Ann Bastian et a l ., Choosing Egualitv: Marilyn Gittell et. a l ., Citizen Organizations: ...... Raywid, "Tomorrow's Teachers and Today's Schools," 416. 63.Robert V.
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P ersp ectives on preparing teachers o f at-risk stu d en ts in urban sch ools, 1060-1900 Weiner, Lois Lieber, Ed.D. Harvard University, 1991
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PERSPECTIVES ON PREPARING TEACHERS OF A T - R I S K STUDENTS IN U R B A N SCHOOLS,
1960-1990
LOIS L. W E I N E R
A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate Sc h o o l of Ed u c a t i o n of Harv a r d University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the D e g r e e of Doctor of Education
1991
©
1991
LOIS L. WEINER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This thesis is dedicated to my parents, George Weiner and Gladys Weiner, who taught me the importance of h e l p i n g others; to my husband, M i c h a e l Seitz, who assisted m e in e v e r y wa y possible; and to m y daughter, P e t r a Weiner Seitz, b orn November 8, 1990, w h o dela y e d her arrival until I made the final revisions.
PERSPECTIVES ON P RE P A R I N G T E A CHERS OF A T - R I S K STUDENTS IN U RBAN SCHOOLS
PREFACE
PAGE 1
INTRODUCTION
PAGE 10
CHAP T E R ONE - THE
"CULTURALLY DEPRIVED" C H I L D ...PAGE 22
C H A P T E R TWO - C O M P E T E N C Y - B A S E D MULTI C U L T U R A L TEAC H E R P R E P A R A T I O N
PAG E 74
C H A P T E R THREE - E X CELLENCE A N D E Q U I T Y
PAG E 116
SUMM A R Y F I N D I N G S
PAGE 164
C H A P T E R FOUR - USING TEAC H E R PREPAR A T I O N TO IMPROVE E D U C A T I O N
P A G E 169
CHAP T E R FIVE - SPECIAL PR E P A R A T I O N F O R TEACHERS OF AT-R I S K STUDENTS IN U RBAN SCHOOLS
PAG E 195
C O N C L U S I O N S ............................................ PAGE 226 B I B L I O G R A P H Y ...........................................PAGE 242
iii ■7
ABSTRACT This study examines the preparation of teachers of atrisk students in urban schools in the social and political discourse of three periods: debate in the Sixties about educating the "culturally deprived" child;
scholarship about
the effectiveness of multicultural and competency-based teacher education, dominating discourse during the Seventies;
discussion about educational "excellence" which
began in the early Eighties. The framework used is the "holistic" or "ecological" appproach which focuses on the quality of relationships between home and school, among staff, between staff and students,
and the effect these
relationships have on school learning. approach,
To this "holistic"
the study adds insights of sociologists,
historians,
and political scientists about the systemic
characteristics of urban schools and the social context of schooling for at-risk students.
The first section analyzes
the literature on four questions:
(1) What skills and
attitudes do teachers of at-risk youth in urban schools need?
(2) How should teacher preparation be changed to give
teachers the skills and attitudes described in #1?
(3) How
do characteristics of urban school systems affect teacher performance?
(4) How should the characteristics described in
#3 be used to reform preparation of urban teachers of atrisk students? The second part addresses two issues:
(1) How can
teacher preparation improve e d ucation for a t - r i s k students in u r b a n schools? any,
(2) What k ind of special preparation,
if
do teachers of a t - r i s k students in u r b a n school systems
require?
PREFACE My dissertation analyzes the problem of preparing teachers of at-risk students in urban schools.
The
conceptual framework I use has been shaped by fifteen years of teaching,
reflection, and union activity, punctuated by
periods of research. The questions I address have been generated by m y preliminary research at Harvard, as well as experiences as a teacher in the New Yor k City public schools and my interest in teacher preparation.
Because this
conceptual framework is my instrument for analyzing the literature, a brief explanation of the attutudes and experiences which have formed it is in order. Underlying this study is the political framework I developed during my undergraduate years at University of California, Berkeley and brought to teaching. My teaching career has been spent testing those ideas and thus it is important to describe them. Briefly,
I believe that to
fulfill human potential, w e need a society which has the widest and most popular forms of political freedom,
as well
as economic democracy. The aim is inseparable from the means used to attain it, and no benevolent elite can bestow freedom. When people act together in conscious struggles against injustice and inequality they change conditions and themselves. Their activity helps to illuminate alternative social,
political,
and economic arrangements.1
These ideas were at the heart of my decision to teach,
but in addition I reasoned that teaching would be socially useful, give me considerable autonomy,
and allow me to
achieve a modest level of material comfort.
I was greatly
influenced by Richard Broadhead, a political co-thinker and friend who enjoyed his work as an elementary school teacher but derived more satisfaction from leading the Berkeley Federation of Teachers.2 Dick saw no moral or political conflict between his teaching and union work and believed that teacher unionism was the most promising vehicle for improving schools,
so long as the union earned the trust and
support of parents and community members. beliefs,
His concomitant
that more fundamental economic and political change
was necessary,
that education could not solve many of the
problems which reformers attributed to poor schools,
did not
diminish his resolve about the importance of organizing a progressive teacher union movement that would challenge the status quo on behalf of teachers, parents,
and students,
and
public education. Teaching meant union activity, and it was this component, not the work with children, which gave me the sense of purpose which make man y people think of teaching as a "calling." The work with children was,
in fact, the least
appealing aspect of teaching for me, so I resolved to teach a subject which generated less intimate interaction with students. vocation:
My avocations,
cooking and sewing, became my
I returned to college for a teaching minor in home
economics.
By virtue of m y u n d e r g r a d u a t e major in journalism
I was also eligible to teach English;
for e x p e d i e n c y in
being licensed I e n r olled in a j o urnalism edu c a t i o n program at the local state college. The political
framework 1 d e v e l o p e d before I started
teaching is embedded in, research concern;
Indeed shapes,
my overarching
how teacher p r e p a r a t i o n should equip
teachers to deal with t h e tension b e t w e e n urban teaching's responsibilities as a call i n g and its restraints as a job. The topic contains two entangled threads: raised in teaching d i s a dvantaged students, of teaching in an urban school system. represent,
perhaps in quintessential
features as a calling and as a job: poor, m i n o r i t y students
the issues
and the problems
The strands
form,
teaching's
a n ideal of helping
frequently mo t i v a t e s pe o p l e to work
w i t h disad v a n t a g e d students; yet u r b a n teachers perf o r m within a b u r e a u c r a c y that constrains them from addressing students'
needs.
The u r b a n teacher's ideal of service must
be m a intained in conditions which subv e r t fulfillment of that goal,
generating a n u nrelenting conflict
for teachers
of at-risk students in u r b a n schools. To a d d r e s s teaching's characteristics as a calling and a job assumes that both ar e legitimate, u niversally accepted pre m i s e . ®
Clearly,
which is not a my early thinking
about teacher unions laid the g r o u n d w o r k for appreciating the ways that conditions wit h i n schools constrain urban
teachers'
performance.4
Similarly, my ideas about teacher
union i s m ' s broad social responsibilities ha s mad e me gravitate to a f r amework of u r b a n school ref o r m w h i c h m akes parents,
teachers,
an d c o m m u n i t y members p a r t n e r s in
c h a n g e .5 As I taught I be c o m e m ore engaged w i t h m y stude n t s and more interested in pedagogy,
a shift that w a s marked by my
becoming a full-time English teacher and hea d of the school's Engl i s h department.
M y study w i t h the summer
institute of the B a y A r e a W r i t i n g Project dra m a t i c a l l y changed h o w I taught, develop a n intellectual
in 1976
but I d i d not fully
foundation for m y teaching until
1
took off a year from w o r k and m o v e d to Ne w Y o r k City w h e r e I attended Teach e r s College, C o l u m b i a University.
I spent the
y ear a ttempting to c l a r i f y my ideas about several Issues w hich had arisen in m y teaching, w o r k with m i n o r i t y students, w o r k with Ma x i n e Greene,
m any of t h e m sparked b y m y
others by m y u n i o n w o r k . 6
Diane Ravitch,
My
and s t u d y of John
D ewey helped me crystallize my ideas about
e d u cation and
social c h a n g e . 7 The political ideas and commitments w h i c h mot i v a t e d me to become a teacher have changed little in fifteen years, but my teaching experiences and graduate s t u d y have deepe n e d my u n d e rstanding of the interplay between p o l i t i c s and pedagogy.8
For instance,
at the 1976 national AFT
convention,
I spoke o n behalf of two r esolutions about
foreign policy.
That same c onvention also di s c u s s e d
standardized testing,
corporal punishment,
based teacher education,
and competency-
but I did not debate them because I
was not certain enough of my i d e a s . 9 By the c o n c l u s i o n of my graduate w o r k at Teachers College, articles in professional
I had p u b l i s h e d two
journals on instructional
c o n c e r n s .10 After teaching h i g h school s u c c e s s f u l l y for seven years in three m a r kedly d i fferent subur b a n systems,
I b egan work
in Julia R i c h m a n H i g h School, w h i c h is typical of most of the city's nei g h b o r h o o d high schools. large multi-racial, California,
I had taught in a
w o r k i n g class high school
.-.-11 high school
North e r n W e s t c h e s t e r County,
in Hayward,
in a w e a l t h y com m u n i t y in
and in a bedr o o m s u b u r b on Long
Island which had experi e n c e d serious racial c o nflicts in its schools.
In addition,
a fter my first
five y e a r s of teaching,
I completed a Masters degree in t e a ching English, concerns w h i c h m y t e a ching had generated. an experienced,
mature,
confident teacher,
studying
A l t h o u g h I was d u r i n g my first
year of teaching in New Yor k City I felt i nadequate and disoriented,
u n p r e p a r e d and frightened.
In all of my
previous jobs I had taught students from m i n o r i t y and immigrant groups;
I had enjoyed w o r k i n g with s t u d e n t s who
had poor academic skills,
choosing to teach the remedial
reading and w r i t i n g courses.
However,
noth i n g in my academic
p reparation or c l a ssroom practice had p r e pared m e for
teaching remedial writ i n g at J ulia R i c h m a n High School. Almost a year elapsed before I regained confi d e n c e In my ability and ease in the classroom.
Why d i d I expe r i e n c e so
much d i f f i c u l t y in a d a pting to the New Y o r k City school? Why had I been able to make the adjustment?
M y dif f i c u l t i e s
during that year prompt my interest in this topic. M y e a r l y study of the p r o b l e m revealed that m y prepar a t i o n to teach h a d included the s t a n d a r d solutions to prepare teachers of d i s a d v a n t a g e d students, not effective.
In fact,
but they were
one w i d e l y - a c c e p t e d measure,
a
semester spent obs e r v i n g and a s s isting in a n inner cit y school,
was so n e g ative that I refused to consider teaching
in an u rban school system for m a n y years.
M y subsequent
practice teaching in an integrated urban school was successful,
but it did not erase the painful a s s o c iations I
connected w i t h urban teaching.
Clearly,
s o m e t h i n g was
missing from my prepar a t i o n —
an d the s c h o l a r s h i p w h i c h had
informed it.
My e xperience raised another q u e stion about
teaching poor,
m i n o r i t y students.
I had b e e n a well- r e g a r d e d
teacher of students termed ."disadvantaged" settings.
in other
W h y had I felt unable to teach the m in J ulia
Richman? Resear c h e r s u s e d "inner city" a n d s y n o n ymously wit h "disadvantaged,"
"urban"
"deprived," or "at risk."
My e x perience suggested that the c h a r a c t eristics of the school setting,
("urban" or "inner city"),
w e r e a separate
problem from the a c a demic c h a racteristics of the students,
("at risk,"
"deprived," and
"disadvantaged").
A m a j o r i t y of N e w York City's teachers are themselves products of the N e w York C i t y public schools and the Cit y University.
In fact,
over half gra d u a t e d from
B r o oklyn C o l l e g e . 11 Having bee n e d u cated in the same system they serve as teachers,
they find n o t h i n g unusual about the
bureaucratic, requirements an d language of the cit y school system.
For example,
the N e w York City public school
teachers must take a t t e n d a n c e using a system pecul i a r to the city.
T h e y use Delaney cards,
small w h i t e car d b o a r d leaves
w h i c h slide into slits representing seats in a row.
Teachers
who w ish to record student pe r f o r m a n c e and atten d a n c e using an y o ther method must d u p l i c a t e their clerical work. Dela n e y cards,
The
like the w o o d e n seats bol t e d in rows to the
floor in many schools,
disco u r a g e t e a ching strategies w hich
alter the traditional t e a c h e r-dominated classroom. As a n experienced teacher who w a s u n f a m i l i a r w i t h the culture of New Yor k City schools, d i f f e r e n c e s and m any others.
I recognized these
A common cri t i c i s m of
educational research is that scholars
ignore vital issues
because they have limited contact with schools, opposite problem,
but the
the a b s e n c e of a co n t r a s t i n g perspective,
ma y also obscure a r e s e a r c h e r ’s vision. In this study I test the schola r s h i p on p r eparing teachers of at-risk students intellectual,
political,
in urban schools against
and practical e x p e r i e n c e s of
8 fifteen years in education.
The d evelopment of those ideas
has been a process of which this study is the latest but, hope,
not the last
I
installment.
1. These ideas are described m o r e fully in the preface w r i t t e n by Arthur L l p o w to his s tudy A u t h o r i t a r i a n S o c ialism in A m e r i ca: Edward Bell a m y and the N ationalist Movement (Berkeley: U n iversity of Calif o r n i a Press, 1983). 2. I visited my first teachers u n i o n c o n v e n t i o n with D i c k in 1973, but I did not completely unde r s t a n d h o w profo u n d l y he had Influenced me for another n i n e t e e n years. Knowledge of his imminent death from cancer sparked m y recall of a n early d iscu s s i o n about w h e t h e r he thought I was t e mperamentally suited to teaching a n d whether his work in the union was g ratifying and p o l i t i c a l l y appropriate. Du r i n g his long illness, Berkeley teachers showed their respect and a f f ection by d o n a t i n g days from their sick leave "bank" for Dick's use, a p r a c t i c e barred in the New Y o r k City schools.
3.For explicit c r i t i c i s m of teachers b e h aving like w o r k e r s see M y r o n Lieberman, "Are Teachers Underpaid?" The Public Interest (Summer 1986). The a s s u m p t i o n that a concern about job requirements, like vacation periods, is a negative characteristic for teachers is present in other research, as I expl a i n in "Policy Makers Take Note: The M o t i v ations of Ac a d e mically Successful Liberal A rts Graduates for C h o o s i n g Teaching as a Career," High School Journal 73 (OctoberNovember, 1989). 4.Susan Moore Johnson, "Schoolwork and its Reform," Jou r n a l of Education P o l i c y , Paper 37142 (in press). 5.Don Davies, ed. , Communities and the i r Schools (New York: McGraw Hill, 1981); James Comer, "Black Education: A Holistic View," The U r b a n Re v i e w 8, (Fall 1975); Vito Perrone, "Parents as Partners," The Urban Re v i e w 5, (Spring 1972); Ann Bastian et a l ., C h o o s i n g Equality: The Case for Democratic Schooling (Philadelphia: Temple Unive r s i t y Press, 1986). 6. Many of my s t u dents were not native speakers of English and I felt I had to clarify how m u c h of the c ontroversy over .bilingual education w a s rooted in politics rather than pedagogy. I chewed o n this prob l e m in an introductory course "Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages" and in an independent study rea d dozens of books on teaching Engl i s h and writing.
