Does All Really Mean All?
We hear a lot about the need to ensure that all children succeed. But I'm beginning to think that the rhetoric of "all" has got too many reformers promising things they cannot possibly deliver. It's time to be more honest about the limitations of any single reform strategy.
In fact, many reforms getting the lion's share of attention these days might actually undermine the goal to serve all children. For example:
Competition for Federal Dollars. At first blush, this idea seems hard to reconcile with the aim to help "all kids." The feds want the states and districts to compete for federal money--and may the best, most innovative ones win. Doling the dollars out by formula, some claim, merely props up the status quo.
But shouldn't we be at least a tad concerned that the rich will get richer and the poor, poorer? Districts that can afford grant writers will have an edge. Those that cannot? It's too bad for them. "Unto him that hath, much shall be given, and from him that hath not...." (You know the rest.)
And if the feds aren't careful, they'll look like vengeful gods who visit the sins of the fathers upon the children. After all, it's children who stand to lose the most when adults don't manage to win federal funds. (Some groups see an even greater danger in the feds' desire to tie Title I dollars to specific reforms.)
Charters. For all their promise, there is little evidence that charters will ever get us to "all." Many people who strongly support school choice don't really believe arguments about all kids even if they devoutly use the rhetoric of "all" and "every."
Many choice advocates are in fact most interested in motivated kids or kids from motivated families. Some openly speculate that the best charter schools succeed at least in part because of "peer effects." (Bring motivated kids together with other motivated kids, and they'll do better, the theory goes.)
Such people are not ogres. They may not be out to make all kids successful. But they see charters as a way to make more kids successful. Still, I worry about the kids who would be left behind.
NCLB's Requirements for Total proficiency by 2014. This is of course the most infamous "all" of all. No Child Left Behind requires schools to make all students proficient in math and reading by 2014--or else. While that's a great stretch goal, it's a terrible policy. No sane person believes schools will create a world without failure just four years from now. (Even most Millenarians aren't that impatient.)
By requiring "all," NCLB might actually get us closer to nothing. Imagine a future where expectations are so low that anyone can clear the bar. Or imagine a world where most public schools miss their targets and sink into restructuring. What happens then? Do we give up the public project altogether, hand things over to charters and private schools, and hope for the best? If that happens, you can kiss the ideals of "all" and "every" goodbye.
Each of these reforms has merit. Competition does make sense if the feds want to tie their dollars to some promise of actual quality. The best charter schools have changed the lives of thousands of children. And even NCLB has brought attention to countless children whose struggles were all but invisible in past decades.
But I worry about what happens when reforms are adopted piecemeal, which is what generally happens in times of scarcity. Competition for funds becomes particularly troubling when there's barely enough to go around. Charter schools can only bring us so much if we don't invest in building capacity through the entire system. And we can't coerce schools to greatness through accountability systems alone.
If we really want to talk about giving all kids the same strong chance for success, then half-measures just won't do.
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The important thing is give
The important thing is give give all kids the same opportunities to succeed. We can't guarantee that all kids actually will succeed. I'll be happy if your chances for success don't depend on how much money your family makes or where you live, and that mans we have to work with more than just schools if we want to make sure that all kids have an equal chance.
What we would like to be able
What we would like to be able to do, and what we are actually able to do (even with good funding) are two different things. Given the teacher corps and the administrator corps we have, there are no examples of public schools serving large numbers of children from disorganized homes where those same children do well enough for us to feel good about it. Given that reality, we can't tell students from more-organized homes that they have to stick it out in those schools when we know they'd do better in charter or magnet schools. We have to stop using stronger students presence as an ingredient in the weaker students' education; that is not their responsibility, and it limits their own achievement. It is the adults' responsibility to figure out how to provide a good education for the weaker students, whether through a more tailored curriculum, more talented teachers, or therapeutic interventions. Or probably all three.
KVC--Thanks for reminding us
KVC--Thanks for reminding us about equal opportunity, which is an as-yet unrealized American ideal. Equality of outcome is harder to ensure, but persistent achievement gaps certainly suggest that we're far from equality of opportunity.
Anonymous--Do you worry at all that you'll actually deepen achievement gaps by segregating students? Or is that a strategy to improve the lot of more students while tempering our ambitions for all students?
