Love them or hate them, the proposals collectively known as 鈥渟chool reform鈥� are mostly top-down policies: Divert public money to quasi-private charter schools, pit states against one another in a race for federal funding, offer rewards when test scores go up, fire the teachers or close the schools when they don鈥檛.
Policymakers and the general public have paid much less attention to what happens inside classrooms鈥攖he particulars of teaching and learning鈥攅specially in low-income neighborhoods. The news here has been discouraging for quite some time, but, in a painfully ironic twist, things seem to be getting worse as a direct result of the 鈥渞eform鈥� strategies pursued by the Bush administration, then intensified under President Barack Obama, and cheered by corporate executives and journalists.
In an article published in back in 1991, Martin Haberman, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, coined the phrase Based on his observations in thousands of urban classrooms, Haberman described a tightly controlled routine in which teachers dispense, and then test students on, factual information; assign seatwork; and punish noncompliance. It is a regimen, he said, 鈥渋n which learners can 鈥榮ucceed鈥� without becoming either involved or thoughtful,鈥� and it is noticeably different from the questioning, discovering, arguing, and collaborating that is more common (though by no means universal) among students in suburban and private schools.
Now, two decades later, Haberman reports that 鈥渢he overly directive, mind-numbing, ... anti-intellectual acts鈥� that pass for teaching in most urban schools 鈥渘ot only remain the coin of the realm but have become the gold standard.鈥� It is how you鈥檙e supposed to teach kids of color.
Earlier this year, Natalie Hopkinson, an African-American writer, put it this way in an article on theRoot.com called : 鈥淚n the name of reform ... education鈥攆or those 鈥榝ailing鈥� urban kids, anyway鈥攊s about learning the rules and following directions. Not critical thinking. Not creativity. It鈥檚 about how to correctly eliminate three out of four bubbles.鈥�
Those who demand that we close the achievement gap generally focus on results, which in practice refers only to test scores. High-quality instruction is defined as whatever raises those scores. But when teaching strategies are considered, there is wide agreement (again, among noneducators) about what constitutes appropriate instruction in the inner city.
The curriculum consists of a series of separate skills, with more worksheets than real books, more rote practice than exploration of ideas, more memorization (sometimes assisted with chanting and clapping) than thinking. In books like The Shame of the Nation, Jonathan Kozol, another frequent visitor to urban schools, describes a mechanical, precisely paced process for drilling black and Latino children in 鈥渙bsessively enumerated particles of amputated skill associated with upcoming state exams.鈥�
Not only is the teaching scripted, but a system of almost militaristic behavior control is common, with public humiliation for noncompliance and an array of rewards for obedience that calls to mind the token-economy programs developed in prisons and psychiatric hospitals.
鈥淭he children of the suburbs learn to think and to interrogate reality,鈥� says Kozol, whereas inner-city kids 鈥渁re trained for nonreflective acquiescence.鈥� (Work hard, be nice.) At one of the urban schools he visited, a teacher told him, 鈥淚f there were middle-class white children here, the parents would rebel at this curriculum and stop it cold.鈥�
Among the research that has confirmed this disparity are two studies based on data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. One found that black children are much more likely than white children to be taught with workbooks or worksheets on a daily basis. The other revealed a racial disparity in how computers are used for instruction, with African-Americans mostly getting drill-and-practice exercises (which, the study also found, are associated with poorer results).
Well before his brief tenure last year as New Jersey鈥檚 commissioner of education, Bret Schundler (then the mayor of Jersey City, N.J.) expressed enthusiasm about the sort of teaching that involves repetitive drill and 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 allow children not to answer.鈥� This approach is 鈥渂ringing a lot of value-added for our children,鈥� he enthused in The New York Times Magazine. Does his use of the word 鈥渙ur鈥� mean that he would send his own kids to that kind of school? Well, no. 鈥淭hose schools are best for certain children,鈥� he explained.
The result is that 鈥渃ertain children鈥� are left farther and farther behind. The rich get richer, while the poor get worksheets.
To be sure, the gap is not entirely due to how kids are taught. As economist Richard Rothstein reminds us, all school-related variables combined can explain only about one-third of the variation in student achievement. Similarly, if you look closely at those international-test comparisons that supposedly find the United States trailing, it turns out that socioeconomic factors are largely responsible. Our wealthier students do very well compared with students in other countries; our poorer students do not. And we have more poor children than do other industrialized nations.
To whatever extent education does matter, though, the pedagogy of poverty traps those who are subject to it. The problem isn鈥檛 that their education lacks 鈥渞igor鈥濃�攊n fact, a single-minded focus on 鈥渞aising the bar鈥� has served mostly to push more low-income youths out of school鈥攂ut that it lacks depth and relevance and the capacity to engage students. As Deborah Stipek, the dean of Stanford University鈥檚 school of education, once commented, drill-and-skill instruction isn鈥檛 how middle-class children got their edge, so 鈥渨hy use a strategy to help poor kids catch up that didn鈥檛 help middle-class kids in the first place?鈥�
Rather than viewing the pedagogy of poverty as a disgrace, however, many of the charter schools championed by the new reformers have concentrated on perfecting and intensifying techniques to keep children 鈥渙n task鈥� and compel them to follow directions. (Interestingly, their carrot-and-stick methods mirror those used by policymakers to control educators.) Bunches of eager, mostly white, college students are invited to drop by for a couple of years to lend their energy to this dubious enterprise.
Is racism to blame here? Or could it be that, at its core, the corporate version of 鈥渟chool reform鈥� was never intended to promote thinking鈥攍et alone interest in learning鈥攂ut merely to improve test results? That pressure is highest in the inner cities, where the scores are lowest. And indeed the pedagogy of poverty can sometimes 鈥渨ork鈥� to raise those scores, but at a huge price. Because the tests measure what matters least, it鈥檚 possible for the accountability movement to simultaneously narrow the test-score gap and widen the learning gap.
According to Deborah Meier, the founder of extraordinary schools in New York City and Boston: 鈥淥nly secretly rebellious teachers have ever done right by our least advantaged kids.鈥� To do right by them in the open, we would need structural changes that make the best kind of teaching available to the kids who need it most.
And we know it can work鈥攚hich is to say, the pedagogy of poverty is not what鈥檚 best for the poor. Even back in 1992, (published by the U.S. Department of Education) of 140 low-income elementary classrooms found that students whose teachers emphasized 鈥渕eaning and understanding鈥� flourished. The researchers concluded by decisively rejecting as unhelpful 鈥渟chooling for the children of poverty ... [that] emphasizes basic skills, sequential curricula, and tight control of instruction by the teacher.鈥�
Remarkable results with low-income students have also been found with the model of early-childhood education, the 鈥減erformance assessment鈥� high schools in New York, and schools around the country. All of these approaches start with students鈥� interests and questions; learning is organized around real-life problems and projects. Exploration is both active and interactive, reflecting the simple truth that children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions. Finally, success is judged by authentic indicators of thinking and motivation, not by multiple-choice tests.
That last point is critical. Standardized exams serve mostly to make dreadful forms of teaching appear successful. As long as they remain our primary way of evaluating, we may never see real school reform鈥攐nly an intensification of traditional practices, with the worst reserved for the disadvantaged.
A British educator named David Gribble was once speaking in favor of the kind of education that honors children鈥檚 interests and helps them think deeply about questions that matter. Of course, he added, that sort of education is appropriate for affluent children. For disadvantaged children, on the other hand, it is ... essential.
