Showing papers in "Harvard Educational Review in 1984"

Transforming the Frog into a Prince: Effective Schools Research, Policy, and Practice at the District Level.

Abstract: Drawing upon his experiences as a former school superintendent and an academic, Larry Cuban examines the implications of the effective schools research for policy and practice at the district level. He focuses on the critical role played by the superintendent and by district-level policies in creating preconditions for local school improvement. Examining the issues that both separate and connect the worlds of theory and practice, Cuban describes the dilemma of school leaders who, armed with only an incomplete theory of school improvement, must make important policy decisions in the face of time pressures and political demands. He warns of some of the unintended consequences of effective schools practices that employ top-down strategies to achieve the narrow goal of raising test scores. Administrators, he argues, need a variety of policy tools and top-down and bottom-up strategies to generate significant improvement at the local level.

Merit Pay for Teachers: A Poor Prescription for Reform.

Abstract: Many educators as well as business and governmental leaders argue that the improvement of schools depends primarily upon improving the performance of teachers. Merit pay, a solution drawn from the business world, promises to reward effective teachers and encourage them to work harder. From her perspective as both historian and policy analyst, Susan Moore Johnson explains that merit pay is neither a new nor an untested remedy. The speeches and programs of educational reformers of the 1920s and 1950s echo the current hopes for and arguments against merit pay. An analysis of the reasons for the failure of past merit pay plans suggests that present proposals would face similar technical, organizational, and financial obstacles. Asserting that merit pay takes into account neither the motivational needs of teachers nor the interdependent nature of schools, Johnson concludes that when looking to the corporate world for models of reform, school leaders should consider the practices of highly successful corporatio...

Placing Women in the Liberal Arts: Stages of Curriculum Transformation

Abstract: Research on women has created a new body of knowledge that is reshaping our understanding of the traditional curriculum. The scholarship about women's experience produced in the last two decades has entered the curriculum primarily through women's studies courses. But what happens next? In the last five years, informed administrators and women's studies teachers have undertaken to transform traditional courses throughout the curriculum. Marilyn Schuster and Susan Van Dyne present a paradigm describing how teachers and students experience the process of curricular change. Their analysis suggests that teachers may move through a sequence of stages and try a variety of strategies in order to represent women and minorities, and thus a fuller range of human experience, in their courses.

Public Philosophy and the Crisis in Education

Abstract: Henry Giroux is concerned that the current debate over the quality of education in the United States is characterized by a "new" public philosophy which is as problematic as the crisis it attempts to resolve. Criticizing the movement to link the outcomes of education solely to the needs of the business community, he argues that this philosophy towards education undermines efforts to equip students with the skills necessary to analyze the sociopolitical processes at work. Giroux advocates an educational policy for federal and state governments that ensures the teaching of critical literacy and civic courage. Such an approach requires a commitment of political and financial resources to creating schools that function as sites of learning of social interaction, and of human emancipation.

Variations in State SAT Performance: Meaningful or Misleading?

Abstract: Public attention has been drawn to recent reports of state-by-state variation in standardized test scores, in particular the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). In this paper, Brian Powell and Lala Carr Steelman attempt to show how the dissemination of uncorrected state SAT scores may have created an inaccurate public and governmental perception of the variation in educational quality. Their research demonstrates that comparing state SAT averages is illadvised unless these ratings are corrected for compositional and demographic factors for which states may not be directly responsible.

Setting the Standard: Alternative Policies for Student Promotion.

Abstract: The widely publicized declines in standardized test scores in recent years have deepened concern about the promotional policies of schools. In this article, David Labaree exam­ ines both the theoretical bases and historical evolution of two alternative policies — merit and social promotion. Finding little empirical evidence linking either policy to student achievement, Labaree concludes the article with a series of suggestions for school dis­ tricts planning to implement stronger promotional standards.

The Bandwagon Once More: Vocational Preparation for High-Tech Occupations

Abstract: In recent months, high-tech industry has been hailed as the solution to the nation's unemployment and international competition problems and the salvation of economically declining regions of the country. Community colleges have responded by establishing new vocational education programs to prepare students for jobs in high-tech industry. Utilizing data from the state of Texas, Norton Grubb examines the ability of high-tech industry to provide jobs for graduates of these programs. He also discusses the historical role of vocational education in national policy and the problems which may result from the attempt to prepare students for specific jobs rather than for careers. Grubb concludes by warning that the growth of high-tech industry may lead to the development of programs which, for the time being serve the interests of industry but which ultimately weaken the educational mission of the community college.

Problematic Aspects of Nuclear Education.