Claus, the latter. Except I
Claus, the latter. Except I disagree that allowing students who are ready to pursue a more challenging curriculum amounts to giving up on the less-ready students. Yes, you end up with a higher proportion of students who are behind; but why doesn't that free the teaachers up to deliver a more-intense, even more therapeutic instructional program to those students, which would actually help them progress faster? Why do you assume that teachers will only teach well if they have a greater number of grade-level or above students in their classes?
PS I have been a first-grade
PS I have been a first-grade teacher in an inner city school. All poor, all minority. Finding ways for poor, minority children to get access to instruction that challenges them is a necessity.
PPS: If students were
PPS: If students were grouped by readiness level (NOT tracked), this issue would be far less pressing. However, in most schools this doesn't happen any more. One of the schools I taught in had a section of 4th grade that was specifically for children who had had a hard time keeping up in third grade. It was assigned the strongest 4th grade teacher, and the children made a lot of progress.
With "proficiency" reduced to
With "proficiency" reduced to arbitrarily-set cut scores on an ungrounded statistical scale, it's not possible for all children to succeed. However, it is feasible to teach all children with very few exceptions how to read. The UK is committed to do this.
One doesn't need a standardized test to determine if a child can read and understand what a text says. The only question is what instruction to provide when a child can't read. Standardized tests shed no light on the instruction that has been delivered or is best for the future. Some children learn how to read with very little formal instruction. Others cope or limp through with flawed instruction. The rest are chalked up to "learning disabilities."
The same logic applies to arithmetic.
As long as instruction remains a black box between standards and standardized tests the unaccountable authorities responsible above the school site will continue their ways.
NCLB took us past the soft bigotry of low expectations to the Race to hard bigotry of low instructional instructional accomplishments.
Anonymous--What about
Anonymous--What about programs that pull out struggling students for EXTRA instruction in areas where they're having trouble--without separating them from their higher-achieving peers? I've seen that strategy work in several schools.
Dick--Here's the money quote: "As long as instruction remains a black box between standards and standardized tests the unaccountable authorities responsible above the school site will continue their ways." I'm not sure that all the authorities are really as unaccountable as you suggest, but I fully agree with the spirit of your remark. Where, I wonder, is the strategy for improvement?
It all depends on the quality
It all depends on the quality of the extra help. If it truly keeps the child caught up, then fine. But an awful lot of "extra help" is applied when it's really too late; in 5th grade it's offered to students who are alrady 2 or 3 years behind, when a more powerful and focused curriculum in K-2 would have prevented, as Dick says, the appearance of learning disabilities.
The overarching point I'm trying to make is that when a child is in a classroom where a lesson is being taught that is over his or her head (and I've been that child), her time is being wasted, educationally speaking, so that we can pat ourselves on the back for not tracking the students.
And one more take on this
And one more take on this issue: of course, I'm not talking about separating children all day long. I'm talking about making sure that their basic skills instruction -- reading and math, maybe writing, is highly targeted to their zone of proximal development. There's plenty of other content that can accomodate a broader range of readiness levels, at least until middle school or high school.
"Where, I wonder, is the
"Where, I wonder, is the strategy for improvement?"
Good question.
The states have "assured" that they will implement the four tenets that operationalize the Race to the Top. That's the strategy.
Each year we have a new cohort of kids entering our Kindergartens. We treat them the same way we did last year's cohort, the cohort before that.
We know that kids differ, but we also know that with few exceptions kids have the minimal prerequisites required to deliver kids who can handle the rudiments written English and the number system. This can be done by the end of Grade 2, but there is presently no provision for looking at these accomplishments until Grade 3. And then only with a once-a-year peek with instruments that are sensitive to racial/SES differences, but not to instructional differences.
By Grade 3, schooling has created a large number of "learning disabilities" and has done nothing to decrease the disparity in the differences that existed in K.
The weakness in the el-hi enterprise is at the top not at the level of teachers, kids, and parents. Methodology exists for obtaining "educational intelligence" and acting upon it analogous to how the military and the corporate world address "intelligence." But the application of the methodology requires changing the direction "reformers" are headed, And we don't know how to do that.
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