9 7.1 took two philosophy courses at Teachers College with Maxine Greene. Unbeknownst to me, she had written an article twelve years earlier which encapsulated my ideas about school reform and teacher unionism. See Maxine Greene, review of Changing Education: a Journal of the American Federation of Teachers and This Magazine Is about S c h o o l s , Harvard Educational Review 37 (Fall 1967). Diane Ravitch received a grant for a special seminar in the historical roots of contemporary social problems in education; as a seminar member I was able to discuss many of the historical issues raised in this study with James Coleman and Nathan Glazer. 8. The political ideas in two of my earliest articles about teacher unionism are muc h the same as those I explain in my most recent publications. Lois Weiner, "Cracks in Shanker's Empire," New Politics 11 (Fall, 1976); idem, "Death Wish Among the Teachers," The N a t i o n , 24 September 1977; idem, "Democratizing the Schools," New Politics 1 (Spring, 1987). 9. Verbatim proceedings of the American Federation of Teachers 1976 convention, 18 and 19 August (Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Teachers). 10. Lois Weiner, "Warning: Textbooks Are Not Made (Or Used) in Heaven," English Journal (January 1980). Lois Weiner, "Captive Voices - Are They Still?" Communication: Journalism Education Today (October 1979). 11. January 10, 1990 conversation with Professor Stephen Brumberg, chairman of the City University of N e w York task force on professional education for New York City secondary school teachers.
10 INTRODUCTION The c o n t e mporary d i s c u s s i o n of r e f o r m of teacher e du c a t i o n seldom a c k n o wledges earlier d i s c o u r s e about e d u c a t i n g students n o w des c r i b e d as "at risk," a l t h o u g h the problem of edu c a t i n g children of the cities'
lower classes
has b e e n discussed since the inception of m a s s public schooling.1 ignored.
Even schola r s h i p of the recent past has bee n
As Larry C uban noted
in his c r i t i q u e of the Holmes
Group report,
there was a federally funded effort to revitalize teacher education, invigorate u rban teaching through c o n c e p t u a l i z i n g a different role for teachers, and a l t e r sch o o l i n g for poor children and those of color. Tens of thousands of teachers were trained in schools across the country. T h o usands of u n i v e r s i t y faculty enlisted. Sco r e s of r e s e a r c h reports an d studies w e r e w r i t t e n . ..The absence of references to previous relevant, l arge-scale programs to p o i n t out earlier flaws in conception, execution, or Institutional barriers s u g gests a l o ng-term mem o r y l o s s . 2 Cuban's cri t i c i s m of the Holmes G r o u p ' s historic amnesia applies to two other m a j o r teacher reform p r oposals of this decade,
the Carnegie T a s k Force on Teaching as a
Profe s s i o n and the National C o mmission for Excellence in Teacher Education.® The "memory loss" exte n d s to insights about c o m p e t e n c y - b a s e d or p e r f o r m a n c e - b a s e d teacher education, w hich dom i n a t e d teacher edu c a t i o n during the 1970's.4 One need for this study,
then,
is to amel i o r a t e the
historical amnesia of current reform efforts,
to a n a l y z e the
p roblem of preparing urban teachers of a t - r i s k students in light of previous attempts.
It is not o n l y the programs enacted but the conceptual unde r p i n n i n g of earl i e r efforts that require examination. The Ho l m e s Group an d the Carnegie Tas k Force o n T e a ching as a Prof e s s i o n s hare a n as sum p t i o n that
"the key to success"
in reforming A m e r i c a n schools "lies in creating a [teaching] profe s s i o n equal to the task."® prem i s e that teachers,
As Gary Sykes observes,
and in turn,
the
teacher p r e p a r a t i o n can
serve as an eff e c t i v e me c h a n i s m for educational
reform,
u n derl ies most ne w efforts to improve schooling. Th e current ref o r m w ave right f u l l y places the teacher at the heart of what is known as "educational e x c e l l e n c e " ... In all the states, however, governors, legislators, an d business and educational leaders are focusing on the Improvement of teaching as a critical e l e m e n t — perh a p s the critical e l e m e n t — in the promotion of educational excellence.® However,
teacher e d u cation may not be "an effective
m e c h a n i s m for e ducational reform" as Edelfelt, Corwin a r g u e d . ^
Hanna,
and
C u b a n contends that the use of teacher
ed u c a t i o n to reform schools is unt e n a b l e because "fundamental a l t e r a t i o n s in schools are linked to political changes outside schools" and
"basic changes in the
[schools'] organizational structures are n e c e s s a r y prior steps in any sus t a i n e d effort to touch what teachers do daily in classrooms."® What is the approp r i a t e r e l a t ionship b etween teacher prepar a t i o n and efforts e d ucation of "disadvantaged" students
to improve the
in u rban schools? My
study will delineate the role teacher p r e p a r a t i o n should play in reforming e d ucation for a t - r i s k students in u rban
12 schools. A t hird reason for the s tudy is to a n a l y z e the prob l e m in light of a concept here t o f o r e not e x p l i c i t l y employed: James Comer's
"holistic" approach, w h i c h is simi l a r to what
Do n Davies calls "an ecological s o l u t i o n . " 9 Comer has criticized the educational reforms of the 1 9 6 0 's for their u n c o o r d i n a t e d foci on c h i l d r e n ’s families, and c l assroom organization,
teaching methods,
rather than on the "quality of
relationsh i p s ^ b e t w e e n home and school,
among staff,
and
between s taff and s t u d e n t s and the effect of these relationships on school
l e a r n i n g . " 10 Davies m a k e s a similar
criticism of most e f f o r t s to improve the edu c a t i o n of d i s a dvantaged children:
they fix blame on one of the parties
an d arrive at solutions which fasten on only one element of the child's w o r l d . 11 Material on p r e p a r i n g teachers of disadvantaged students in urban s c h o o l s has g e n e r a l l y focused on either the a t tributes of disad v a n t a g e d students and their teachers or the dema n d s made on teachers b y conditions in urban schools, students,
The demands of the sett i n g and the n e e d s of the two wholly different
issues,
have b e e n fused
sem a n t i c a l l y in the literature a n d used Interchangeably. W h i l e this framework is accurate d e m o g r a p h i c a l l y because u rban areas have the g r e atest concent r a t i o n s of students described as "disadvantaged,"
it is c o n c e p t u a l l y flawed.
The issues of d i sadvantagement a n d setting are interwoven
12
13 but not i d e n t i c a l , and their synonymous u s e has m u d d l e d d iscu s s i o n of b o t h topics a n d obscured the r e l a t ionship b e t w e e n them. For instance,
one s t u d y on the c o m p e t e n c i e s and
characteristics of the successful u rban teacher defines u r b a n schools as those w h i c h hav e one or m o r e of the following c h a r a t e r i s t i c s : a m i x e d student population; location in a low-income neighborhood; of students re c e i v i n g free lunches;
a
a substantial number
or low-income children
in special p r o grams for slo w l e a r n e r s . 13 U s i n g this definition,
schools,
teachers,
and s t u d e n t s in the small,
po o r e r suburban communities w h i c h i n c r e asingly ring older, large cities q u a l i f y as "urban"
though their school systems
lack the b u r e a ucratic c on ditions which H a b e r m a n argues are the mos t salient ch a r a c t e r i s t i c of the nation's largest school d i s t r i c t s . 14
Similarly,
Allan O rnstein's r e v i e w of
twenty years of research on educating the i n ner-city child contains no r e f e r e n c e to scholarship on the u rban school setting,
although a recent s t u d y of u r b a n schools pinp o i n t e d
their large s i z e s as a key to students'
a l i e n a t i o n and
f a i l u r e .15 Much s c h o l a r s h i p in the social s c i e n c e s has confirmed that the urban school setting plays a critical shap i n g student a n d teacher performance. part,
Yet,
role in for the most
discussion of urban teacher p r e p a r a t i o n has ignored
this work.
Including the w o r k of sociologists,
political
14 scientists,
and h i s t o r i a n s on u r b a n schooling
teacher p r e p a ration shifts the traditional individual student an d teacher,
in a study of
focus on the
replacing the close-ups on
student an d teacher attributes w i t h a wider pict u r e w h i c h includes literature heretofore treated as tangential or irrelevant to the problem,
such as di s c u s s i o n s on urban
school re f o r m and funding. However,
this expan d e d p e r s p e c t i v e a l l o w s a n escape
from wha t has proven to be a political and educational d e a d end:
the s c h olarly s e a r c h for the roots of poor, minority
students'
school
characteristics. Davies'
fail u r e either in student or teacher This enlarged p e r s p ective extends Comer and
critique by contri buting an additional dimension of
s chooling to their analysis, urban schools.
the systemic c h a r a c t eristics of
It a t t e m p t s to p l a c e the issue of how best to
prepare teachers of a t - r i s k s t u dents in u r b a n schools w i t h i n what L i s t o n and Z e l c h n e r have identified as the
"social
context of s c h o o l i n g . " 16 D EFINITION OF TERMS In this study,
"teacher preparation" will describe both
undergraduate and g r a d u a t e programs of teacher preparation and include both c o u r s e w o r k and practice teaching. education,"
"teacher training," and
will be u s e d synonymously.
"Teacher
"teacher preparation"
Aspe c t s of teacher education
'which o c c u r at the school setting will be des c r i b e d as "field-based." The terms
"practice teaching,"
"clinical
15 experience,"
"clinical training" an d "student
teaching" wil l
be used I n terchangeably to describe what oc c u r s when students in teacher preparation programs a s s u m e partial or total responsibility for teaching classes in the school setting.
Course w o r k in teacher edu c a t i o n w h i c h is taken
before p r a c t i c e teaching will be described as The terms "culturally deprived," deprived,"
"economically deprived,"
d i s a d v a n t a g e d , 11 and
"pre-service."
"educationally
"educationally
"economically d i s a d v a n t a g e d " will be
used syno n y m o u s l y to descr i b e s t u d e n t s who a r e currently termed "at risk." T hese are students who b e c a u s e of poverty, cultural differences,
or linguistic di f f e r e n c e s tend to h a v e
low a c a demic a c h i e v e m e n t . 17 They ar e in danger,
at risk,
of
failing to complete their education w i t h an a d e quate level of s k i l l s . 10 METHOD O L O G Y The s tudy critiques the a v a i l a b l e literature in three related areas: schools;
teaching disad v a n t a g e d youth in urban
preparing teachers of d i s a d v a n t a g e d students in
urban schools;
systemic problems of urban schools.
I anal y z e
scholarship from 1960 to 1990. Each of these topics contains a con s i d e r a b l e amount of material,
and to catalogue,
let a l o n e review,
literature w i t h i n each category w o u l d staggering task. For instance,
all the
in Itself be a
a c c o r d i n g to o n e estimate,
over 200 colleges and universities sponsored special
programs to prepare teachers for the d i s a d v a n t a g e d In 1 9 7 1 . 19
However,
the quantity of material that n e e d s to be
reviewed is actually c o n s i derably smaller than it appears at first,
because much of the research is s e r i o u s l y flawed,
design or methodology, examination.
Second,
in
and does not need serious
this is not an e xhaustive a n a l y s i s of
the literature wit h i n eac h topic but an ex a m i n a t i o n of their i n t e r s e c t i o n , the w ays in which the topics have influenced each other historically,
and the wa y their intersection
should inform r e c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n of teacher p r e p a r a t i o n for at-risk students in u r b a n schools. A not h e r reason this study is feasible despite the considerable q u a ntity of material wi t h i n each area is that educational d i scourse frequently reflects major political debates of the times. educational,
R e s e a r c h about the broader
social and political context in w h i c h the
discourse occured has enab l e d me to c a tegorize the m a t e r i a l , selecting w orks w h i c h are representative of dominant voices in the d e b a t e . To understand the historical context of the educational discourse,
I have d rawn upo n Harvard Educational R e v i e w ,
Teachers College R e c o rd, thirty years.
and Phi D e lta K a p p an over the last
The social and political
difficult to describe,
context is more
because as Ala n B r i n k l e y n oted in his
d i scussion of the p r o blems of writing the history of the 1960's,
the process has just barely begun.
However,
a few
17 historians have discussed educational reforms of the 1960's and I have made use of their w o r k . 20 The danger of the method I have used is that it can produce an overly schematic analysis which overlooks subtle but vital differences among advocates of similar ideas. As a safeguard,
1 have made an effort to include scholarship
w hich does not conform to the "either/or" formulations which are characteristic of public debate. Chapters One, Two, and Three, will examine the literature's treatment of four closely related questions: (1) What skills and attitudes do teachers of at-risk youth in urban schools need to be successful? (2) Ho w should teacher preparation be changed to give teachers the skills and attitudes described in #1? (3) How do characteristics of urban school systems affect teacher performance? (4) How should the characteristics identified in #3 be used to reform preparation of urban teachers? Question #3 requires some explanation.
My focus on
characteristics of urban school systems is supported by the wealth of scholarship describing the creation and consolidation of urban school districts and bureaucracies, as well as the work of sociologists and political scientists analyzing urban school systems.2 ^ First-person accounts of the way systemic conditions in urban schools,
like large
classes and heavy teaching loads, alter teacher performance
18 have corroborated m a n y of my personal o b s e r v a t i o n s . 22 In limiting the literature to s c h o l a r s h i p on c h a r a c t eristics of u r b a n school syst e m s I do not suggest that conditions are identical in all urban scho o l s wi t h i n the same s y s t e m or that urban and n o n - u r b a n school systems share no c o m m o n characteristics.
