The History of Education Reform from the Receiving End

Transcription

1 The History of Education Reform from the Receiving End Maureen Marshall I would like to talk a little about the history of education reform from the perspective of a superintendent or principal that is, as an individual who works directly with individual teachers who consider themselves to be on the front line, and sometimes the victims of reform. In June of 1993, education reform legislation passed in Massachusetts. This legislation was predicated on the idea, at least initially, of providing equal educational opportunity for students by modifying the way in which education (Chapter 70) funds were distributed to local communities. While one would like to believe that such an effort to equalize educational funding was purely altruistic, it was actually an initiative that was forced by the McDuffy case. Essentially, the plaintiffs in this case claimed that children living in poor communities within the state were denied access to the same quality of education that was available to children living in more affluent areas. In response to the McDuffy petition, the courts demanded that funds for education be more equitably distributed. The state legislature moved quickly to address the court s concern and as part of an elaborate education reform initiative provided a new funding formula for education that significantly diminished the educational funding disparities that existed between and among cities and towns within the state. Maureen Marshall is Superintendent of Schools for the Quabbin Regional School District in Barre, Massachusetts.

2 Marshall As educators, we all thought the redistribution of education dollars was a good thing. We thought that the most needy school districts would receive more money and that this money would allow these school districts to better meet student needs. Initially, educators thought little about the rest of education reform. Opportunities for Involvement in Education Reform With the increase and redistribution of funds came the opportunity (actually the challenge) to work closely with the state legislature, the Massachusetts Department of Education, and the Massachusetts Board of Education in an effort to develop the curriculum frameworks that would provide the basis for instruction in all schools within the state. Needless to say, educators did become involved and were greatly excited about the opportunity. The state gave educators the preliminary curriculum frameworks and provided funding to start study groups at individual schools. In these study groups teachers spent hours discussing the quality of teaching and the need to develop new teaching strategies and models in order to properly institute the curriculum frameworks. While educators were concerned with the standardization of curricula, the opportunity to be involved in this process was exciting. It was at this time that politics changed and the collaborative process of education reform ended. A Political Battle Lays the Foundation for Reform Prior to , the Massachusetts State Board of Education was made up of individuals eager to engage the state s teachers in the discussion about and implementation of education reform initiatives. Those early days held much promise. However, in the third year of reform, then-governor William F. Weld 56

3 The History of Education Reform from the Receiving End decided that things within the education reform effort weren t moving fast enough. He appointed John Silber as the new chair of the board of education. Governor Weld and John Silber imposed a new paradigm: there would be less dialogue and more action! The governor appointed new members to the board of education with the directive to speed up the implementation of education reform via the imposition of new regulations, policies, and procedures. At this point, educators perceived the contentiousness surrounding education reform in Massachusetts as ugly. The radical change in the implementation process sent education reform into intense disequilibrium. Superintendents whined and complained; teachers unions actively resisted the board s mandates. It became a great holy war over priorities and values, the values and priorities of the new board of education versus those of classroom teachers and administrators. Both sides professed the same goals, but each side expressed very different ideas about how to reach these goals. The next several years were riddled with controversy at both the state and local level. The commissioner of education resigned, many teachers chose to focus only on the Holy Grail of early retirement reform, and the process of naming a new commissioner was sullied by the ugliest politics. Some laid blame for these problems at the feet of a single individual, others laid blame for the problems at the feet of teachers unions, and still others refused to acknowledge any problems other than those of the less than well-prepared practitioners within the classrooms across the state. It wasn t (and at times still isn t) pretty. Maybe it wasn t anybody s fault; maybe it is just what happens when passionate people set out to change a social institution. 57