Abstract: Barbara Tizard reviews research on children's understanding of nuclear war She outlines and critiques studies from the United States and Europe and draws on research about children in contemporary wartime areas Tizard suggests that educators and researchers have yet to understand the factors influencing children's attitudes, anxieties, and knowledge of nuclear war They are just beginning to look at the various teaching methods and to determine their effects on children

On the Education of Policymakers.

Abstract: Policymaking has in recent years often been conceived as a technical problem-solving activity, and the education of policymakers has consequently emphasized training in discipline-based skills. In opposition to such a conception, Israel Scheffler outlines a view of the education of policymakers that emphasizes its humanistic character. Accordingly, he stresses the importance not only of understanding a variety of disciplinary idioms but also of insight into the ordinary languages of those persons whose problems are to be addressed. Further, he advocates reflexive awareness of presuppositions of value, culture, habit, and knowledge implicit in the policymaker's own activity. Finally, he urges special attention to temporal and historical dimensions of the policymaker's world.

Resistances to Knowing in the Nuclear Age

Abstract: John E Mack is a psychiatrist who has had conversations with young people in the United States and the Soviet Union about the threat of nuclear war In this article he explores psychological reasons why educators and parents resist dealing with the nuclear issue He describes individual resistance — avoidance of the emotional pain associated with nuclear war — and collective resistance, the result of a nation's political and economic assumptions to which citizens feel committed and which they support through corporate structures Mack concludes that if we do not question these collective assumptions, "advocacy for nuclear education in our schools, no matter how well-intended or impassioned, will not succeed"

The Role of Education in Preventing Nuclear War

Abstract: Arguing that education should play a crucial role in reducing the threat of nuclear war, Eric Markusen and John B. Harris turn first to history. They examine the role of education in the Holocaust of Nazi Germany and draw a thought-provoking parallel to the role of education in the nuclear arms race. They then discuss aspects of U.S. nuclear weapons policymaking and factors of psychological resistance that have limited citizen participation in decisionmaking. Finally, they explore the potential of education to help prevent nuclear war and describe ways that educators are rising to that challenge.

A Decisionmaking Approach to Nuclear Education

Abstract: This chronicle describes a senior high school curriculum that addresses four areas: personal values as a basis for political views, technological aspects of the nuclear arms race, the history of the nuclear arms race, and action for social change. Roberta Snow has played a key role in the development of the curriculum and has taught it many times. Here she joins with Lisa Goodman to provide a composite picture of the experience they and others across the country have had in using the curriculum.

Between Feeling and Fact: Listening to Children

Abstract: Brenda Engel believes that parents and teachers can learn a great deal about young children's attitudes and fears about nuclear weapons by closely attending to their behavior. Here she analyzes a discussion that took place in a class of kindergarten through second-graders who were responding to the theme, "If I Were Boss of the World" The children's conversation reveals their attitudes toward war toys and war play as well as their inner distinctions between play and reality. Engel's commentary illuminates the way imaginative invention helps children sort out feelings, not only about war and nuclear weapons but about many aspects of their happiness and security in the world.

Hard Times, Then and Now: Public Schools in the 1930s and 1980s

Abstract: Public education faced severe problems during the Great Depression of the 1930s and again in the past decade. Here, David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot examine the two periods and argue that the latter decade presented educators with a crisis of much greater dimensions. Both were times of serious financial strain and rigorous fiscal retrenchment, but education and educators still thrived during the Depression: enrollments rose, and professional morale and public support for education both remained high. By contrast, the 1970s and 1980s presented educators with unforeseen and unpredictable shortages of students as well as of money, and hastened the fragmentation of what had previously seemed a nearly universal faith in our nation's public schools. Despite the differences in the periods, the authors argue that both decades of "hard times" demonstrate the degree to which schooling is "embedded" in the habits and patterns of our national life.

Educational Inequality in South Africa and Its Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy

Abstract: Recently, world attention has been drawn to the continuing political struggle in southern Africa. Here, Kevin Danaher assesses the current relationship between the United States and South Africa. He argues that the Reagan administration has attempted to justify its friendly relations with the white minority government of South Africa by claiming that apartheid is being reformed and that U.S. educational assistance is playing an important role in that process. Danaher examines educational inequality in South Africa and the contradictions of recent reforms. Offering a critique of the Reagan administration's "constructive engagement" policy and its effects on the lives of black people in South Africa, he concludes that US. policies reinforce rather than undermine the strategies of the white minority government of Pretoria.

A Classroom Experiment in Teaching for Peace: Solutions to Global Problems

Abstract: Charlotte Waterlow, a former British civil servant and teacher, describes a course on "Global Problems" which she taught as a twelfth-grade elective at an independent school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The course drew inspiration from the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and from the belief that solutions to global problems are emerging.