On the contrary,
schools
can respond d i f f e r e n t l y to the condi t i o n s impo s e d by their systems,
as the E f fective Schools r e s earch indicates,
an d
bot h urban a n d suburban school s y s t e m s suffer from many common problems, they purport
including estrangement from the citizens
to s e r v e . 23 P r e cisely because scho o l s may adapt
d i f f e rently to the same restraints,
I have limited the
literature r e v i e w to the characteristics of u r b a n school systems as the y affect Fo r instance,
teacher p e r f o r m a n c e a n d preparation.
teachers in urban s c h o o l s are t hree times as
likely as their non - u r b a n counterparts to feel unin v o l v e d in setting goals or s e l e c t i n g books or materials, likely to feel
and twice as
they h ave no control over use of classroom
time or course c o n t e n t . 2 * My findings in the literature re v i e w are applied to two m ajor issues: (1) How can teacher e d u c a t i o n improve edu c a t i o n for a t - r i s k students in u r b a n school systems? (2) What kind of special preparation,
if any,
a t - r i s k s t u dents in u r b a n schools require?
d o teachers of
19
1. Historians disagree about the nature and d e g r e e of the political conflicts w h i c h a c c o m panied formation of urban school systems, but they agree that conflicts existed. Michael Katz, e d . , School Reform: Past and P r e s e n t (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1971); idem, R e c o n s t r u c t i n g A m e rican E d u c a t i o n (Cambridge, MA; Harvard Univ. Press, 1987); Ira K a t z n e l s o n and Margaret Weir, S c h ooling for All: Class, Race, an d the Decline of the D e mocratic Ideal (New York: Basic Books, 1985); M u r r a y Levine an d Adeline Levine, A Social Hist o r y of Help i n g Services (New York; A p p l e t o n C e n t u r y Crofts, 1970); David Tyack, The One Best System (Cambridge, MA: H a r v a r d Univ. Press, 1974); J u l i a Wrigley, Class P o l itics and Pu b l i c Schools 1900 - 1950 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ e r s i t y Press, 1982); Lawrence Cremin, A m erican Education: The M e t r o p o l i t a n Experience, 1875 - 1980 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); D i a n e Ravitch, The Great School Wars. New York C i t y 1805 - 1973 (New York: Basic Books, 1974); Ron a l d K. G o o d e n o w and D i a n e Ravitch, e d s ., Schools in Cities. C o n sensus an d Conflict in American Educational History (New York: Hol m e s & Meier, 1983); Gerald Grace, e d . , Education an d the Cit y (Boston: Rou t l e d g e & Kegan Paul, 1984); Carl F. Kaestle, The Evo l u t i o n of an U r b an School System. New York City, 1750 - 1850 (C a m b r i d g e , MA: Harv a r d Univ. Press, 1973). 2.Larry Cuban, "The Holmes Group Reprot: Why R e a c h Exceeds Grasp," Teachers College Record 88 (Spring 1987):349. 3 .--- , A Nation Prepared. Teachers for the Twentyfirst Cent u r y (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Forum on E d u c a t i o n and the Economy, 1986); National C o m m i s s i o n for E x c e l l e n c e in Teacher Education, A Call for Change in Teacher Education (Washington D.C.: A m e r i c a n As s o c i a t i o n of C o l leges for Teacher Education, 1985). 4. Eugenia Kemble and Bernard McKenna, P B T E : View p o i n t s of Two Teacher Organizations (Washington D.C.: A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n of Colleges for Teacher Education, September 1975). 5. Carnegie Forum,
A Na t i o n P r e p a r e d : executive summary n.p.
6. Gar y Sykes, "Policy Initiatives for D e v e l o p i n g a Teaching Profession," E lementary School J o u rnal 86 (March 1986). 7.Roy A. Edelfelt, Ronald Corwin, and Elizabeth Hanna, L e s sons from the Teacher Corps (W a s h I n g t o n , D . C . : N a t i o n a 1 E ducation Association, 1974. ERIC Document Repr o d u c t i o n Center No. ED 099 382):12. 8.Cuban,
"The Holmes G roup Report," 351,
352.
20 9. James Comer, "Black Education: A H o l i s t i c View"; Don Davies, "Looking for an Ecological Solution. P l a n n i n g to Improve the Education of D i s a dvantaged Children," E q u i t y and Choice 4 (Fall 1987). 10. Comer,
"Black Education,"
162.
11.Davies,
"Looking for an Ecological Solution."
12.Kathryn M. Borman and Joel H. spring, Cities. Structure and Process (New York:
Schools in Central Longman, 1984).
13.Richard Campbell, "Basic Competencies a n d C h aracteristics of the Successful U rban Teacher," (Paper delivered to the A s s o c i a t i o n of Teacher Education, Orlando Florida, 31 January 1983). 14.Martin Haberman, P r eparing Teachers for Urban Schools (Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa E ducational Foundation,
1988).
15. Ornstein, E d ucating the Inner City C h i l d (Chicago: Center for Urban Policy at Loyola U n i v e r s i t y of Chicago, 1981); --- , An I m p e r iled Gen e ration. Saving Urban Schools (Princeton, N J : Carnegie Found a t i o n for the Advancement of Teaching, 1988), prologue. 16. Daniel P. Liston and Kenn e t h M. Zeichner, "Teacher Education and the Social Context of Schooling." Paper p resented at the annual co nvention of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, April 1990. 17. Frank Riessman, The C u l t u r a l l y D e p r i v e d Child (New York: Harper and Row, 1962); Henry Levin, Educational Reform for Disadvantaged Students: An Emerging Crisis (Washington, D.C.: National E d u cation Association, 1986). 18.Robert E. Slavin and Nancy A. Madden, Students at Risk: A Research Synthesis,: Leadership 46 (February 1 9 8 9 ) :4.
"What Works Educational
for
19.Larry L. Leslie, Joel R. Levin, and David R. Wampler, "The Effect of PreService Experience w i t h the Disadvantaged on First-Year Teachers in Disad v a n t a g e d Schools, Education and Urban Society 3 (August 1971). 20. Alan Brinkley, "Writing the History of Contemporary America: Dilemmas and Challenges," Daedalus 113 (Summer -1984). L awrence Cremin, "The Free School Movement - A Perspective," Today's Education 63 ( S e p t e m b e r ,October 1974); Lawrence Cremin, The E d u cation of the E d u cating Professsions (Washington, D.C.: A m e rican A s s o c i a t i o n of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1977); L arry Cuban, H o w Teachers T a u g ht
21 (New York: Longman, 1984); G e r a l d Grant, T h e World We Created at H a m i l t o n High (Cambridge, MA: H a r v a r d Univ. Press, 1988); H a r v e y Kantor a n d Robert Lowe, review of How Teachers T a u g h t , b y Larry Cuban, Harvard Educational R e v i e w 56 (February 1986); Arthur G. Powell, Elea n o r Farrar, a n d David K. Cohen, S h o pping Mali H i g h School (Boston: H o u g h t o n Miff l i n Co., 1985); Diane Ravitch, The T r o u b l e d Crusade: A m e r i c a n Education 1945 - 1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1983); D avid T yack a n d Elisabeth Hansot, Managers of Virtue (New York: Basic Books, 1982). 21.In a d d i t i o n to the historical references in note 19, my u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the systemic c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s and Influences in u r b a n schools ha s been I n f ormed by R a y m o n d E. Callahan, E d u c a t i o n and the Cult of E f f i c i e n c y (Chicago: Univ. of C hicago Press, 1962); David Rogers, 110 Livin g s t o n Street (New York: Random House, 1968); Dcr. Davies, ed. , Communities and T h e i r Schools (New York: M c G r a w Hill, 1981); David G o o d m a n , Delivering Educational Service. U r b a n Schools and S c hooling Policy (New York: T e a c h e r s C o l l e g e Press, 1977); Ann B a s t i a n et a l ., Choosing E g u a l i t v : M a r i l y n Gittell et a l ., C itizen Organizations: C i t i z e n P a r t i c i p a t i o n in Educational D e c i sionmaking (Contract 400-76-0115. Institute for Respo n s i v e E d u c a t i o n for the National INstitute for Education, July 1979); G u a delupe E. Guerrero, Teacher Role C o nflicts in Urban Schools: A Re v i e w of the Literature (Qualifying paper, Harvard G r a d u a t e School of Education, May 1977); Michelle Fine, "Why U r b a n A d o l e s c e n t s Drop into an d out of Public Hig h School," T e a c h e r s C o l l e g e Record 87 (Spring 1986); S i gnithia F o r d h a m and J o h n U. Ogbu, "Black Students' School Success: C o p i n g with the Bur d e n of 'Acting White'," The Urban Re v i e w 18 (Fall 1986). 22. C o u r t n e y Cazden, "How K n o w l e d g e about Language H elps the C la s s r o o m Teacher - Or Does It: A Personal Acount," The Urban R e v i e w 9 (Summer 1976); Janet Lester, "The Teacher Is Also a Victim," in Eleanor Leacock, ed., The C u lture of Poverty: A C r i tique (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971), 109-126; Larry Cuban, To Make a D i fference. T eaching in the Inner C i t y (New York: The F ree Press, 1970); Paul L. Trachtenberg, "The Bleak Plight of the U r b a n Teacher," The Urban R e v i e w 6 (1973); Mimi Warshaw, " S c h o o l o p o l y : Not a Game of Chance," Th e Urban R e v i e w 17 (Winter, 1985). 23.L aura Cooper, The Effective Schools L i t e r a ture as a Basis for School Impro v e m ent Efforts (Qualifying paper, Harv a r d Graduate School of Education, 1984); Bastian, et a l ., Choos ing E q u a 1i t y . 24. C a r n e g i e Foundation,
An_I m p e r l l e d G e n e r a t i on, prologue.
22 C H A P T E R ONE This s t u d y begins in the early 1 9 6 0 's, as the civil rights movement sparked a t t e n t i o n to the educational needs of disadvantaged m i n o r i t y c h i l d r e n . 1
In general,
s cholarship during this p e r i o d focused on either the classroom interaction b e t w e e n d i s a d v a n t a g e d students and their teachers or the dema n d s made on the teacher by conditions in u rban schools.
The l iterature then is grouped
into two m ajor categories and s u bdivided wi t h i n each category:
one g roup contains w o r k s w h i c h analyzed the
problem of teaching d i s a d v a n t a g e d youth in urban scho o l s as a matter of classroom practice;
the other is comprised of
materials w h i c h focused on the demands of the u rban s c h o o l . Although the categories are useful for purposes of discussion,
it is important
to note that
they were not
constructed by the authors w h o s e writing I review. divisions characterize the literature in general;
Also,
the
not every
p rogram and author can be n e a t l y categorized. TEACHING DISAD V A N T A G E D Y O U T H When a n a lysts emphasized the prob l e m of teaching d isadvantaged students apart urban school setting,
from the issues raised b y the
p r o posed solutions depended on the
author's defin i t i o n of d i s a d v a n t a g e m e n t . disadvantagement as
W hen they defined
cultural or intellectual d e f i c i e n c y on
the part of the student,
his family,
did the sponsors of Project TRUE,
or his social class,
a p r o g r a m es t a b l i s h e d at
as
23 Hunter College to assist first-year teachers in New York City junior high schools,
then the teacher needed an
"awareness of the deficits of the children,"2 an understanding that "lower class children are often anxious or compulsive or both"3 and lack the "conventional experience,
language facility, emotional security, self-
confidence, and self-control of middle class children."4 Describing The Challenge of Incompetence and P o v e r t y , one educator explained that
the poor, be they black or white,
typically do an inadequate job of teaching their children the abilities and motives needed to cope with schooling, even though they love their children as much as any parents d o .5
When the problem of disadvantagement was thus described, teachers needed to be familiar with students'
"incompetence"
and able to assist their charges in overcoming their linguistic,
behavioral,
and cognitive deficiencies.
Teaching
disadvantaged children successfully also required the ability to "achieve a sense of success and worth" from the task, which was difficult because of the children's problems.
6
While Frank Riessman's work described the difficulty of educating The Culturally D e p rived C h i ld, he identified the problem primarily as deriving from conflict between the culture of the school and the family. While attempting to describe the culture of lower-class children,
he argued that
schooling must adapt to the students'
culture,
and "while
there ma y be aspects of the culture" of lower-class c h i l d r e n that "would be better changed,"
the educator s h o u l d "work
w i t h i n the framework of the culture as it exists" except challenging lower-class culture's
for
"anti-intellectualism"
w h i c h d e f e a t e d one of s chooling's p r i m a r y social p u r p o s e s . 7 He explained that the school should be p l u r a listic enough to find a place for a v a r i e t y of mental styles,
a n d therefore
the effective teacher w o u l d face v a l u e conflicts.
One
solution w a s lor teachers to focus on skills that students wanted and needed;
anot h e r answer wa s to ac k n o w l e d g e the
d i s a greements but attempt to change the n e g a t i v e c h aracteristics of the students' anti-intellectualism,
culture,
like bigotry and
"within a f r a mework of general
a c c e ptance."® R i e s s m a n ar g u e d that the culture of the educa t i o n a l l y d e p rived students d e m a n d e d t e a chers capable of establishing u n varying routines in classes,
w i t h clear,
enforced rules built a r o u n d the goal of learning, acknow l e d g i n g past difficulties,
encour a g i n g the p o s s i bility
of future success. Although he e n t itled his study The C u l t u r a l l y D e p rived Child,
F rank Riessman criticized labeling d i s a d v a n t a g e d
students
"culturally deprived" since,
he argued,
lower
socio-e c o n o m i c groups possess a c u l t u r e of their own different from that of the middle class. the term "educationally deprived"
R i e s s m a n proposed
to describe an d define
the
25 problem:
the students'
limited access to education.
Three of
the four reasons R i e s s m a n gave for a c a demic failure derived from the school's inability to adapt to the students' culture;
only one related to d e f icits in the students'
family an d class culture.
Further,
R i e ssman stated that the
segment of the p o p u l a t i o n w h i c h is most d i s o r g a n i z e d by the social environment,
that w hich might a c t u a l l y be called
c u lturally deprived,
is relatively small and thus examining
it can teach little about how to educate the mass of poorer children. Thirteen years later, observation:
James Comer mad e a similar
black families who managed to adapt socially
and psyc h o l o g i c a l l y to economic d e p r i v a t i o n d i f f e r e d from those w h o di d not.
He noted that this important
di f f e r e ntiation r e c e i v e d little a t t e n t i o n in analyses and reforms in the Sixties.
We too o f t e n lumped all black students together. We o f t e n failed to identify their different aspirations, strengths and weaknesses. Most important, we ignored the al i e n a t ion--and often open a n g e r — b e t w e e n home an d school.9 Riessman's insistence on the importance of understanding,
respecting,
deprived students'
and ac c e p t i n g the educationally
culture and adapt i n g scho o l s to students'
culture differe n t i a t e d his wor k from muc h other writing of the period.
However,
two reports com m i s s i o n e d for the
University of Missouri Trainers of Teacher Trainers
reflected Riessman's concerns.
Teachers of d i s a d v a n t a g e d
students needed to k n o w that "their co n d i t i o n is, in m a n y respects,
not a universal one" and that "the valuing game"
which occurred in e d u cation had certain a s s u m ptions w hich produced
"educationally dysfunctional conclusions," stated
"Sociology and the Train i n g of Teachers of the D i s a d v a n t a g e d . " 1® A
companion s t u d y on linguistics
contended that a teacher needed subject m a t t e r competency, the abil i t y to unde r s t a n d the child's conceptual state, the abil i t y to medi a t e between these two tasks, addition,
and
but in
the teacher's role as a "classroom organiser
w ithin a larger,
complex organization" also needed
consideration in determining the essential s k i l l s and attitudes for teaching children w h o were not middle c l a s s . 11 These attempts to locate the teacher-student relationship w i t h i n a larger context of school and soci e t y were the exceptions.
