Showing papers in "Teachers College Record in 1997"

Doing what matters most : investing in quality teaching

Abstract: provides a neutral forum for state-level education policy makers and educators to gain in-depth knowledge about emerging policy issues. The seminars have contributed to the development, modification and enhancement of education reform initiatives in California. is a university-based policy center focusing on elementary and secondary school issues. Located on

Detracking: The Social Construction of Ability, Cultural Politics, and Resistance to Reform

Abstract: Structural changes necessary in detracking efforts challenge not only the technical dimensions of schooling, but also the normative and political dimensions. We argue that detracking reform confronts fundamental issues of power, control, and legitimacy that are played out in ideological struggles over the meaning of knowledge, intelligence, ability, and merit. This article presents results from a three-year longitudinal case study of ten racially and socioeconomically mixed secondary schools participating in detracking reform. We connect prevailing norms about race and social class that inform educators’, parents’, and students’ conceptions of intelligence, ability, and giftedness with the local political context of detracking. By examining these ideological aspects of detracking we make a case for reexamining common presumptions that resistance to policies providing greater opportunities to low-income and minority children is driven by rational estimates of the learning costs and benefits associated with such reforms.

Teacher Turnover and Teacher Quality

Abstract: At that time a plausible case could be made that a general teaching shortage might occur under certain conditions if then-quoted teacher attrition rates were accurate (Darling-Hammond, 1984). However, the conditions necessary to produce general shortages have not materialized, partly because then-nationally-published attrition rates were very inaccurate since they did not distinguish between permanent and temporary attrition. However, the report warning of a potential shortage helped highlight the need for, and spurred the production, of better data and research on teacher supply and demand. What followed over the next ten years was the production of some of the best data available on any occupational group in the nation and associated research that has revealed the complex patterns inherent in the teacher labor market. The Department of Education’s Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), together with their Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Survey and some superb state data on teachers, has supported research that addresses most of the important questions concerning the flows of teachers into, out of, and back into teaching. More importantly, these data can provide the basis for describing the dramatic changes approaching in the teacher labor market and lay the basis for the planning and policies necessary to navigate through these changes. The State of Education

Aligned Instructional Policy and Ambitious Pedagogy: Exploring Instructional Reform from the Classroom Perspective

Abstract: In recent years national, state, and local education reformers have paid increasing attention to two ideas about school reform. The first centers on ensuring more ambitious instruction for all students. The second has to do with crafting more coherent and closely aligned policies to support this ambitious instruction. This article explores these two popular reform ideas from the perspective of classroom teaching. We examine nine elementary school teachers’ responses to their local school district's efforts to press more ambitious ideas about literacy instruction. We argue that although the policy alignment strategy may be effective in changing surface-level aspects of teaching, it may be considerably less effective in reforming other difficult-to-reach dimensions of classroom practice (i.e., task and discourse). Further, we highlight the difficulties involved in figuring out the extent to which these recent reforms find their way into classroom practice.

Teachers in Transition: The Impact of Anti-Racist Professional Development on Classroom Practice

Abstract: This article examines the impact of an antiracist professional development project on eighty-four suburban white teachers, all of whom are part of a voluntary desegregation program. Analysis of writing-sample data reveals that forty-eight of the eighty-four participants took antiracist actions as a result of their new learning about race and racism. In all, 142 specific actions were noted. The categories of action-taking related to three parameters of schooling: the quality of interpersonal interactions among school and community members, the curriculum, and the institution's policies regarding support services for students of color. The relationship between changes in the educators' racial-identity development and their behaviors is discussed as are the elements that contributed to the antiracist educational outcomes.

Constructing an Image of a White Teacher.

Abstract: This article explores how a small group of white middle– and upper–middle–class female student teachers constructed an image of what it means to be a “white” teacher. Through the use of qualitative participatory action research methods, the participants in this study critically reflected on their understandings of multicultural education and their positions as white student teachers involved in a teacher education program. The participants were invited to be researchers about their daily lives, to pose problems that arose from the complexities of their own racial identities, and to develop realistic solutions for dealing with racism in their classrooms. Through initial one-to-one interviews, and during eight two-hour group sessions, the participants were provided with opportunities to view themselves as “white”—an experience that was relatively new to them. It also provided them with a challenging and highly provocative way to view their roles as white teachers. The data presented in this article suggest that by white educators’ questioning and confronting their white identities and challenging the meaning of being “white” teachers, they can more effectively pursue teaching practices that significantly alter the way white students are educated about themselves and about multicultural education.

High School Graduation Requirements: Effects on Dropping Out and Student Achievement.

