As 56 million children return to the nation's 133,000 elementary and secondary schools, the promise of "reform" is again in the air. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has announced $4 billion in "race to the top" grants to states whose proposals demonstrate, according to Duncan, "a bold commitment to education reform" and "creativity and innovation (that are) breathtaking." What they really show is that few subjects inspire more intellectual dishonesty and political puffery than "school reform."
Since the 1960s, waves of "reform" haven't produced meaningful achievement gains...
"Reforms" have disappointed for two reasons. First, no one has yet discovered transformative changes in curriculum or pedagogy, especially for inner-city schools, that are (in business lingo) "scalable" -- easily transferable to other schools, where they would predictably produce achievement gains. Efforts in New York City and Washington, D.C., to raise educational standards involve contentious and precarious school-by-school campaigns to purge "ineffective" teachers and principals. Charter schools might break this pattern, though there are grounds for skepticism. In 2009, the 4,700 charter schools enrolled about 3 percent of students and did not uniformly show achievement gains.
The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation. Students, after all, have to do the work. If they aren't motivated, even capable teachers may fail.
Motivation comes from many sources: curiosity and ambition; parental expectations; the desire to get into a "good" college; inspiring or intimidating teachers; peer pressure. The unstated assumption of much school "reform" is that if students aren't motivated, it's mainly the fault of schools and teachers. The reality is that, as high schools have become more inclusive (in 1950, 40 percent of 17-year-olds had dropped out compared with about 25 percent today) and adolescent culture has strengthened, the authority of teachers and schools has eroded. That applies more to high schools than to elementary schools, helping explain why early achievement gains evaporate.
I wonder how many teachers would disagree with this assessment. On the other hand, there are enough examples out there that show that schools can overcome these hurdles if the right kind of people are in charge and the right kind of people are teaching.
Samuelson is wrong.
ReplyDeleteThose "previous waves" of reform were all of the "eyewash" variety. This time it's substantive in that a constituency is growing which owes nothing to the current public education system and isn't limited by the unvoiced assumptions about how public education has to be structured.
I'm referring to charter school parents, current and prospective, who while still beholden to the idea of public education understand that the assumptions the current system are built upon aren't the only way to construct a public education system. They understand that because the schools their kids attended stand, organizationally, outside the current system.
When one of two inevitabilities occurs, expanding the charter cap or dissolving whole districts, charter parents will either nod at the obvious or shrug with indifference. Neither decision will be the sort of lurid catastrophe they'll be made out to be and therein lies the difference between this wave of education reform and the previous wavelets - a reform constituency.
This statement from the quoted article: "'Reforms' have disappointed for two reasons. First, no one has yet discovered transformative changes in curriculum or pedagogy, especially for inner-city schools, that are (in business lingo) "scalable" -- easily transferable to other schools, where they would predictably produce achievement gains." appears to be incorrect.
ReplyDeleteSee Project Follow Through and note the bit reading, "One outcome of Project Follow Through was that it clearly documented the most effective instructional approach..."
What is unfortunate is that this 'clearly documented' 'most effective instructional' approach is not very popular :-(
-Mark Roulo
Which results in the question, why wasn't it very popular?
ReplyDeleteIn fact, why isn't anything that results in improvements in education "very popular"? Why don't the Jaime Escalantes and Marva Collins' have an avid, professional following? Why aren't principals who turn lousy schools are very popular?
Politicians have no business in doing anything other than supplying money for reform. Every time politics gets in the mix, programs that suck the marrow of every budget get created. We need to streamline education, we need to offer vocational alternatives and we need to stop using the schools as a method of social engineering. Period.
ReplyDelete