Most of the literature,
cited earlier by Hunt, educational
like the w o r k
fixed r e s ponsibility for poverty an d
failure on student deficiencies.
Th e terminology
changed for d escribing students from poor m i n o r i t y families who did not achieve success in school, deprived"
from "culturally
to "disadvantaged," but the d e f i n i t i o n of
"disadvantagement" remained s t r i k i n g l y like that of "cultural deprivation." For instance, D isadvantaged used "disadvantaged" deprived"
Educ a t i o n of the
and not "culturally
to describe students from lower-income families
27 but noneth e l e s s a d v i s e d school w o r k e r s that h o m e s of d i s a dvantaged students did not stress "behavioral assets such as obedience, personal
punctuality,
cleanliness,
a n d care for
property" an d children w e r e not a f f orded "much
e xperience wit h o r g a n i z e d group b e h avior or v e r b a l l y stimulating tasks. 1,13 The shift in nom e n c l a t u r e coincided with a theoretical challenge to the theory of cultural deprivation, pointed cri t i c i s m of the
idea that culture itself was the
primary c a u s e of p o v e r t y or students'
educational
It was a "bitter irony," one author argued, of culture, illuminate
with
failure.
that the concept
w hich was borrowed from social scientists to the ways social
conditions rather than innate
propensities led to d i f f e rences in g roup behaviors, being used
was
"in a form almost as perni c i o u s in its
a pplication as biological determinist and racist views have been in the p a s t . " 13
To describe s t u d e n t s as "deprived"
implied that before s t a r t i n g their education, suffered a loss; that students'
"disadvantaged" a l l o w e d the p o s s i b i l i t y
lack of academic succ e s s had causes external
to the student or family. "privation,"
that is,
"Deprivation" means
the absence of
want of a necessity or necessities" denotes
the y had
"loss" or
"that w h i c h is needed; 14 while "disadvantaged"
"loss of a d v a n t a g e . " 15 Students who are
deprived"
"culturally
lack the cultural essentials for success;
who are "disadvantaged"
those
do not have a privilege that others
28 enjoy. The conflict b e t w e e n e d u cators who a t t r i b u t e d failure in school
to the students'
culture and those w h o c hallenged
this e xplanation w a s well i llustrated in
Edu c a t i o n of the
D i s a d v a n t a g e d . One author cited IQ test scores to demons t r a t e that the disad v a n t a g e d student wa s
"not able to
cope w i t h the kinds of verbal a n d abstract behav i o r w h i c h the school d e m a n d s . " 16 Martin D e u t s c h explained the role of social class in language development and cognition,
argu i n g
that lower class c h i l d r e n wer e subject to a "cumulative deficit phenomenon" However,
occurring b e t w e e n grades one and f i v e . 17
another a u t h o r d i smissed theories of deprivation,
‘contending that the schools used the family a n d the co m munity as scape g o a t s for their lack of effectiveness,
and
that social science defined the p r o b l e m in s u c h a way as
to
defend schooling's
failures.
16 One s e lection defended
neither perspective but instead identified several s t r engths of the inner city child;
but in their preface to this
chapter the editors w a r n e d that
"lower class positives"
might not compensate for the "real deficits s l u m children bring w i t h them."19 Critics of the "culture of poverty"
challenged the
design and interpretation of r e s e a r c h which identified poor, minority students as deficient and to deve l o p verbally. educational
failure was
in their a b i l i t y to abstract
20 An altern a t i v e e x p l a nation for the c lash of values b e t w e e n teachers
and their clients,
either as a result of class di f f e r e n c e s
b etw e e n lower class students and middle class teachers, because of other teacher attributes,
for instance,
g e n d e r . 21 One a u t h o r explained that mos t conscientious,
were
"too m i d d l e class,
teachers,
or
a g e or w hile
too insensitive,
or
too fragile to t e a c h ghetto children s u c c e s s f u l l y . " 22 The teacher pe r s o n a l i t y "appears to suffer from anxiety, insecurity,
submissiveness,
fear, and d o u b t s about
the
fundamentals of democracy" a 1968 d o c toral d i s s e r t a t i o n at Harv a r d Graduate School of E d u c a t i o n e x p l a i n e d . 23 W h e n the c a u s e of student
failure w a s
located in a
cultural clash b e t w e e e n student and teacher, a "conceptual u n d e r s t a n d i n g of
teachers needed
teaching the disadvantaged"
and k n owledge of the "milieu in which t h e s e youth g r o w u p . " 24
When a t t r i b u t e s could not be taught or acquired,
the
so l u t i o n was to attr a c t a d i fferent kind of person to teaching and to "replace the a u t h o r i t a r i a n teacher" w i t h one who w o u l d nourish talent and i n d i v i d u a l i t y . 25 Paul Goodman,
in an a s i d e about the cultural c l a s h
between teachers a n d students,
corrected the t erminology
used to describe the conflict.
He wrote that critics who
faulted teachers a n d schools
for imposing m i d d l e - c l a s s
values on poor c h i l d r e n had m i s t a k e n l y labeled the school's values,
which in the e l ementary schools w e r e not at all
middle class but rather petit-bourgeois: serving,
and timid.
bureaucratic,
The upper grades and unive r s i t y
time
"exude a
30 cynicism that belongs to rotten aristocrats," he argued. Rarely communicated is the bourgeois value of learning which is "truly practical, to initiate change,
to enlighten experience;
give courage
reform the state, deepen personal and
social peace."2® Some material suggested there was "no satisfactory answer" to the question of whether a "unique set of personal characteristics and competences are necessary for success as a teacher in a disadvantaged area s c h o o l ," as a report issued by the California State Department of Education concluded.
27 The report's author suggested that a partial
answer might be found in the extent to which the students' needs differed from those of children considered "advantaged," and that the population labeled "disadvantaged" was not a homogeneous group but could be divided by learning styles. Furthermore,
the greater the
congruity between a child's learning style and the characteristics of the program in which he was required to perform,
the greater the likelihood of school success.
Conversely,
school
failure .ensued from a greater discrepancy
between. rhe characteristics of student and program. teacher's ability to mediate this re 1 :-: *• *=t i p
The
depended upon
his or her ability to personalize instruction and the proportion of students whose learning styles diverged radically from the program's expectations, Furno and Kidd concluded that the question of whether
3 teaching the disadvantaged involved special skills was one of education's "issues without answers."28 They suggested no blueprint,
"just a groping toward new institutional forms
and practices"
to meet the changing beliefs,
expectations of citizens,
needs and
but like Adelman they focused on
the teacher-pupil relationship as the key to effective teaching.29 In evaluating their four-year teacher education project in a Baltimore slum they noted that "high scholarship and Its concomitant interests and attitudes" were not essential for teachers of disadvantaged children, and that a more critical factor was empathetic concern based on actual experience,
not pre-conceived ideas.30
Still,
teachers could not by themselves counteract other factors which affected student achievement, a finding they noted James Coleman had advanced in his 1966 study,
Equality of
Educational Op p o r t u n i t y . To summarize,
to pose the question,
"What skills and
attitudes are needed to successfully teach disadvantaged students?" suggests a prescription.
However,
seeking a
definitive list of skills and attitudes in the literature is fruitless because authors disagreed on the nature, the existence,
indeed
of "disadvantagement" as a relevant factor in
student achievement.
Advocates of theories of cultural
deprivation identified specific skills and techniques which would assist students to compensate for their cognitive and verbal deficiencies.
Authors who attributed students'
lack
32 of achievement to a clash between teacher attri b u t e s and student v a l u e s Insisted that teachers above all must be k n o w ledgeable and e m p a t h e t i c about the students'
milieu;
knowledge of specific teaching ski l l s was of sec o n d a r y importance. TEACHING IN URBAN S C H O O L SYSTEMS The teacher-at t r i b u t e s and cult u r e of p o v e r t y theories focused on the characteristics of an d interaction between teachers a n d students to analyze the skills and attitudes needed to t each disad v a n t a g e d students.
However,
another
segment of the literature located res p o n s i b i l i t y for academic failure on sch o o l i n g in general and u r b a n school structures m ore specifically.
This port i o n of the
literature
can be d i v i d e d into a "change agent" segment an d what I will label a "school structures" analysis. "Change agent" mater i a l defined the prim a r y task of urban teachers as s p a r k i n g school reform as i n d i v i d u a l s . 31 For many proponents of the
"change agent" strategy,
had to attract a different kind of person, impressive
"personal q u a l i t i e s , 1,32
teaching
one w i t h more
a different
type of
college g r a d u a t e "bent o n reform,"33 one who was young and v i gorous.34
Urban teachers were s e c o n d-rate in an
occupation that to b e g i n with att r a c t e d less inquisitive, scholarly,
and aggressive personnel,
argued one a u t h o r . 35
'Excellent u r b a n teachers were "sadly outnumbered by ineffective,
unconcerned,
and ill-prepared persons occupying
33 space in c l a s s r o o m s . " 36 However,
over time the "change agent"
literature became
more ambiguous about the extent to which special skills, opposed to political or personal attitudes, For instance,
as
w e r e necessary.
a p r o gress report on the Teacher Corps,
federal prog r a m w h i c h I will anal y z e in detail,
a
observed
that teachers needed skills as well as e n t h u s i a s m . 37 As the importance attached to teaching skill grew, teachers diminished.
criticism of
One Teacher Corps instructor noted that
many of the "change agents" wh o ente r e d t e a ching in the Sixties in inner city schools left
"shaken and
disillusioned" because they had o nly good intentions and didn't realize what skill and w o r k were needed to create the kind of classroom environment they a d v o c a t e d . " 38 Another e xplanation for the increasingly m uted c r i t i c i s m of teachers within the "change agent"
literature was that the "change
agents" clashed w i t h veteran teachers in e arly programs. Some
Teacher Corps projects
"were w iped out as outraged
teachers literally ki c k e d the [Teacher Corps]
interns and
their carpet-baggers out of their s c h o o l s . " 39 In general,
the skills and attitudes identified for
successful urban teaching differed according to the aspects of urban schooling p i n p o i n t e d for w i t h curriculum,
"change agent" attention,
teacher attitudes,
and school organization
three dominant c o n c e r n s . 40 Idealism and d e t e r m i n a t i o n also characterized the successful u rban teacher:
one teacher
34 educa t o r explained that teacher "change agents"" ne e d e d to esc h e w any "long-range personal commitment" school because that dulled
to the ghetto
"the chances of radical reform"
by "accentuating the positive aspects of strug g l i n g and triumphing in what
is undoub t e d l y a non-v i a b l e r o l e . " 41
Not all of the literature which focused on the urban school as a cause of student and teacher failure a d v ocated that
individual
teachers s p a r k institutional change.
w h o can be grou p e d into the second,
Authors
"school structures"
c a t egory a t t r i b u t e d d i s a dvantaged students'
lack of academic
success almost e x c l u s i v e l y to the u r b a n school structure. These educators advocated that teachers support n ewly or ganize d teacher unions as the vehi c l e for educational reform.
This a n a l y s i s also suggested that no teaching skills
and attitudes u r b a n teachers possessed could prevail against the limitations
imposed by school conditions.
A n arti c l e in
the first issue of the U rban Review i llustrated this analysis:
it hailed teachers in New Y o r k Cit y schools as
"heroes and h e r oines of endurance"
for resisting the
infantilization of the school structure and commended "their great union,
the United F e deration of Teachers"
for
assisting them in resisting the i n f a n t i l i z a t i o n . 42 D i savowing the teacher-attributes e x p l a n a t i o n for students' academic failure, structures, teachers'
this perspective faulted school
not teachers'
mi d d l e class origins,
lack of effectiveness.
for
On the contrary,
the
35 teacher
"wants her pupils to make g o o d in the sense she
u n d e r st ands b e s t — a c a d e m i c a l l y . 1,43 The emphasis on urban s c h o o l i n g ' s s y s temic problems s ometimes
fused w i t h c o nfidence about teacher u n ionism's
role in educational and political re f o r m to suggest that the most critical skill or attitude for an u r b a n teacher to p ossess was to be a union supporter.
A Ha r l e m principal,
featured in a Ne w Yo r k e r profile for his school's o u t s t anding achievements,
stated that for u rban teachers,
joining the teachers u nio n should come before e ncouraging the liveliness of students because w i t h the p rotection afforded teachers by a union, "advising,
teachers could be vital in
parti c i p a t i n g in and s t i r r i n g up c o m munity
a c t i o n . ..about problems that d i r e c t l y conc e r n the children as well as their p a r e n t s . " 44
USING TEACHER PR E P A R A T I O N TO MAKE U R B A N TEACHERS MORE S UCCESSFUL WITH D I S A D V A N T A G E D STUDENTS Teacher e d ucators writ i n g during this period d i s agreed about w h e t h e r teachers of d i s a d v a n t a g e d youth in u rban schools required s pecialized preparation.
The d i v i s i o n was
b etween a d v ocates of a totally revamped system of teacher education and propc:.^:.-.s of m o r e limited reform of prepar a t i o n of teachers of d i s a d v a n t a g e d students.
Both
proponents of theories of cultural d e p r i v a t i o n and the critics who ar g u e d that teacher a t t r i b u t e s caused student
36 failure tended to agree that teaching disadv a n t a g e d youth required s pecialized preparation,
though in the first case
the preparation wa s designed to assist teachers to a d a p t to student deficiencies and in the second sit u a t i o n to correct deficiencies of the teachers themselves.
The authors w h o
found fault w ith schooling or teacher e d u c a t i o n in general, a mong them the "change agent" advocates,
ar g u e d for a
s u b s tantially d i fferent sys t e m of teacher education to Improve p reparation of teachers of d i s a d v a n t a g e d students -I
along w i t h the t r a ining of all others. In Preparing to Teach the D i s a d v a n t a g e d John O ' B r i a n argued that traditional teacher training programs w ere doing "an outstanding job of p r e paring teachers to work w i t h students identified w i t h m i d d l e class culture" but t h e s e teachers were not prepared for the task of working w i t h disadvantaged y o u t h . 45 A special empathy wa s needed to "understand and a p preciate the special needs" of disadvantaged s t u d e n t s . 46 O ' B r i a n d e s c r i b e d a Master's degree program d e s i g n e d s p e c i f i c a l l y to prep a r e teachers of disadvantaged students,
noting that an e f fective p r o g r a m had
to cont a i n an int e r d i s c i p l i n a r y mi x of all behavioral sciences and e x t ensive e x perience in the mi l i e u of the disadvantaged student
to s e n sitize teacher candidates
to the
w orld of disadvantaged youth w h i c h was so different from their own middle class experience.