4 Marshall Reforms Take Hold and Educators Take to the Trenches However, if you look at the situation pragmatically, because the public educational system was in such a state of turbulence, there were numerous opportunities for many to effect change, especially at the local level. Admittedly, some attempted to take advantage of the turmoil to push personal agendas that were based on personal biases and that had little to do with teaching and learning. For example, politicians and others within the hierarchy of the Massachusetts Department of Education felt that the so-called failure of schools was simply the result of poor teaching. Thus, there was a concerted effort to require that the testing program for new teachers be instituted before it had originally been scheduled to begin. This initiative gained momentum and ultimately came to pass but not before the acting commissioner of education had resigned in protest. Additionally, the inertia of this decision provided the fuel to fire the cry for the immediate testing of all classroom teachers. Threats were leveled and individual teachers felt that the reform they were expected to embrace was in fact an assault on their competency. More teachers went in search of the Holy Grail... early retirement. The state teachers union invested more time than ever in pressuring legislators to pass legislation that would allow teachers the option of early retirement. This was all well and good for the teachers who had sufficient time on the job to think that early retirement could save them from the changes in education that by this time seemed inevitable. But educators whose priority was classroom teaching became convinced that they could respond most appropriately to the change that was being forced upon them by seeking to control the implementation of such changes in their own schools. It was at this point 58

5 The History of Education Reform from the Receiving End that the education reform movement turned the corner toward implementation. Educators began to address the need to improve student achievement by capitalizing on rather than resisting out-of-hand the broad-based state initiatives. Classroom teachers were now initiating and sustaining changes. Creative administrators used the energy generated by the education reform movement to introduce instructional programs that previously would have been resisted or ignored. Opportunities to talk about, identify, and implement best practices were everywhere, and much was happening in the name of reform. A Social Movement Like Any Other However, despite the opportunities and the changes noted, there is no question that a holy war continues in Massachusetts over mental models about what teaching and learning are supposed to be. In a more general sense, there is a war over the purpose of public schools. And like any war, there have been casualties in this case, professional. Many grieve over individuals who have either been pushed out of or given up on the education reform movement. Yet, in reflection, one can appreciate that this reform is not unlike other social movements that have resulted in significant change. Racing to the Moon Education reform has been (and continues to be) a social movement. To understand why this is important, one must simply think about where education has been and how it has changed in the past century. With the flood of immigrants who arrived around the turn of the twentieth century, public schools were viewed as the crucible in which differences would (must) 59

6 Marshall be diminished. Public schools were to ensure that every student would understand what it meant to be an American. Then, in the late 1950s when Russia launched Sputnik, this country acknowledged the need to compete on a global basis. Consequently, people s perceptions changed about what the purpose of public schools should be. Schools were pressured to become places where competition and being first would be honored. It was very important to be first; first translated to best. Think back. It was probably not a surprise to any of us that in the early 1960s President Kennedy promised the country that the United States would be the first to land on the moon. He set in motion programs that would ensure that our students would be first and the best not only in academics, but also in physical fitness. This space race and charge to be first was significant for public education. The National Science Foundation was established for the purpose of producing science and math curricula and teacher-training programs that would ensure that our public schools produced students who could run and win the great space race. Specifically, children were taught and schools embraced the idea that more was better and first was best. The Push for Equality As the United States entered the 1960s and 1970s, people began to look at the social issues in our country. A social movement that demanded social justice for all people was born. This social movement was also significant for public schools. The public no longer demanded that the students within the nation s public school classrooms be first. Instead, people clamored for social justice and equity. Now educators were charged with creating schools that would be based on equal educational opportunity. President Johnson s war on poverty in the mid-1960s pushed 60

7 The History of Education Reform from the Receiving End various kinds of educational programs that were very different from what Sputnik had spawned in the early 1960s. Johnson pushed the Head Start program, which allocated federal funds for preschool education to school districts that worked with economically disadvantaged children. Schools embraced this new set of values. The emphasis in our schools had changed radically. Global competition was not as important in the 1970s, and different too was the idea that schools should be the places where immigrants would learn what it meant to be American. The public no longer valued an America predicated upon sameness. A new school value was to embrace and celebrate diversity. We were no longer as concerned with being first in chemistry or in mathematics. We were concerned with feel-good, be equal, be different education. Schools were receiving state and federal grant monies to create curricula that reflected and celebrated diversity. We began to see changes in the curricula offered to students. The curricula in public schools now included American Indian, African American, and women s studies. Students actually discovered that not all significant American literature was written by dead White males. A Failing Report Card Then, in 1983, A Nation at Risk was released. The report by the President Reagan appointed National Commission on Excellence in Education dropped the bombshell that public education was failing in terms of global competition. Compared with students in other countries, U.S. students test scores were, as far as the Commission was concerned, rock bottom (we were probably ranked something like 17th). They determined that public schools were failing. But were public schools actually failing, or were they simply doing a different job? After all, in the 61