Abstract: Several state and local authorities have recently enacted legislation requiring high school students to complete at least three years of mathematics in order to graduate. This study examines effects of these policies on three types of outcomes: the kinds of mathematics courses students complete during high school, high school dropout rates, and mathematics achievement test score gains during high school. Two additional questions related to achievement are also addressed: whether requiring more courses affects the association of student socioeconomic status (SES) with test scores and dropping out, and whether requiring more courses reduces the effects of completing additional math courses on achievement. Results from an analysis of the nationally representative National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) data give little support for the notion that requiring more mathematic courses is generally beneficial or harmful. No effects are found on either the probability of dropping out or achievement gains, and the effects of SES are not reduced in the schools requiring three math courses. The three-course requirement does lead to higher rates of course completions in geometry and algebra 2, but the higher require -ments apparently dilute the effectiveness of completing the additional courses. The results thus give little credence to efforts to improve achievement outcomes by simply raising the number of math courses students must complete in order to graduate from high school.

Changing Teacher Education through Professional Development School Partnerships: A Five-Year Follow-up Study.

Abstract: This article examines the effect involvement with professional development schools (PDSs) has had on the way colleges or universities prepare teachers, by following several partnerships that were begun in the mid-1980s, studied in 1990, and revisited in late 1995-1996. The article finds that the most dramatic changes in the school-based components of teacher education (field work or student teaching) took place in the early years, with more subtle refinements in the last five years due to the maturation of the partnership relationship leading to greater understanding and colleagueship between cooperating teachers and college supervisors. Changes in the campus-based components of teacher preparation are reported, caused by increased roles of school-based faculty in teaching college courses and in giving feedback on courses and overall preparation programs, and by changes in the attitudes and approaches of campus-based faculty members. The article also looks at the degree to which these changes have been institutionalized and what factors have helped or hindered that process. It concludes by assessing these changes in light of the potential for PDS-type partnerships to provide for the “simultaneous renewal” of schools and of colleges or universities and by raising questions about the degree to which these changes, as important as they are, are impacting the core enterprise at each institution.

Ethical Issues in Teacher Research

Abstract: This article identifies and examines the ethical issues surrounding teacher research, especially when the participants of the research are the teachers' own students. I first explore the movement to increase the relevance and applicability of research on and for teachers, and then address ethical issues in teaching and in research, especially as they stem from federal regulation requiring the protection of human subjects. The article then turns to the specific issues that arise in teacher research. Dual-role conflicts are described, as are the difficulties of assuring unfettered informed consent. The article relates these problems to the difficulties of deciding what is research and what is normal educational practice in the classroom setting, especially when qualitative research methodologies are used. Suggestions as to how the potential conflicts and ethical problems can be addressed are provided, but teacher researchers are cautioned that work with their own students raises particularly thorny issues.

Multicultural Literature and the Politics of Reaction

Abstract: The social climate of the United States of today is dramatically different from that which gave birth to multicultural children's literature. Conservatism's rise to political ascendancy has sharpened the contentious “culture wars” that surround virtually all aspects of American culture. One important dimension of today's conservative movement is a backlash against the multicultural movement. Conservative defenders of the traditional literary canon, for example, see multicultural literature as a threat to the very fabric of Western civilization. Within children's literature circles, charges abound that advocates of multicultural literature are ignoring traditional literary values and are focusing instead on ill-defined notions of “political correctness.” This article explores this complex issue and the challenges it poses to those concerned with the creation, production, distribution, and consumption of children's literature. The discussion addresses questions that speak to the very nature and function of children's literature: its status as art, as entertainment, as a source of role models and ideology for children's “impressionable” minds. Also discussed is the relation between the politically charged question of whether books about African Americans are to be written only by African Americans, books about Native Americans by Native Americans, and so forth, and the freedom of writers to write without restriction.

Parent Involvement Contracts in California's Charter Schools: Strategy for Educational Improvement or Method of Exclusion?

Abstract: Many deregulated public charter schools in California and other states are emphasizing parent involvement in the process of reform. Some even seem to be working from a communitarian model, trying to build an integral school community in which parents play numerous roles in the ongoing events of the school and classroom day. In order to build this parent involvement, California charter schools are also experimenting with a variety of mechanisms for encouraging parent involvement, including having parents sign agreements or “contracts” promising a certain amount or type of involvement. But to what extent are the initiators of these charter schools using parent involvement and parent contracts to restrict enrollment to children whose parents demonstrate the desired commitments and willingness to meet school expectations? In order to explore this question, this article reports on (1) analyses of data from a survey of California's charter schools and comparison schools in the same communities and (2) an examination of parent contracts in use at the charter schools. We find that charter schools do have greater levels of parent involvement, but that this involvement may be due to selectivity in the kinds of families participating in charter schools.