Similarly,
the teacher
educators who d e v e l o p e d the B R I D G E Project of Queens College
37 recommended sp e c i a l i z e d p r e p a r a t i o n of teachers for schools in culturally deprived neighborhoods. teacher candidates needed special
The y suggested that
i n s t r uction in methods of
teaching educa t i o n a l l y d i s a dvantaged children:
more time
d e v o t e d to e f f ective use of audio-visual equipment; instruction in teaching read i n g to older children;
and
p r a ctice in devel o p i n g m a terials w ith the d i s a dvantaged c hild in mind.
In addition,
the project developers
recommended that part of student teaching should be in d ep r e s s e d a r e a s .4 7 However,
the opposite conc l u s i o n was reached by the
T a s k Force of the National
Institute for A d v anced Study in
T e a ching D i s a dvantaged Youth,
a project established in 1966
by Title XI of the National Defense E d u c a t i o n A c t . 48 As the T a s k Force memb e r s studied the prob l e m of preparing teachers for the disadvantaged,
they came to "attribute failures and
inadequacies of e d u cation for the d i s a d v a n t a g e d to defects in education of teachers" gen e r a l l y and outlined a p l a n "to prep a r e teachers for all children,
r e gardless of their
cultural backgrounds or social o r i g i n s . " 49 The Task Force rejected theories which labeled students disadvantaged" as "racist," respect
"culturally
"denigrating their e v o l v e d culture" and
insisting that "teachers must be trained to
the potential strengths of the disadvantaged"
than taught e d u c a t i o n . 50
"mythologies" w h i c h d i s c o u r a g e d investment
rather in
The Task Force disputed what it called the "false image" of the d i s a d v a n t a g e d child,
i n c luding the Idea that
all w ere a l i k e . 51 G iven the h e t e r o g e n e i t y of U.S. society,
a
teacher w h o was able to w o r k w i t h the c h i l d r e n of one social stratum or group was inadequately p r e pared to teach in the common school,
the report explained.
Furthermore,
the
prob l e m of training teachers for schools in d i s a dvantaged areas was not the same as the prob l e m of p r e paring teachers to deal w i t h racism in school and society.
This latter issue
was a matter of conc e r n for teacher e d u c a t i o n generally since teacher edu c a t i o n should lead to a n e x a m i nation of the teacher's own prejudicies,
as well as an u n d e r s t a n d i n g of
the problems and concerns of students and parents. The c ontroversy extended beyond p r e s e n t a t i o n of educational theory to teacher candidates to the a ppropriate type of preparation in the teacher's subject area. Force report was adamant that
The Task
"to s p e c i f y the subject matter
pr e p a r a t i o n of teachers of the disad v a n t a g e d is to indicate the pr e p a r a t i o n needed by all t e a c h e r s . " 52
In contrast,
the
BRIDGE Project recommended a special Engl i s h methods classes "to emphasize wor k w ith the unin t e r e s t e d an d disenchanted child" so that teacher candidates can "become a cquainted w ith adolescent literature that
is p a r t i c u l a r l y a ppropriate
for these c h i l d r e n . " 53 The bulk of the Task F orce report was a detailed plan for an overhaul of teacher education.
The only discussion
about preparing teachers for disadv a n t a g e d s t u dents was indirect,
in a port i o n of the report which a n a l y z e d why
teachers in such great proportions
left "deprived a r e a s . " 54
The report observed that they leave because, students,
"they fail." They failed because of their inferior
s tatus and their work i n g conditions, described.
like their
which wer e not
Three problems in the training of teachers for
d e p r i v e d areas wer e enumerated:
teachers were unfamiliar
w i t h the community and parti c u l a r conduct p r o b l e m s of students; values;
teachers were unaware of their own prejudices and
teachers lacked pr e p a r a t i o n in skills needed to
p e r f o r m effectively. The Task Force faulted two major innovations in teacher e d u c a t i o n during this period,
the Teacher Corps and M.A.T.
(Masters of Arts in T e a c h i n g ) , a l o n g w ith traditional teacher preparation programs, theory.
These programs,
for their d i s r e g a r d for
it argued,
taught theory
"apart from
the realities teachers meet" and gav e the student teacher "little theoretical u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the s i tuations he m e e t s . " 55 They failed to provide a sustained p r a c t i c e s c h e d u l e of " p e r f o r m a n c e - f e e d b a c k - c o r r e c t i o n . ..until d e sirable skillfulness
is a c h i e v e d . " 55 Though the Task Force
dis t a n c e d itself from the reforms attempted by the Teacher C o r p s , they shared a conceptual consensus that defects in teacher education g e n e r a l l y were responsible for the d e f i c iencies in u r b a n teacher preparation.
In expli c i t l y rejecting theories of cultural deprivation,
the T a s k Force a t tributed the academic failure
of d i s a dvantaged students to flaws in c o n t e mporary s c h ooling per se:
"There is little excitement in the school
anyone:
the poorer one is,
for
the drearier his school
e x p e r i e n c e . 1,57 The report e x p l a i n e d that teachers g e n e r a l l y confused racial, standards, critical
class, and eth n i c bias w i t h academic
espec i a l l y in the s t u d y of language.
But m o s t
to reform of teacher e d ucation wa s an under s t a n d i n g
that m o d e r n man had such d i f f i c u l t y coping with depersonalization, human,
that a teacher first of all had to be
able to wi n students'
However,
trust.
n o w h e r e did the T a s k Force a d d r e s s how its
proposed overhaul of all of teacher p r e p a r a t i o n would address these problems.
How w o u l d teachers become familiar
with the conduct problems of students in deprived are a s ? And how were these p r o blems d i fferent
from those faced by
teachers of u n d e p r i v e d students? Although the report explicitly rejected the concept of "cultural deprivation," it offered no altern a t i v e e x p l a n a t i o n for classroom management problems
teachers of students
in deprived areas
faced. Describing the assumptions of the C a r d o z o Teacher Corps Project,
Cuban ech o e d most of the Task F o r c e criticisms of
education.
Like the Task Force,
Cuban c o n t e n d e d that low-
income y o ungsters h a d the sam e general needs and values as
those with more advantages, differences in behavior. race,
and s i m i l arities o u tweighed any
Similarly,
teachers,
regardless of
could make a diff e r e n c e w i t h low-income children,
but
wha t defeated teachers of low-income youn g s t e r s was the conventional bound,
teacher role.
The "teacher-dominated,
text-
student-recltation" class "has failed to s t i mulate or
educate," he e x p l a i n e d . 58
He argued against a p p l y i n g
g e n e r a l izations about poor and m i n o r i t y students teachers
because
"must deal w i t h groups but treat members as
i n d i v i d u a l s . " 58 He r e j ected the e x p l a nations for student failure w hich d e p icted disad v a n t a g e d students in terms of mi d d l e class white c h i ldren and schools. The Task Force r e c o m m e ndations for reform of teacher ed u c a t i o n and solutions offered b y "change agent" advocates were shaped by d i f f e r i n g e stimations of teacher p r e p aration's role in improving e d u c a t i o n for the disadvantaged.
The Tas k Force o u t l i n e d methods to improve
the quality of teaching gen e r a l l y but p r o posed no specific c o nnection between these reforms and improved schools for the disadvantaged. "change agent" personnel,
Most advocates of reform through a
strategy,
espec i a l l y the early Teac h e r Corps
vi e w e d reform of teacher education as the primary
v ehi c l e for improving education for the disadvantaged, c ontending that a superior teacher candidate wh o received s uperior p reparation could s u c c e ssfully spark overall improvement in s c h o o l i n g . 60
This emphasis on the individual
42 teacher's role e ncouraged a critical view of v e t e r a n u r b a n teachers, reform,
as well as a focus on school c o n d i t i o n s needing
e s p e c i a l l y d e v e l o p i n g and u sing ap p r o p r i a t e
curricula and materials, Cuban's d e s c r i p t i o n of the C a r d o z o T e a c h e r Corps Project in Washington, characteristics.
D.C.
illustrated both
C uban argued that schools t r a p p e d teachers
an d other school staff into b e h a v i n g as pe o p l e wh o didn't like children,
and that both inexperienced a n d veteran inner
city teachers suffered
from a "spastic rigidity"
that was
reinforced b y an a c c i d e n t a l convergence of institutional pressures a n d teacher e d ucation t r u t h s . 61
T h e i r personal
rigidity an d academic blinders w e r e reinforced by conditions w ithin the schools, clerical duties,
like their isolation,
their class loads,
and m u l t i p l e preparations.
In its attempt
to describe the c o n n e c t i o n between urban school a n d teachers'
interactions with students,
w a s one of the rare w o r k s
conditions
Cuban's
1970 s t u d y
in the literature of the period to
treat both issues and their inter-relationship.
However,
C uban did not explain the connections he i dentified b e t w e e n t e a c h e r s 'inadequacies
in classroom practice a n d
institutional
pressures,
institutional
problems he described.
Not all
nor did he analyze the cause of the
of the prop o n e n t s of u s i n g teacher education to
spark reform in urban scho o l s and of making n e w l y trained teachers
"change agents"
concurred w i t h the n e g a t i v e
assessment of teachers which charac t e r i z e d muc h of the "change agent" analysis.
Faith Dunne,
"Survival of the Innovative Teacher:
writ i n g about Preparing Liberal Arts
Graduates to W o r k for Change in the Public Schools" m a n y M.A.T.
faulted
p r o grams w h i c h had "fostered a sense of elitism
and...failed to induce sensitivity to the needs and expectations of traditionally trained teachers,
or to their
potential areas of common c o n c e r n . " 62 Dunne contended that the "change agent" concept was Itself sound,
but that M.A.T.
p rograms u t i l i z i n g it wer e so flawed that enrollees were g i v e n neither an accur a t e sense of the culture and social relations in u r b a n schools nor the techniques to survive and effect change. In conclusion,
just as scholars in this pe r i o d p r o vided
no pre s c r i p t i o n for the attributes of successfxxl teachers in u r b a n schools,
t hey produced no ans w e r to the p r o b l e m of
r eform of teacher e d ucation because there was no consensus about the nature of the problem.
Co n f o u n d i n g the basic
prob l e m of d e f i n i n g d i sadvantagement was disagreement about whet h e r urban school conditions r e q uired special p r e p a r a t i o n - or a different kind of teacher candidate.
THE NATIONAL TEAC H E R CORPS AND T R A INERS OF TEAC H E R TRAINERS Both the National Teacher C orps and Trainers of Teacher Tr a iners were federal
initiatives to Improve p r e p a r a t i o n of
teachers of d i s a d v a n t a g e d students,
u n d e r t a k e n on a national
44 scale. First,
They merit close ex a m i n a t i o n for several reasons. un l i k e projects developed by individual schools,
Trainers of Teacher Trainers, called, sites.
or T T T as it w a s generally
an d the T e a c h e r Corps eac h had dozens of national T h e y faced the organizational
challenge of
encouraging creative solutions w h i l e e n forcing standards of achievement,
of d u p l i c a t i n g successful ideas while
protecting against i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z a t i o n of r igid formulas. As I will discuss,
the two programs responded to these
-1
problems quite differently,
and so e x a m i n a t i o n of their
respective histories offers important insight about federal attempts to reform e d u c a t i o n n a t i o n a l l y for at-risk students through teacher preparation. O ther characteristics also m a k e the Teac h e r Corps merit special attention. considerable.
The program's siz e and s c o p e were
Betw e e n 1965 and 1975,
the Teac h e r Corps
prepared about 11,000 people to teach.®® Progr a m s were located in urban reservations, populations,
areas,
rural Appalachia,
Indian
and s i t e s with migrant and S p anish-speaking and wer e organized w i t h parti c i p a t i o n by
universities and school systems. on a national scale,
Th e Teacher Corps tested,
the hypothesis
that an internship model
of teacher preparation could serve as a m e c h a n i s m for improving education for the d i s a d v a n t a g e d . 64 T h e initial, "unarticulated e xpectation that the young m ight bring freshness and vigor"
to public e d u c a t i o n 65 became an
45 explicit commitment to produce Teacher Corps interns who would be "change agents," introducing curricular innovation to public schools.66 Like the Teacher Corps, TTT's importance adheres in the widespread application of its philosophy,
in 57 sites in
1970.67 TTT's philosophy was improvement of education for the disadvantaged through concentrating attention on teacher education personnel themselves, who would in turn improve the quality of teacher preparation programs and the teachers of disadvantaged students. TTT programs retained teacher preparation's traditional base within college but emphasized institutional change within schools of education to encourage them to share responsibility or "parity" for teacher education with liberal arts faculty,
local public
schools, and community representives.68 While TTT and the Teacher Corps shared a concern about the relevance of teachers' academic prepration and both experimented with more field-based coursework,
the Teacher Corps focused on
providing an internship experience which would nurture the individual teacher's ability to prompt change within the public schools.
In contrast, TTT attempted to utilize
schools of education to alter the relationships among teacher preparation's disparate constituencies, was the public schools, preparation.
Thus,
one of which
and in so doing to improve teacher
analysis of the Teacher Corps and TTT
allows comparison of twc
*: approaches to using
46 teacher preparation to improve schooling for the disadvantaged. THE T E A C H E R CORPS Th e Teacher Corps d e veloped in part Peace Corps Program,
from the Cardozo
which recruited re t u r n i n g Peace Corps
volun t e e r s to staff Cardozo H igh School
in Washington,
D . C . 69 The Cardozo Project in Urban Teaching, ca l l e d in the pr i n c i p a l ' s 1964 report,
as it was
a t t e m p t e d to develop
an "intellectual approach to the day-t o - d a y probl e m s of t e a c h i n g . " 70 The project o riginally ha d two purposes:
to
d e v e l o p effective curricula for school use and to provide teacher training that would
"produce teachers who can make
the u r b a n classroom a catalyst and intellectual school
for those economic,
social
changes w h i c h are needed if the public high
is to fulfill
its role as a key long-range agent
in
c o m b a t t i n g juvenile delinq u e n c y and e n c o u r a g i n g youth o p p o r t u n i t i e s ."71 T h e traditional teacher p r e p a r a t i o n program, of s t u d y followed by six months of teaching, an internship model
leading to certification.
the after-school
was replaced by
in which participants taught two full
classes and a t t e n d e d after-school seminars
teach two classes,
six months
for c o ursework
Ma s t e r teachers wer e h ired to
supervise the interns,
and pa r t i c i p a t e in
seminars taught by prof e s s o r s from ne a r b y
-colleges and a t t ended by interns and a few regular teachers who w e r e relieved of one of their high school
classes.
The
principal noted that the project engendered some hostility from the school staff, who felt isolated and unutilized but that strained relations were ameliorated somewhat by the reduction in the faculty's normal class sizes which resulted from interns teaching two classes.
