In education, as in the area of mental illness, the first application of behavior modification began with the treatment of the severely retarded and the autistic. By 1970 behavioral principles were being applied to normal children in the home and regular classes in schools. While behavior modification has been accepted to some degree in special education classes, teachers in the regular classroom do not understand behavioral principles. The current status of knowledge and use of behavior modification in education as indicated through journal articles and teacher training shows that the amount of behavior modification research being published varies widely from one journal to another, and that schools training elementary teachers are not requiring coursework in behavior modification. Education has been slow in adapting to behavior modification because thinking of people's behavior is contrary to the orientation of the American culture, where the psychodynamic view is widespread. Behavior modification is perceived to have been with us for only a decade, and there is little reason to see it as different from the various fads in education that have occurred in the past. Nonetheless, there are positive signs about its future. There is an overall growth in understanding of the behavioral approach as evidenced by: (1) continued research in this area by school psychologists; (2) behavior modification course requirements in special education; (3) at least limited exposure to behavioral principles for student teachers; (4) and the current focus on excellence in education, which shares a behavioral emphasis on empericism. (LLL)