The Invisible Hand: Big Business and Chicago School Reform.

Abstract: Business influence in public school policymaking has been much noticed but little studied at the local level where policy is implemented. This article examines Chicago's governance reforms of the past decade as one case of corporate influence, clarifying how local political institutions and corporate organizational resources facilitated and shaped that involvement and the resulting school governance reforms. A wider variety of corporate influence patterns than is typically acknowledged is suggested by this case where corporate associations were involved in both policymaking and policy implementation. When corporate activism is accounted for, Chicago governance reform is seen primarily as replacing professional control with modern management techniques and structures, and only secondarily as the revitalization of democratic governance.

Making Schools Safe for Uncertainty: Teams, Teaching, and School Reform.

Abstract: In recent years, “teams” have been increasingly advocated as a means of empowering teachers, improving instruction, and introducing educational change—particularly within the context of the current school reform movement. Nevertheless, few advocates have inquired seriously into the team concept and exactly how it fits with school practice. This lack of conceptualization is particularly serious in light of the failure of the initial team-teaching movement of the 1960s, which has been attributed to a lack of fit between the team concept and the role of the teacher, the organizational structure, and the cultural norms of contemporary schooling. This article examines the relationship between the team concept and school practice on the basis of a case study of a team that designed, developed, and implemented an innovative vocational education program within a secondary school. It argues that the team approach makes sense only if it is accompanied by a shift in thinking about teaching and school practice. This shift involves regarding teams as the primary unit of teaching practice and as a means of linking instructional and structural change within schools. Ultimately a team approach introduces greater uncertainty into teaching and school practice while at the same time providing a means for engaging uncertainty and generating learning.

Educational Psychology Meets the Christian Right: Differing Views of Children, Schooling, Teaching, and Learning.

Abstract: Among the most unrelenting contemporary critics of public schools are members of the Christian Right, some of whom seek the destruction of public education The theories of child rearing espoused by the Christian Right are analyzed in this article They emphasize physical punishment, the breaking of children’s will, and obedience to authority Such theories cannot be supported by modern psychology Furthermore, these child-rearing practices are totally incompatible with the constructivist models of learning that form the basis for the educational reforms undertaken by science, mathematics, and social studies educators The school curriculum used in many fundamentalist Christian schools was also analyzed and found to be limited, biased, and sometimes untrue The arguments made against outcomes b a s e d education and whole language programs were found to be confused and chaotic The antagonism of the Christian Right to these programs is based on a fear of losing control over their children’s thinking, rather than any compelling empirical data It is concluded that many among the Christian Right are unable to engage in politics that make a common school possible They may be unable to compromise and live with educational decisions reflecting a pluralistic democracy keeping separate church and state

Curriculum change as a reform strategy: Lessons from the United States and Scotland.

Abstract: Recent research indicates that the school curriculum exerts an important influence on student learning: A rich and rigorous academic curriculum promotes high levels of student achievement, and curriculum differentiation is associated with achievement inequality. These findings suggest that curriculum change may be a potent policy lever. Two cases of planned curriculum change are examined to illustrate the limits and possibilities of curriculum reform. In the United States, many school districts are upgrading the quality of the mathematics curriculum for low-achieving students. Evidence from four urban districts shows that “transition courses” designed to bridge the gap between elementary and college-preparatory mathematics achieve partial success: Students in transition courses have better outcomes than those in general math, but are not as successful as those in college-preparatory classes. In Scotland, a national curriculum reform called “Standard Grade” was designed to enhance opportunities for disadvantaged students to study an academic curriculum in secondary school. Evidence from four longitudinal national surveys indicates that the reform raised achievement and reduced social inequality on national examinations at age sixteen, but inequality of enrolling in higher education persisted. These cases suggest that curriculum reform can have important benefits, but must occur in concert with other social changes to have broad and long-lasting effects.

Poking Around: Outsiders View Chicago School Reform.

Abstract: This article reports on five years of intermittent observations of Chicago school reform by a team consisting of a social historian, social psychologist, and urban anthropologist. It chronicles a method for tracking the implications of school reform over time. The authors started with the goal of reporting on Chicago to an audience outside the city: to their surprise, they discovered an audience inside the city eager to hear their observations. They focused on both the system-wide, structural view of reform and the ground-level view from the schools and local community. Their method consisted of identifying a network of informants inside the city, attending meetings and public events, and visiting schools, and they followed three schools closely for more than two years. When they realized that the phases of their own learning process had matched the phases in the history of Chicago school reform's first five years, they decided to structure their observations as a narrative exploring reform through their developing and changing understanding. Among the themes they discuss are the unique character of the reform; the role of reform's public/private civil society; the many stories of reform's origins; the multiple layers of reform; and the problem of evaluation.