Still, regular faculty
chafed at their exclusion from after-school seminars and the project's failure to assign interns extra duties,
like lunch
room patrol, which the rest of the faculty were given. Interns received similar assignments in the second cycle and regular faculty members were invited to participate in subject matter courses for interns, which were relocated from Howard University to the school.72 The overwhelmingly positive evaluation of the initial project prompted its expansion, and recruitment was broadened to include interns who were not returned Peace Corps volunteers. Cardozo project,
However, a subsequent report on the renamed the Urban Teacher Corps, showed
important conceptual differences.73 For one, an explicit pedagogical philosophy had been adopted: eschewed the "teacher-dominated,
the program now
text-oriented,
student
recitation type" of classroom because it did not meet the needs of inner-city youngsters.74 In addition,
the
principal's 1964 report stated the program's commitment to produce teachers who would make the classroom a catalyst for broad social and economic change,
but it included no
negative assessment of the Cardozo faculty or urban teachers
48 generally.
The 1968 d e s c r i p t i o n of the Urban T e a c h e r Corps
outlined a mor e c ircumspect goal, teachers,
attra c t i n g a n d training
but pegged the program's v a l u e to the
of most urban teachers,
"ineffective,
inadequacies
unconcerned,
and ill-
p r e p a r e d persons occ u p y i n g space in c l a s s r o o m s . " 75 In this latter report,
the faculty at Cardozo High School,
implication teachers in m ost urban h i g h schools, "a core of dedicated,
ar.d by
ranged from
w e l l - q u a l i f i e d teachers d o w n to the
usual n umber of t i m e - s e r v e r s . " 76 By 1966 the original program had been repli c a t e d in other locations. cycles,
The p r o grams were funded on two year
with p a r t i c i p a t i o n by u n i v e r s i t i e s and school
systems.
Over 750 interns had been gra d u a t e d an d another 900
were completing their final year. years of training and teaching,
Inte r n s enrolled for two
with s t e adily increasing
teaching r e s p o n s i b i l i t y . 77 No entir e l y
"typical" program
e xis t e d since all were local creations which c h a n g e d over their first dec a d e of existence. 33 interns,
w i t h the team leaders,
"master teacher" principal.
However, most p r o grams had (the position called
in the original project),
selec t e d by the
The program coordinator was usually a school
district e m p l o y e e . 78 In a special
issue of the Jou r n al of Teacher E d u c a tion
reporting on the Teacher Corps, goals:
two auth o r s i d entified its
to improve educational o p p o r t u n i t y for c h i l d r e n of
the poor;
to induct into the teaching e s t a b l i s h m e n t a
49 college graduate committed to reform;
to influence
university-based teacher education to become more fieldoriented.79 Senator Gaylord Nelson, who had sponsored the legislation creating the Teacher Corps, described approximately the same objectives;
The Teacher Corps was to
capture "the idealism and enthusiasm of youth," as the Peace Corps had done, and "to provide quality education for lowincome and minority children" by bringing school and university together in teacher education.80 These general goals were expressed in Teacher Corps programs in three ways. First,
teacher training was
considered the vehicle for improving urban education. Second, Teacher Corps interns and graduates were expected as individuals to improve urban education, curriculum innovations.
primarily through
Finally, much of the course work for
certification was conducted at the school rather than the college, and "team leaders" at the school sites supervised the practice teaching. Though the general goals of the Teacher Corps might have been clear, a former director observed that the program never had either a psychology or philosophy of education, aside from training interns as change agents who were "going to straighten things o ut."81 Its decentralized organization, as well as sharp disagreements among teacher educators as to appropriate methods of teacher preparation, deterred development of a uniform pedagogical approach.
For example,
50 a 1968 evaluation,
issued after the first g r o u p of Interns
had been g r aduated nationally,
ar g u e d that local programs
had to define their criteria for "acceptable teacher p reparation in observable or m e a s u r a b l e terms" since there were
"legitimately c onficting v iews on the behaviors that
constitute competent or effective teaching in different environments or s i t u a t i o n s .1,83 ^he Teacher Corps'
national
a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a t t empted to deve l o p project specifications w h i c h would
"mesh theory and real i t y into an integrated,
d a t a - d e p e n d e n t , field-based program"
in each Teacher Corps
p r o j e c t . 83 But this d e m a n d for a u n i f o r m model of teacher training was resisted by local p r o jects w h i c h argued that s t a n d a r dization led to "oppressive stereotypes" about students and
"simple s i n g l e - m i n d e d s o l u t i o n s . " 84
As d i scussed previously,
interns encouraged to be
"change agents" and project personnel
clashed w i t h regular
school staff and "were frequently reje c t e d . " 85 The friction between Teacher Corps interns and regular school staff in man y Teacher Corps sites m i r rored the larger conflict between the Teacher Corps, .universities, The educational
establishment
and school systems.
initially expressed
reservations about the Teacher Corps bringing interns, were untrained,
who
into teaching and Inviting federal
involvement in education, local government.
previ o u s l y the domain of state and
In response,
C o n gress amended eligibility
requirements and control of intern selection,
requiring
51 school systems an d cooperating univ e r s i t i e s
to aut h o r i z e
T e a c h e r Corps p r o p o s a l s . 86
TRAINERS OF TEACHER TRAINERS Trainers of Teacher Trainers was funded as part of the 1967 Education Profes s i o n s D evelopment Act. first
"T" in the prog r a m title stood for
"Training" was n e v e r clear,
Whether the
"Trainers"
or
but the p r o g r a m ' s focus was
u n d e r s t o o d to be d i r e c t e d to teacher e d u c a t i o n personnel themselves, and thus indirectly to they trained.
the teacher candidates
TTT emph a s i z e d institutional change w i t h i n
teacher p r e p a r a t i o n programs,
to provide better service to
p o p u l ations least we l l - s e r v e d in the past. de v e l o p i n g "parity"
The concept of
in teacher preparation,
which was
defi n e d as the p a r t i c i p a t i o n of schools of education, liberal arts colleges,
public schools and communities
In
p l a nning and cond u c t i n g the teacher e d u c a t i o n program, one of TTT's central
was
id e a s . 87
By including liberal arts colleges and faculty as pa r tners in reform of teacher preparation, of "parity"
TTT's p r i nciple
implied that teacher e ducation's flaws wer e
k notted up with defe c t s in higher edu c a t i o n as a whole. This theoretical u n d e r p i n n i n g was a r t i c u l a t e d In a c o nference "The Year of the Liberal Arts"
organized by the
West Coast and Southwest clusters of TTT to discuss what liberal arts colleges could do to serve the education of
teachers and to improve teaching. projects participated,
In all,
forty-three TTT
rep r e s e n t i n g four regional
g r o u p i n g s . 88 In his introduction to the p u b l i s h e d version of the conference proceedings, higher and wells;
'lower'
in fact,
Don Davies argued that
"both
education continue to po i s o n each other's
it turns to be a common well."
Improving
elementary and secondary e d u c a t i o n required r e f o r m of hi g h e r education,
an d neither c o u l d succ e e d without genuine
participation by the community, m ai n consumer of education, TT T had a far shorter
w h i c h is the interested and
he c o n t i n u e d . 88 life-span than the Teacher Corps.
Created as part of the E d u c a t i o n Professions Development Act of 1967,
TTT had its Federal
funding eliminated by 1973.90
However,
in its brief exi s t e n c e it developed a range of
programs so wide that their content and organizational resist summary.
For example,
form
in a d d i t i o n to the four
different programs at CUNY d e scribed earlier,
Indiana TTT,
based at Indiana University in B loomington spo n s o r e d an "Urban College Weekend" members,
for school personnel,
liberal arts faculty,
e ducation faculty.
students,
community
and teacher
The e x p e r i e n c e included o b s e r v a t i o n at
public schools and immersion in problems and concerns of inner-city life,
including visits to bars,
families living on welfare,
court,
and a political rally.
TTT also Instituted an "Urban Semester Program" interested in urban schools,
homes of Indiana
for students
placing students r e a d y to b egin
53 their practice teaching in schools for half
the semester and
in various social service agencies for the o ther h a l f . 91 M i c higan State U n i v e r s i t y and Lansing School District attempted to create a n e w pattern of student teaching in the graduate prog r a m as part of their TTT project. u n iversity developed (Humanities,
The
"clinic teams" on subject matter lines
Social Science,
Natural Science),
faculty from each discipline,
a public school
wit h two teacher,
three experienced teachers serving as fellows.
and
In addition,
TTT attempted to s t i mulate both g r a duate and u n d e rgraduate programs of inner city edu c a t i o n that w o u l d w o r k wit h community memb e r s to p r o d u c e mat e r i a l s for teaching. According to a b r o chure p u b lished by the TTT project of M i c higan State U n i v e r s i t y and the Lans i n g School District, TTT nati o n a l l y c o n tained 57 sites w h i c h d i f f e r e d in their approach but were all a i m e d at
"in-service development of
teacher t r a i n e r s . " 92 S ince each project translated the goal of "parity"
into a different p r o g r ammatic form,
presentations of TTT p r o grams is possible,
no summ a r y
but comparing
four co-extant TTT proje c t s of C ity U n i v e r s i t y of Ne w York illuminates the v a r iation in TTT sites,
as well as
conceptual similarities. TTT at City Univ e r s i t y of New York, of new teachers for New Y ork City, Brooklyn,
City,
the m ajor trainer
had projects at Hunter,
and R i c hmond Colleges.
E ach wa s managed by
an advi sory board composed of edu c a t i o n faculty,
liberal
54 arts faculty,
public school representatives,
community representatives,
students,
and
r e flecting the concern w ith
" p a r i t y . ” CUN Y ' s TTT s t r essed m a k i n g both the faculty and students, program,
u n d e r g r a d u a t e s enrolled in the teacher training into teachers an d learners,
arguing that the real
trainers of teachers w e r e people at all levels of education, from eleme n t a r y pupils to college f a c u l t y . 9 ® Faculty of Hunter TT T made c u r r i c u l u m p l a n n i n g their focus, body,
i n v olving representatives from the Hunter student community,
and H a r l e m public schools.
T hey decided
w h e never p o s s i b l e to teach liberal art s courses conc u r r e n t l y w i t h related educational methods courses. studied Span i s h for one year,
unless
All TTT students
they were alre a d y
fluent in a language indigenous to a n inner-city population. The unde r l y i n g educational p r omoting open classrooms
philo s o p h y of the project was in city schools.
on d e veloping field-based training,
w i t h edu c a t i o n courses
held at the p r a c t i c e - t e a c h i n g sites.
Liberal arts
instruction c o n tinued at the Hunter campus. p r i nciple of
Hunte r ' s focused
The TTT
" p a r i t y ” was translated at Hunter into "maximum
responsiveness to input by TTT students and mini m u m responsiveness
to c o mmunity input."94
Vivian W i n d l e y served as TTT project director at City College.
The prog r a m a i m e d to improve eleme n t a r y e d ucation
in Harlem schools directly,
but thro u g h this to effect
changes in teacher edu c a t i o n within the City College
program.
"Parity" was attempted by the extensive use of
community people as volunteers in open classrooms and the training of para-professionals. Also,
liberal arts faculty
were recruited as "consultants" from City College to teach public school classes directly and in so doing assist in the inservice aspects of the program.
For instance,
one
sociology professor taught a class on the functions of families to first graders,
posing a research question for
them about their their own family. An evaluation of the lesson noted that the instructor's approach contradicted fundamentals of the open classroom approach which stressed students'
demonstrated readiness for an experience. TTT
developed a lab for open education that project participants hoped would be exported,
although Windley stressed that not
all teachers could or should use open education,
and that
the approach could not succeed without thoroughly prepared teachers,
as well as support from school and community.
Student teachers in the TTT project were supervised by "clinical instructors," public school teachers trained by City College.95 TTT at Richmond College in Staten Island disintegrated shortly after it began.
In his resignation,
director noted that the project guidelines,
the program to identify
groups of change agents among the professors of teacher education, professors of liberal arts, teachers,
parents,
public school
community representatives,
and college
56 students,
had been too vague.
Another p r o b l e m cited in
a nalysis of the defunct program was h o s t i l i t y b e t w e e n school staff and community members on one side and TTT "change agents" on the other.
Furthermore,
a l t h o u g h 6096 of the
Richm o n d College graduates entered teaching, arts faculty wer e skeptical about students'
the liberal career
o r i e n tation and the college's career-o r i e n t e d programs,
like
teacher p r e p a r a t i o n . 96 B r o o k l y n College TTT created a pilot prog r a m to -4
transfer teacher training to the public school in what
it
termed a "field-centered training model." The program coincided w ith the major focus of the B r o o k l y n College teacher education department,
which had m a d e the entire
senior year of the under g r a d u a t e prog r a m field-based.
While
the project cited as a major goal increased parti c i p a t i o n of public school staff, c o mmunity members
parents,
liberal a rts faculty,
in teacher education,
and
evaluators reported
that it didn't meet TTT requirements to hav e public school personnel,
students,
teacher trainers.
and c o mmunity memb e r s educate the
The p r o j e c t ’s funds w e r e cut and the
project director r e s i g n e d . 97 EVALUATING TTT AN D THE TEACHER CORPS Evaluating the success of the Teacher Corps a n d TTT is problematic because no consensus emerged du r i n g the period of this literature review over the fundamental q u e s t i o n of whether urban teachers of disadvantaged s t u d e n t s required
57 special preparation.
Even advocates of specialized
preparation of u rban teachers differed as to the essential content of suc h preparation since they dis a g r e e d about the reasons for students'
a c a demic failure.
p rograms can be judged by their success
However,
the
in accomp l i s h i n g
their respective goals. Another c o m p l ication is judging the reliability of the techniques used to assess the programs.
Program participants
did not always complete q u estions on evaluation forms if they found them to be i r r e l evant.98 However,
this limitation
s hould not by itself discredit the e valuations because especially in T TT's case, visits and interviews.
a ssessments relied heavily on site
For example,
an e a r l y study of 40 TTT
sites had i n spection teams of four people,
each member a
r epresentative of one of the four groups w h i c h were to share "parity" visit and interview p a r t i c i p a n t s . 99
Two prominent
participants in TTT and the Teacher Corps have confirmed that my assessment,
s ynthesized from reports,
does indeed
correspond to their r e c o l l e c t i o n . 100 Almost all of the literature on the "change agent" s trategy of Teacher Corps p r o jects observed that interns m ade ineffective
"change a g e n t s . " 101
trained to be "change agents"
Teacher Corps interns
tended to regard "any
limitations on their actions to be denials" of their role and
"overreact
to even r easonable organizational
r e s t r a i n t s . " 102 A summary of data about ten Teacher Corps
p rojects
in 1969-1970 concluded that u sing interns as
"change agents"
created d i s c o r d a n c e in s c h o o l s , 103 perhaps
because interns were
"not infrequently disrespectful
authority,
of tradition,
resentful
c o m p r o m i s e . " 104
of
impatient w ith
A non-technical summ a r y of data
collected on ten Teacher Corps programs in 1969 - 1970 observed,
"No matter ho w w e l l - t r a i n e d the interns or the
teachers,
it seems u n r e a listic to hold them responsible for
leading school
reform w h i l e they face the day-to-day,
time-
consuming tasks and the constraints of their j o b s . " 105 A director of the national Teacher Corps c o nfirmed this critique w h e n he observed that interns thought they were "going to straighten things out,
but it turned out to be a
lot tougher than they imagined.
