whole...
...Other data cut out which had been specifically requested by consumer groups are: Soviet teacher salary scales...
...There weren't any...
...Not only was the public apathetic, but even numerous government officials refused to believe the mounting evidence...
...But omitted were references to the all important how...
...Soviet work in mathematics and meterology was found to be not only on a par with that in the United States, but in some respects ahead...
...Each year the flood of students wanting to study physics in Soviet universities was increasing...
...Two months before I was asked to leave, Secretary Folsom had been sent two letters...
...As might be expected when wholesale deletions and rewordings are undertaken by non-specialists in the subject matters, errors crept in...
...That alone was bad enough...
...Despite denying intentions to make use of these materials, my requests for release of the material not included in the book were flatly rejected by my immediate supervisor...
...It came from everywhere...
...I hadn't seen it before it went despite repeated assurances that I would...
...Although the number of college students in the United States was much larger than that of the U.S.S.R., only 20 per cent of American graduates were majoring in science...
...Still no word on my manuscript...
...Apparently it had been turned over to people in the Office of Education who knew nothing about the subject matter, who knew nothing about editing, and who were not adept journalists...
...I was stunned...
...Long sections on the historical development of a given segment of Soviet training were left in, while important details and actual examples of present-day study programs and current statistical data are gone...
...they summarize education in the United States...
...m The section on financing education was scarcely recognizable...
...At a time when Soviet science was regarded as something of a joke by the American public at large, increasing numbers of American scientists were coming across examples of Soviet research which excited their interest and commanded their respect...
...Summer became fall, and no galley proofs arrived...
...Throughout this period she also served as a consultant on Soviet education for the U.S...
...To quote former Secretary of the Air Force Donald A. Quarles, my knowledge of Soviet educational policies and practices was "unique in the West...
...More students were majoring in astronomy at a single Soviet higher educational institution than in all American schools combined...
...Soviet extracurricular activities are described as "work activities" of a "voluntary-compulsory" nature...
...And of course I had access to all the classified material available in the government...
...quality of Soviet training...
...Winter became spring...
...There was indeed more to Soviet education than mere Communist indoctrination...
...Office of Education is now spearheading the drive to reevaluate our own American educational process...
...This was the relative status of American and Soviet scientific and technical manpower...
...It now made no reference to the fact that in the U.S.S.R...
...Nine months later the manuscript was finished...
...about their educational experiences...
...My next assignment was to find the answers...
...Other errors of fact were serious: By rewording the section dealing with education in the Soviet Constitution—a key translation I had had checked for accuracy by the Russian Legal Section at the Library of Congress and by the State Department— the passage was completely erroneous...
...This omission was particularly inexplicable because of all information requested by those writing to the Office of Education regarding Soviet education, requests for a selected bibliography head the list...
...The book met with unusual interest, the entire first edition of 10,000 copies selling out in two days—unique in the history of U.S...
...education today...
...I had to establish my own liaison lines with other governmental agencies...
...There would no longer be a Soviet desk...
...It was only after the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and the commissioner of education started giving speeches based on material in the book and referring to it publicly as a "careful, factual, and statistical study" that I wrote them what had happened...
...In attempting to "improve" this chapter only two curricula were left in—one for kindergarten teachers and one practically obsolete for primary school teachers...
...Findings indicating the substantial caliber of Soviet scientific and technological training began to be supported by American scientists concerned with the actual achievements of these Soviet graduates...
...This is as it should be...
...The source of my information...
...rather, they were a prized national resource...
...Students were not regarded as individuals...
...While there is much material of value in the book, I suggested that it be used with caution...
...Highlights from the book were incorporated in speeches given by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, the commissioner of education, leading American educators, and scientists appearing before Congressional committees...
...Each saw what his eyes wanted to see as well as what was shown to him...
...I accepted an appointment with the National Science Foundation...
...Then one day when I telephoned I was told it had already gone to press...
...Immediately after turning in the finished manuscript I was asked to leave...
...The American people now know the seriousness of Soviet competition...
...I had to find my own reviewers...
...I had to supply all my own reference materials...
...One day in October —more than a year after it was completely ready for publication—I called again to ask about the galleys...
...The lack of balance is self-evident...
...This is not the case at all...
...I made the charges...
...I accepted the job...
...I learned later why not a single correction was made: the manuscript had already been returned to the press before I saw the proofsl The book is out now...
...Much valuable information on Soviet education especially included in the manuscript at the request of the Department of Defense, the Committee for the Development of Scientists and Engineers, the Office of Defense Mobilization, the National Science Foundation, and intelligence agencies in the Government—to name a few—was deleted...
...Nevertheless, people began to ask for information...
...Another example of sheer carelessness was the handling of the pictures in the manuscript...
...What had happened...
Vol. 22 • March 1958 • No. 3