Essay Review: Toward a Theory of Literacy

Abstract: The importance of writing in the development of an individual and of a people has long been proclaimed. Scholars have pointed out that through writing we develop cog­ nitive, social, economic, and political powers and possibilities. Thus, elegant variation and control in writing has been, historically, a mark of good schooling, upward mobil­ ity, and cultural rectitude, and it is through its written documents that a society's knowledge and values are preserved and its contributions measured. Despite these views of the functions of writing, we lack a theory of literacy that ex­ plains what it means to be literate and accounts for those factors that contribute to the reading and writing of extended text in particular contexts. Although the comprehen­ sion of text has been studied in some detail, little is known about the production of text. Writing research has been given little status or funding, and what research has been conducted has often fallen short in quality and precision when compared to the sophistication of some reading research. Yet, there is growing recognition across a range of fields that what writers know will tell us much about what must be included in a theory of literacy. While the logical aspect of writing has been the focus of much post-Chomskian work, recent attention to text has increased our understanding of writing as a social form of discourse, subject to situational interpretation. Recently, powerful statements about the almost mystical social functions of writing have been made by a number of eminent scholars: Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, indicated in Mind in Society (1978) that writing is a "system of symbols and signs whose mastery heralds a turning-point in the entire cultural-development of the child" (p. 161). Smith, an educational psychologist, notes in Writing and the Writer (1982) that "writing is revolutionary in that it can conspire to change the order" (p. 11). Goody, an anthropologist, asserts in The Domestication of the Savage Mind (1977) that writing is so powerful that it introduces new modes of thought and radically changes cultures. Barthes, a French structuralist, states in Writing Degree Zero (1968) that writing is so potent that it actually delineates and sustains the world in which we live.

Lewis Thomas Discusses the Threat of Nuclear War

Abstract: This interview with Lewis Thomas took place in January 1984 in his office at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. We invited Dr. Thomas to participate, knowing that, although not a specialist in education, he has written essays and books expressing a profound concern about the nuclear threat and the life of the planet. We very much appreciate his willingness to contribute to this special issue.As a physician and biologist, Dr. Thomas is perhaps best known for his book, Lives of a Cell. His recently published volume, Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony, contains several essays on the threat to the planet posed by nuclear weapons. His comments here reflect an understanding of education that emphasizes the media's role in providing information. In his view, the media has failed to inform the public about recent research on the biological effects of nuclear war, and he suggests that scientists have a responsibility to assist the media in understanding complex scient...

Chronicles: The Catholic Bishops' Peace Pastoral and Higher Education

Abstract: Judith Dwyer outlines a college course on nuclear issues using the Roman Catholic bishops' pastoral letter on war and peace as her primary source, in addition to films, books, and articles. She discusses the bishops' evaluation of nuclear warfare, deterrence, and disarmament and the concurrent need to engender in students an imaginative spirit, moral sensitivity, and a sense of hope.

Essay Reviews: All Things to All People: Fifty Years of American Schools

Abstract: When Americans discuss the condition of their educational system, as they have done constantly for more than a century and a half, they do not usually talk simply about schools and teachers. They talk about their society and their world. When they dream greatly, they often focus those dreams first on their schools. When they fear for their security or their comfort, they often look to the schools for both the sources and the solutions of their problems. Visionaries and idealists work to make education a vehicle for their social philosophies or their Utopian dreams. Conser­ vative elites demand that schools serve to enforce social discipline and preserve or­ der. Nationalists hope that education will advance the cause of social unity; minorities insist that schools should help to preserve racial, ethnic, or regional distinctiveness. The educational system, Americans seem to believe, can be, indeed must be, all things to all people. The result, of course, has been constant, inevitable disappointment. In 1946, Robert Maynard Hutchins, then president of the University of Chicago, wrote a response to the ambitious proposals of a presidential commission on higher education. In it he expressed as clearly as anyone the educator's frustration at the expectations society had imposed on his profession. Hutchins spoke of the "omnibus fallacy" that "there is nothing which education cannot do and it can do everything equally well." He warned that Americans should pause before plunging ahead with a major expansion of their educational system and try to determine first its goals and directions. Hutchins's warnings seemed to fall on deaf ears at the time. But now, nearly forty years later as Americans grapple with what is widely believed to be a serious crisis in education, concern about this "omnibus fallacy" has been revived. It is that concern, apparently, that has spurred Diane Ravitch, the author of several

A Middle School Approach to Peace Education

Abstract: Frederick Cunningham describes how one middle school has attempted to integrate nuclear war and peace education into the school day and curriculum. He describes three central activities: a student study group, the simulation game "Firebreaks," and an Asian history course.