Those wh o had bee n in the
Peace C o r p s ... thought it was tougher here by f a r . " 105 A study w hich compared graduates of two programs, of them the Teacher Corps,
one
d e s igned to prod u c e teachers
capable of acting as change agents,
found that neither
"change agent" g roup had a greater demand for a u t onomy than a control group of traditiona l l y - t r a i n e d teachers but that "change agents" had a lower sense of power. echoes Dunne's o b jections to M.A.T. which,
she said,
This result
"change agent" programs
encouraged an elitist disregard for
traditionally-trained teachers and areas of shared concern.
107
and vigor"
The Teacher Corps counterposed the "freshness that the young interns would bring into schools
69 to inadequacies of older,
e x p e r ienced s t a f f . 108 In so doing,
the Teacher Corps proje c t s did not encourage and probably d iminished interns'
r e c e p tivity to p e rceiving problems and
experiences they sha r e d w i t h v e t e r a n teachers.
Their high
expectations ma y have fused wit h a sense of isolation from veteran teachers to cr e a t e a grea t e r sense of powerlessness. Gaylord Nelson termed the Teac h e r Corps successful"
"effective and
in b r i nging school an d u n i v e r s i t y together in
teacher education,
but the report of the National A d v i s o r y
Council on Education Professions D e v e l opment gave a m ore complicated and critical assessment of the Teacher Corps role.
Basing its conclu s i o n s on n i n e studies,
the Council
noted that institutions of higher education had isolated the Teacher Corps programs a n d made little change in their teacher training curricula;
project success depended on the
managerial abilities of project p a r t i c i p a n t s and their previous organizational relationships;
the m o r e local school
districts were involved in training decisions, innovation occurred in the classroom.
Edelfelt,
the less Corwin,
and
Hanna also noted tensions between school and university. School districts tended to neglect
the Teacher Corps miss i o n
of change to give teachers relief:
teachers wa n t e d interns
to be assistants but interns wa n t e d to be change a g e n t s . In addition,
interns were frequently d i s s a t i s f i e d wit h the
u n i v e r s i t y t e a c h i n g . 109 One evaluation concluded that the Teac h e r Corps
succeeded in changing curriculum, Teacher Corps graduates,
but only in classrooms of
and that student-teacher
interaction was not changed.
This finding confirmed that
teacher education could influence curriculum,
which was a
primary goal of the Teacher Corps and a valuable one. However,
its broader aim of reforming urban schools
themselves was unfulfilled. strategy undercut this goal,
Indeed,
the "change agent"
for in assuming that individual
teachers could be catalysts for school-wide change,
it
ignored the institutional pressures which caused veteran teachers to perform as they did. energetic,
Thus, even the young,
idealistic teachers trained by the Teacher Corps
were unable to fundamentally alter what their schools taught or how teachers could relate to their students. The U.S. Office of Education conducted a study of sixth cycle Teacher Corps graduates,
comparing them with other
teachers of grades two through six in the same district. Teacher Corps graduates were superior in developing ethnically relevant curricula, using community resources and initiating parental contact, but there were no differences in the degree of attention given pupil behavior problems or their affective tone in the classroom. differences in students'
In addition, no
reading achievement were measured
although students of Teacher Corps graduates did score significantly higher on a self-concept scale.110 Here again, the success of the program was in recruiting and training
teachers who could s h a p e instructional content to their students'
needs and desires,
matter how well
but
individual teachers,
no
they a c c o m plished their curricular tasks,
could not obviate
i : s t _ t
students in a custodial
:tional pressures to deal with fashion.
Nor could their curricular
improvements boost student scores on s t a n d ardized reading tests, w h i c h was a n o t h e r indication that factors beyond the individual
teacher's p erformance had to be consi d e r e d in
des i g n i n g teacher e d u c a t i o n programs that w ould improve students1 achievements. Ironically,
two issues identified as problems for the
Teacher Corps were aspe c t s of TTT's raison d'etre.
TTT's
focus on institut i o n a l i z a t i o n of change a d d ressed the d i f f iculties Teacher Corps projects suffered w h e n they remained isolated w i t h i n universities,
facing s harp
resistance to their effo r t s to reform teacher education c u r r i c u l a . 1-11
Also,
Teacher Corps project d i rectors learned
through painful e x p e r i e n c e that they had to share power over p r eparing teachers w i t h school personnel and com m u n i t y groups,
and that colla b o r a t i o n had bot h
operational instance,
political and
levels w h i c h were quite d i f f e r e n t . 1 1 ^ For
early Teacher Corps projects
invited parents and
community agencies to v o t e on the comp e t e n c y of interns,
a
task which community membe rs asked the professional educators to assume —
or leave them out of the project
entirely.
" p a r i t y , ” encour a g i n g partic i p a t i o n
The idea of
62 of all education's constituencies in teacher preparation, was a TTT goal from its inception. The Teacher Corps e x perience raised "serious questions about whether teacher education can serve as an effective m e c h a n i s m for educational r e f o r m . " 113 TTT's experience su g gested otherwise.
TTT's goal,
reform of teacher
p r e p a r a t i o n through the institutional students, faculty,
commmunity,
involvement of
school personnel,
and liberal arts
was osten s i b l y less a m bitious than the Teacher
Corps objective,
sparking systemic change in e d u c a t i o n for
the disadv a n t a g e d b y a ttracting and training a "different breed"
of teacher.
However,
TTT's focus seems to have
fostered a capacity for systemic reform w h i c h the agent"
concept discouraged.
d e v e l o p i n g positive,
"change
TTT's explicit commitment to
functioning r e l a tionships betw e e n all
of teacher education's c o n stituencies contradicted the Teacher Corps'
conception of the individual teacher's
a bil i t y to reform schooling. Sites in both TT T and the Teac h e r Corps frequently s t r essed the importance of p r o s p ective teachers becoming familiar wit h the culture and com m u n i t y of their students. Both programs disavowed the idea that the culture of disadvantaged students made them, c ommunities
their families,
or their
"incompetent" and implicitly focused on
i mproving the teacher's ability to link s c h ooling to the child's existence outside the school walls.
But these
63 explicit aims of the Teacher Corps wer e contradicted by its emphasis on the special contribution the "new breed" of teacher could m ake because its focus on the individual teacher's a b ilities belied the importance of institutional factors. Although the literature on TTT does not explore this distinction, solution,
it appears that TTT appl i e d an institutional
a change in the power relations among teacher
education's constituencies, defect,
that is,
to what was an institutional
the failure of u rban schools and school
systems to adapt to the educational disadvantaged students. of
requirements of
For this reason,
"parity" was adhered to,
when the pr i n c i p l e
TTT seems to have been
successful in developing teacher p r e p a r a t i o n programs that encouraged innovative teaching techniques that would not otherwise have been accepted by parents and community members. While there is noth i n g in the descri p t i v e literature about TTT w h i c h makes specific reference to the work of Comer or Reissman,
TTT's p r i nciple of "parity"
in effect
e x pressed the importance of the r e l a t ionship between education's constituencies.
Reissman and Comer identified
the relationships between home, as essential
family,
to successful education.
student,
and school
TTT added higher
e d ucation and teacher e d ucation to the list,
supplementing
the conceptual purview of Comer and R e i s s m a n ' s work and
64 reinforcing the idea that substantial improvement in the education of disadvantaged youth depended on cooperation, trust, and respect among students, educators, parents,
educators,
teacher
and citizens. CONCLUSIONS
Several important conclusions can be drawn about the scholarship and programs designed to improve preparation of teachers of disadvantaged students in urban schools from 1960 to 1975. First,
the Teacher Corps experience demonstrated that
federal intervention in the preparation of teachers of disadvantaged students could be beneficial,
as it was in
training teachers to create and select classroom materials which took disadvantaged students'
interests and experiences
into account. While this important contribution of the Teacher Corps was undercut by its focus on the individual teacher's ability to promote school-wide change,
it
nonetheless showed that the federal government could play a helpful role in improving the quality of instruction in urban schools by funding programs to improve teachers'
skill
in developing appropriate materials for their classrooms. With T T T , the federal government succeeded in creating a program which produced a more effective strategy for introducing change in urban schools. TTT's commitment to "parity" expressed an educational vision which was clear enough to permit evaluation — and disqualification — of
65 specific sites, and innovation.
yet general enough to en c o u r a g e diversity In contrast,
atte m p t i n g to replicate the
success of its original project at Cardozo H i g h School,
the
Teacher Corps m a i n t a i n e d the Cardozo site's organizational components,
but lost the se n s i t i v i t y to local school
c onditions which m ade the initial project successful. B y encour a g i n g local personnel
to implement TTT's
commitment to "parity" as they thought best,
TTT generated a
vari e t y of effective models to Improve urban teacher preparation.
TTT's formula seems to have ef f e c t i v e l y
ad d r e s s e d the p r o b l e m of re p l i c a t i n g succe s s f u l projects by replacing the quest
for "one best system" of urban teacher
preparation with a quest for m u l t i p l e solutions. projects failed, College,
as they did at R i c h m o n d and Brooklyn
when local personnel did not u n d e r s t a n d or wer e not
committed to TTT principles.
This raises another
organizational p r o b l e m w h i c h TTT did not address, because of its s h o r t l i v e d existence:
Nonetheless,
perhaps
How can institutional
reform be implemented when local personnel change?
TTT
feel no des i r e to
TTT's most important legacy lies not
so m u c h in the s p e cific projects that were crea t e d u n d e r its umbrella but in its commitment and e f f e c t i v e n e s s in e ncouraging those ventures. Second,
efforts to generate a defin i t i v e list of
attributes needed to teach d i s a d v a n t a g e d stude n t s pr o v e d as fruitless as attempts to locate the cause of
d i s a d v a n t a g e m e n t . The educational
cons e q u e n c e s of
disadvantagement were g e n e r a l l y ag r e e d upon, about its causes eluded the educational
but consensus
community.
Research
considered definitive by a d vocates of the "culture of poverty" w a s often s u m m a r i l y rejected by critics of the theory.
Further,
a rese a r c h - g e n e r a t e d s o l ution to
prepar a t i o n of teachers of d i s a d v a n t a g e d students proved illusory.
Efforts to "solve" the p r o b l e m of d i s a d v a n t a g e d
children's
lack of success
in school through research about
students'
language,
behavior,
and cognitive abilities,
teachers'
values and pedagogical skills were p r o b a b l y doomed
to be r e j e c t e d by e d ucators whose political
or
thinking caused
them to frame the issue differently. In addition,
the political
implications of the
c ontroversy about the "culture of poverty" enco u r a g e d researchers to examine the prob l e m either as one of student d e ficiency or as a limitation of teachers and schools, rather than analyzing the r e l a t ionship betwee;. the components and locating them in a w ider context.
Because the
explanations were p r e s e n t e d as m u t u a l l y exclusive,
educators
generally failed to r e cognize the differ e n c e s among d isadvantaged students,
as James Comer later noted.
The
either/or d i c hotomy of the debate may aisc expl a i n wh y educators used
"disadvantaged" and
to describe the problem-,
"urban"
i n terchangeably
the geographical d e s c r i p t i o n was
e mpirically correct and had the vi r t u e of s k i rting the
67 po l i t i c a l l y controversial
implications of "deprived" and
"disadvantaged."
1.D iane Ravitch, The Troubled Crusade: A m e r i c a n Ed u c a t i o n 1945 - 1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1983). 2.Helen Storen, The First Semester: B e ginning Teach e r s in Urban Schools (New York: Project True, Hu n t e r College of the City U n i v e r s i t y of N e w York, 1964), 24. 3. I b i d . , 25. 4. Ibid.,
1.
5.J. M c V i c k e r Hunt, The Challenge of Incompetence and Pove r t y (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1969). 6. Gertrude Downing et a l ., The P r e p a r a t i o n of Teachers for Schools in Cult u r a l l y Deprived Neighb o r h o o d s (Flushing, New York: The BRIDGE Project, Queens College of City Univ e r s i t y of N e w York, 1965). 7. F r a n k Riessman, The Cultu r a l l y Depri v e d Child Harper and Row, 1962), 3. 8. Ibid.,
(New York:
82.
9. James Comer, "Black Education: U rban R e v i e w 8 (Fall 1975): 166.
A Holistic View," The
10. Raym o n d S. Adams, Karuna Ahmad, and Robert Jameson, "Sociology and the T r a i n i n g of Teachers of the Disadvantaged" (United States Office of Education, OEG# 0-9354719-1712-725, 1969), 359. 11. Raym o n d S. Adams, Nocholas J. Sobin, and Gloria Lockerman, "Linguistics and the Training of Teachers of the Disadvantaged" (United States Office of E d u c a t i o n OEG# 09354719-1712-725, 1969), preface. 12. A. H arry Passow, M i r i a m Goldberg, an A b r a h a m J. Tannenbaum, eds., Edu c a t i o n of the D i s a d v a n t a g e d (New York: Holt, Rinehart % Winston), introduction. 13. Eleanor Leacock, ed.. The Culture of Poverty: (New York: Simon and Schuster), 9.
A Critique
14.W e bster's New C ollegiate D i c t i o n a r y , 2d e d . , s.v. "deprivation."
66 15.
Ibid.,
s.v.
"disadvantaged."
16. Mi r i a m Goldberg, "Factors A f f e c t i n g Educational Attainment in D e pressed Urban Areas," in Passow, Goldberg, and Tannenbaum, eds., Edu c a t i o n of The D i s a d v a n t a g e d (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967), 50. 17. Ma r t i n Deutsch, "The Role of Social Class in Language Development," in Passow, Goldberg, and Tannenbaum, eds., E d u c a t i o n of The D i s a d v a n t a g e d , 217. 18. Dan Dodson, "Education and the Powerless," in Passow, Goldberg, and Tannenbaum, eds., Edu c a t i o n of The Disadvantaged. 19. Editors' preface to Leon Eisenberg, "Strengths of the Inner City Child," in Passow, Goldberg, and Tannenbaum, eds., Education of The D i s a d v a n t a g e d . 78. -1
20. Janet Castro, "Untapped Verbal Flue n c y of Black Schoolchildren," and Ernest Drucker, "Cognitive Styles and Class Stereotypes," in Eleanor Leacock, ed., The Culture of Poverty: A Critigue (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971). 21. Paul Goodman, "The Universal Trap," in The U rban School Crisis (New York: League for Industrial D e m o c r a c y and United F e deration of T e e a c h e r s , 1966). 22.Jeremy Larner, "The New Y o r k School Crisis," School C r i s i s . 11.
in The U rban
23. John L. Parker, "Staffing Schools for the U rban Disadvantaged" (Ed.D. dissertation, Harv a r d University, 1966), 32. 24. John L. O'Brian, "A M a s ter's degree P r o g r a m for the Preparation of Teachers of Disadv a n t a g e d Youth," in Bruce W. T uck m a n and John L. O'Brian, eds., Pre p a r i n g to Teach the D i s a dvantaged (New York: The Free Press, 1969), 172. 25. Larner, 26. Goodman,
"The N e w Y o r k School Crisis," "The Universal Trap,"
25.