Apartheid and the Socio-Political Context of Education in South Africa: A Narrative Account

Abstract: Historically, education in South Africa formed an important part of the government's plan to develop a racially segregated society. While there is a significant amount of research that describes the widespread problems of schooling in South Africa, there are few reports about the subjective qualities of education. The primary purpose of the present article is to provide a more personalized account of what it has meant to be educated as a student and to work as a teacher under the conditions of apartheid. In order to accomplish this objective, a life history approach was combined with an archival review to construct a narrative account of selected aspects of the education provided for black South Africans. Because of the long-standing political oppression of South Africa's black population, it was considered important to develop such a record by listening to the voices of individuals who, as students, endured poor educational conditions only to find themselves, as teachers, practicing under circumstances that were largely unchanged. Within the life-history approach, interview data were obtained from two teachers, who attended schools and began their respective teaching careers during different periods of South Africa's sociopolitical history. In order to contextualize the findings, the participants’ experiences were considered in relation to selected elements of the legislative and political history of South Africa. The empirical result of the research is an historical description of education in South Africa, illustrated by the personal stories and professional experiences of two practicing teachers. The article concludes by considering the way in which selected theories of oppression and resistance explain or fail to explain the experiences of the two participants.

Communities and Tribes in Residential Living.

Abstract: est in the impact of individual and community ideologies pertaining to the moral and political fabric of Americans, American culture, and social institutions. Community discourse dominates the education agenda as well. Authors such as Peshkin (1978), Lesko (1988), Grant (1988), Bull, Fruehling, and Chattergy (1992), Sergiovanni (1994), Bryk, Lee, and Holland (1993), and Knight (1996) contextualize this elusive concept in the elementary and secondary educational settings. At the postsecondary level, authors such as Moffatt (1989) and Magolda (1994) provide narratives and analysis about students’ quests for community, while Tierney (1993) and the Carnegie Foundation (1990) both offer ways to understand and respond to challenges and threats to community. Understanding community and achieving a sense of it in higher education is difficult—despite near universal endorsement of this ideal. For example, in one study, two out of five undergraduates reported they did not feel a sense of community at their institution (Boyer, 1987). Such findings advance “community” discourse on college campuses, as evidenced by the Carnegie Foundation’s (1990) survey of college presidents that found that 98 percent of college presidents stated that it was either “very important” or “somewhat important” to devote “greater effort to build a stronger overall sense of community” (p. A-4). Serious discourse about community on college campuses is inhibited by the cavalier and amorphous use of the term. Hillery (1955) found ninetyfour separate uses of the term in the professional literature. More recently, Heller (1989) identified three distinct word usages for the term c o m m u n i t y : (1) locality (i.e., territorial or geographic notion of community such as a neighborhood); (2) relational (i.e., qualities of human interaction and social ties/networks that attract people to one another); and (3) collective political power (i.e., the act of organizing for social action). Community is synonymous with the public; individuals living within a particular geographic boundary; individuals with common interests living as a smaller social unit within a larger one; fragmented and decentralized units linked by common traditions; or people with similarities or likenesses. While there is obviously no universal definition, there is much agreement among educational reformers that something called community is d e s i r a b l e . We believe a distinct and new perspective can help cut through the rhetoric of community and enable educators to more critically and purposefully understand the task of building community in schools and on campuses. The unique perspective offered in this article combines the voices of an ethnographer and a philosopher working together to clarify possible meanings of “campus community.” We do this through narrative, Communities and Tribes

Mass Higher Education: What Is Its Impetus? What Is Its Impact?.

Abstract: The materials from The Condition of Education 1997 nicely document how American higher education is a mass enterprise on its way to being a universal one. With an occasional dip here and there, the share of high school graduates going on to college the following-October has steadily increased, reaching 62 percent in 1995 (U.S. Department of Education, 1997, p. 66). Yet, while acclaimed by many, this universalization of higher education raises many questions. Why is it occurring? Is it due to technological imperatives and popular demand or are other forces at work as well? What impact will it have? How much will it equalize life chances? How will it change higher educational institutions?

Beyond Standards: The Rest of the Agenda.

Abstract: Across the country, schools are involved in setting new high standards of curriculum content and student performance. The standards-based education reform movement has been championed by big business, by the nation's governors, by the president and the Congress, and by many in the field of education. This article argues that new high standards are necessary and desirable, but that alone they are not enough. Throughout our history the schools have sought to make students wise and just, as well as competent. If these traditional aspirations are to be realized, we must move beyond standards to support teachers, provide the necessary resources, deal straight with the problems of race, nurture community, and ennoble the purpose of education.