A major legacy of the "go-go years", the late 50's and 60's when federal and foundation funding of education increased so much, was a huge increase in the number of instructional materials (both print and non-print) available to the schools. The efforts of the non-commercial curriculum development teams have been swamped by this increase and their many expensive product development and learner verification techniques have been ignored by the commercial producers who found the procedures unfeasible and too costly. The extra supply of funds for instructional materials induced publishers to throw more products on the market (where sales were certain) with no thought of instructional effectiveness. California and Florida have led the way in requiring that new instructional materials be "learner verified"; perhaps this might lead to a new style of product development that utilizes common-sense empiricism, small-scale field trials, and accumulated experience. Such evaluations are greatly needed when 99 percent of all instructional materials have not been verified by a single learner. (WH)