8 Marshall 1970s and early 1980s, the focus for schools was equity and the celebration of diversity, and from that perspective schools were doing a great job with what many now cynically termed feelgood education. In deed, the A Nation at Risk report was to give birth to zealots who once again embraced global competition as the primary purpose of public schools in America. The public schools, now operating on the basic premise of equality and the celebration of the diversity, were to make way for schools that valued student academic achievement as the only worthy goal. So in the late 1980s, the national focus had clearly shifted back toward global competition. Legislators explained that improving the quality of schools was the only way to ensure that our children would be prepared for the new world economy. It was clear that to be economically prosperous as a nation we had to be educationally competitive. What should have been discussed, but never was, was the real change needed. Perhaps we had emphasized the wrong goal. Did we need to improve school quality, or did we need to change the focus of public schools? The Real Meaning of Improvement Generally, early reformers seemed to believe that being first and having the most money meant best... and American children didn t have the best test scores. The public was clamoring, wondering, what are schools doing? To be honest, educators were ensuring equity; celebrating and embracing diversity; holding gay/straight alliance meetings; talking about not smoking and not using drugs. In short, schools were executing some very positive and productive programs and were getting grant monies (approved by the very legislators critical of public schools) to do them. So when the National Commission on 62

9 The History of Education Reform from the Receiving End Excellence in Education said that public schools weren t competitive, educators didn t immediately acknowledge and respond to the importance of this statement. This perceived inaction led some to believe that educators lacked initiative, lacked competence, or may not have been trained appropriately. However, evaluating the quality of public education has always been a much more complex issue. At the time the charges of incompetence were leveled against the public schools, the schools were simply striving to meet different goals and to support values different than those that became the focus of legislative debate in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In short, schools were operating with a different value set than the public critics who now felt that schools should strive to meet societal needs different than those embraced by the social reformers of the 1970s. Thus, the critics of public schools really wanted schools to change focus, not improve. If this fact had been recognized, perhaps the current holy war over education reform in Massachusetts and in this country would never have been waged. Alas, past and present battles have far more to do with disparate values and far less to do with teacher competence or new and better high-stakes testing programs for kids. If we recognize this fact and acknowledge it for all to hear and appreciate, the grass-roots resistance to reform might actually melt away. In Massachusetts, education reform has been a war of values. Unfortunately, few recognized the real enemy. It wasn t an incompetent teacher or an uninformed politician. The enemy was our own failure to see and acknowledge a clash of values. While people are slow to embrace new values, they are even more resistant to relinquishing the values by which they have lived or practiced their profession. 63

10 Marshall Peace and Progress on the Horizon Education reform in the state of Massachusetts continues to be a source of great debate, yet there is much hope because the debate is now more reasoned and insightful. Perhaps now education reform can be appreciated as a true social movement not unlike those that in years past had changed the nature and focus of public schools. Education reform in Massachusetts has been a difficult road to travel, just as the implementation of such reforms has been difficult all across the country. But it has not been difficult because politicians or educators are uncaring or incompetent. It has been and remains difficult because stakeholders are engaged in a great civil war over what we as a nation value. Until people can see where disparate values overlap and identify clearly and agree on the real purpose of public schools, the implementation of education reforms will continue to be an onerous task. But progress in Massachusetts has been significant. The initiatives introduced by education reformers have demanded that all stakeholders clarify in more detail the new goals and purposes of public schools. Indeed, while Horace Mann might not be proud of our torturous path, he might well applaud the final results of our collective efforts. 64