67.
27. Howard S. Adelman, Teacher E d ucation and the Disadvantaged. Some Basic Issues and Some Partial A n s w e r s (Los Angeles: California State D epartment of Education, August 1970): 74. 28. Orland F. Furno an d J.S. Kidd, New Teachers for the Inner City (Washington, D.C.: Capitol Publications, 1974),
prefac
69 29.
I b i d ., v i .
30.
Ibid.,
138.
31. Faith W e i n s t e i n Dunne, "Survival of the Innovative Teacher: P r e p a r i n g Liberal Arts Graduates to Wor k for Change in the Public Schools" (Ed.D. dissertation. Harvard University, 1973). 32. Parker, 32.
"Staffing Schools for the U rban Disadvantaged,"
33. F. Herbert Hit e and W i l l i a m H. Drummond, "The Teacher Corps and Collaboration," Journal of Teacher Edu c a t i o n 26 (Summer 1975): 133. 34. Terrell H. Bell, "The Progress of Teacher Corps," Journal of Teac h e r Education 26 (Summer 1975): 99. 35. L arry Cuban, To Make a D ifference - T e a ching in the Inner City (New York: The Free Press). 36. Washington, D.C. Public Schools, "The U r b a n Teacher Corps 1963 - 1968" (Washington, D.C.: ERIC Document Reproduction Serv i c e No. ED 001 653, 1968). 37. Terrell Bell, 38. Larry Cuban,
"The Progress of the Teac h e r Corps." To Make a D i f f e r e n c e . 150.
39. Hite and Drummond, C o l l a b o r a t i o n , " 133.
"The Teacher Corps and
40. Dunne, "Survival of the Innovative Teacher"; Parker, "Staffing Schools for the Urban Disadvantaged"; James P. Steffensen, "Teacher Corps: A Nervous Decade of Educational Innovation" Journal of Teacher Education 26 (Summer 1975); Bennetta B. Washington, "Cardozo Project in Urban Teaching: A Pilot Project in Curriculum Development Uti l i z i n g Retur n e d Peace Corps V olunteers in an U rban High School" (Washington, D.C.: ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 001 653, 1964); Washington, D.C. Public Schools, "The Urban Teacher Corps 1963 - 1968." 41. Parker, 96.
"Staffing Schools for the Urban Disadvantaged,"
42. Mortimer Kreuter, "The Teacher in the B r o w n Paper Bag," The Urban Rev i e w 1 (May 1966). 43.
Ibid.
70 44. Mar t i n Berube, "Teachers and the U rban School Crisis," in The U r b a n School C r i s i s , 72. 45.
O'Brian,
46.
Ibid.,
Pre p a r i n g to Teach the D i s a d v a n t a g e d . 167.
169.
47. Downing et
a l .,The
P r e p a r a t i o n of T e a c h e r s .
48. B. Othanel Smith et a l ., Teachers for the Real World (Washington, D.C.: A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1969). 49.
Ibid.,
pref a c e ix.
50.
Ibid.,
4.
51.
Ibid.,
13.
52.
Ibid.,
11.
53. Downing et a l ., The Prepar a t i o n of T e a c h e r s , 189. 54.
Smith,
Teachers for the Real W o r l d , 27.
55.
Ibid.,
70.
56.
Ibid.,
71.
57.
Ibid.,
5.
58. Cuban,
T o Mak e a D i f f e r e n c e , xx.
59.
Ibid.,
21.
60.
Steffensen,
"The Teacher Corps."
61. Cuban,
To Make a D i f f e r e n c e . 39.
62.
"Survival of the Innovative Teacher," abstract.
Dunne,
63. Gaylord Nelson, guest editorial, Education 26 (Summer 1975).
Journal of T e a cher
64.
110.
Steffensen,
65. Bell,
"The Teacher Corps,"
"The Progress of the Teacher Corps," 99.
'66. Hite and Drummond,
"The Teacher Corps and Collaboration."
71 67. William B. Hawley and Joseph T. V a l i a n t ! , "Trainers of Teacher Trainers" (E. Lansing: United States Office of Education, OEG# 0-9-324146-2165-721, ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 043 593, 1970). 68. Hawley and Vallanti, "Trainers of Teachers of Teachers"; Gerald R. Smith et al., "Stirrings in Teacher Education" (Bloomington, IN: Indiana TTT, 1974). 69.Roy A. Edelfelt, Ronald Corwin, and Elizabeth Hanna, Lessons from the Teacher Corps (Washington, D.C.: National Education Association, 1974). 70. B. Washington, 71. Ibid., 72.
"The Cardozo Project," 5.
introduction.
Ibid.
73. Washington, 74.
I b i d . , 3.
75.
I b i d . , 3.
D.C. Public Schools,
"The Urban Teacher Corps."
76. I b i d . , 4. 77. Washington School of Psychiatry, "Teacher Corps - Two Years of Progress and Plans for the Future" (Washington, D.C.: ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 038 350, 1968). 78. National Addvisory Council on Education Professions Development, Teacher C o r p s : Past or Prologue? (Washington, D.C.: ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 109 083, 1975). 79. Hite and Drummond, 80. Nelson,
"The Teacher Corps and Collaboration."
Journal of Teacher Education editorial,
98.
81.Interview with Richard Graham, "The Teacher Corps Concept: A Journal Interview," Journal of Teacher Education 26 (Summer 1975): 113. 82. Washington School of Psychiatry, 83. Steffensen, 84. Edelfelt, C o r p s , 11.
"Teacher Corps,"
Corwin,
85. Hite and Drummond, Collaboration," 133.
and Hanna,
"Teacher Corps," 38.
110. Lessons from the Teacher
"The Teacher Corps and
72 86. National A d v i s o r y Council on E d u c a t i o n Profes s i o n s Development, Teacher Corps: Past or P r o l o g u e ? . 87. Smith et al.,
"Stirrings
in Teac h e r Education."
88.Donald N, Bigelow, ed., The Liberal Arts an d Teacher Education (Lincoln, NEr Univ. of N e b r a s k a Press, 1971).
89. Don Da v i e s in Donald N. Bigelow, and Teac h e r E d u c a t i o n , x i .
ed.,
The Liberal Arts
90. Evalu a t i o n R e s e a r c h Center, "Trainers of Teacher Trainers, vol. II, In-Depth Study: C i t y U n i v e r s i t y of N e w York," (University of Virginia, 1973). 91. Smith et al.,
"Stirrings in T e a c h e r Education."
92. Ha w l e y and Vallanti,
"Trainers of Teachers of Teachers."
93. Evalu a t i o n R e s e a r c h Center, 94.
Ibid.,
45.
95. E v a l u a t i o n R e s earch Center, 96.
Ibid.
97.
Ibid.
"Trainers of Teacher Trainers."
98. Vit o Perrone,
"Trainers of Teacher Trainers."
in t e r v i e w with author,
7 D e c e m b e r 1989.
99. Walter H. Crockett et a l ., "Report on TTT Site Visits Conducted in N o v ember and December, 1969. An Overview" (ED 043 597, not available from EDRS.) 100. Vito Perrone, in a n interview w i t h the au t h o r 7 December 1989, n oted that the asses s m e n t was h i s t o r i c a l l y correct a l t h o u g h lacking the n a rrative element w h i c h w o u l d amplify it, Larry Cuban, who was a m e m b e r of the P resident's Ad v isory Council on the National Teac h e r Corps, also confirmed in a letter to the author, d a t e d 18 December 1989, that the a s sessment given here c o r r e s p o n d s to the advice the Council g ave to Rich a r d Graham, then Director of the National Teacher Corps. 101. National A d v isory Council on E d u c a t i o n Professions Development, Tea c h e r Corps: Past or P r o l o g u e . 102.Delbart K. Clear and Donald E. Edgar, "Training Change Agents in the Public School Context" (Paper presented at the American Educational R e s e a r c h Association, M a r c h 1970. ERIC
73 Document R e p r o d u c t i o n Service No.
ED 039 178),
103. Edelfelt,
Lessons from the Teac h e r C o r n s .
Corwin,
and Hanna,
45.
104. Al f r e d A. A r t h a n d Jennings L. Wagoner, Jr., "Teacher Corps Interns: A Different Breed," Educational L e a d e r s h i p 26 (May 1969): 801. 105. Edelfelt, C o r p s , 12. 106.
Graham,
Corwin,
and Hanna,
Lessons from the Teacher
"The Teacher Corps C o n c e p t ,"113.
107. Clear and Edgar, "Training Change Ag e n t s in the Pu b l i c School Context"; Dunne, "Survival of the I n novative Teacher." 108. Bell,
"The P r o g r e s s of the Teacher Corps,"
99.
109. Nelson, editorial in Journal of Teacher E d u c a t i o n . 99; National Advisory Council on E d u c a t i o n Profes s i o n s Development, Teacher Corps: Past or P r o l o g u e ; Edelfelt, Corwin, a n d Hanna, Lessons from the Teacher C o r p s . 110. D avid Marsh, "An Evaluation of Sixth C ycle Teacher Corps Graduates," Journal of T e a c h e r Education 26 (Summer
1975).
111. National A d v i s o r y Council o n E d ucation P rofessions Development, Teacher Corps: Past or P r o l o g u e . 112. Hite and Drummond, 113. Edelfelt, C o r p s , 13.
Corwin,
"The T e a c h e r Corps a n d Collaboration." and Hanna,
Lessons from the Teacher
74 CHAPTER TWO Though political changes altered the terms of debate from the late 1960's through the e arly 1980's about educating
"disadvantaged"
students in u r b a n schools,
d i scourse remained p o l a r i z e d over the source of academic failure.
In this second period,
new strat e g i e s to improve
education for "disadvantaged" students in u r b a n schools emerged,
most importantly,
education,
multicultural
schools" movement.
competency based teacher
education,
However,
and the "effective
they e m b odied the earlier
p o l a r ization between auth o r s who located respons i b i l i t y for the acade m i c failure of cognitive or social teachers'
"disadvantaged" students in their
inadequacies and others wh o faulted
skills and attitudes for lack of student
achievement.
One s t r iking difference in this next phase of
s cholarship was the evapor a t i o n of material a dvocating that urban teachers,
either as
"change agents" or unionists,
transform school structures which blocked student achievement.
In fact,
onl y the "effective schools"
proponents discussed h o w characteristics of urban school systems a f f e c t e d student peformance. MULTI C U L T U R A L EDUCATION Attempts by civil educational
rights activists
to remedy
inequalities for black students sparked similar
efforts by other ethnic groups,
as well as a d vocates of
expanded opportunities for women and the p hysically
75 handicapped.1
By 1970 writers had b egun to describe
A m e r i c a n schools'
"rich diversity"
students in e a s t e r n cities;
of students:
Chinese,
Japanese,
Islands immigrants in the west e r n states; in the midwest and southwest;
Puerto Rican and Pacific
Mexi c a n Americans
Cubans in Florida;
and native Americans throughout the country.
and black
In addition,
immigrants concentrated in a p a rticular m e t r o p o l i t a n area, for instance the A s i a n Indians in Ne w Y o r k City,
demanded
recognition of their n e e d s . 2 This growing concern that non-white,
non-n a t i v e
speakers of Engl i s h w ere being educa t i o n a l l y shortchanged enlarged the category of "disadvantaged" students. strategy,
"multicultural education," developed,
A new
r e flecting
this a w a r e n e s s . The Thesaurus of ERIC D e s c r iptors introduced "multicultural education"
in 1979, d e f i n i n g it as
"education
involving two or more ethnic groups and d e s igned to help participants clar i f y their own ethnic identity and a ppr e c i a t e that of others, stereotyping,
reduce p r ejudice and
and promote cultural p l u r a l i s m and equal
participation."3 Advocates of multicultural e d ucation focused on the need to change t e a c h e r s 1 "expectations, strategies" which,
they argued,
attitudes and
caused student failure
because an u nconscious reflex rooted in the t e acher's own m i d d l e class background combined with training w h i c h consciously or u n c o n s c i o u s l y m a y not recognize the possib i l i t y of al t e r n a t i v e cultural
76 styles and c o g nitive modes. This c ombination results in a m i d d l e A m e rican e t h n o c e n t r i c i s m [sic] w h i c h is d estructive to m i n o r i t y students, students from poo r families, an d any o ther student who deviates from the mythical nor m e s p oused in teacher training i n s t i t u t i o n s . 4 Writers w h o p l a c e d respons i b i l i t y for students' academic failure on "culturally d e ficient educators" a d vocated changes in teacher e d u c a t i o n to instruct all pr o s p e c t i v e teachers,
but most e s p e c i a l l y those who taught
students from racial and language minorities, div e r s i t y was a p o s i t i v e value.
that cultural
In this perspective,
teachers above all n e e d e d skills that were consonant with the student's ethnic,
cultural,
The introduction of
and linguistic b a c k g r o u n d . 5
"multicultural education"
paral l e l e d subs t i t u t i o n of the gene r i c for the more controversial
label,
"culturally deprived."
search of ERIC shows 444 entries u s i n g disadvantaged"
"culturally
the m ore general
"disadvantaged" had supp l a n t e d use of "culturally disadvantaged"
term
"socially" and
in the Thesaurus of ERIC
Frank R i e s s m a n a l t e r e d his book title from
The C u lturally Deprived Child to The because the title was noted that
A
as a k e y term from 1966 to 1975 but only 51
from 1976 to 1982. B y 1980,
D e s c r i p t o r s ."5
term "disadvantaged"
Inner Cit y Child
"entirely inappropriate."
"new material and thinking"
Reissman
since its p u b l i cation
-in 1962 had compelled him to revise its entire contents.^ The popu l a r i t y of multicultural two other political
changes,
education was fed by
both a l l u d e d to in the
literature but frequently ignored in scholarly debate. First, an economic recession, revolts,
exacerbated by taxpayer
led to drastic reductions in state and federal
expenditures for education and the nation's cities.8 Large city school systems,
like the cities they served, were faced
with severe fiscal problems.9 Expenditures per pupil for schools in central cities were consistently below those for schools outside the central city, although the educational needs of inner city students were demonstrably greater. Correcting this "inadequacy,
inequity, and disparity"
in
school funding was the prerequisite for improving urban schools, but it was a political task confounded by another critical development,
an acknowledged failure to racially
integrate urban schools.10 While writers disputed the reasons urban schools became more racially segregated, reality was incontrovertible.
By the early 1970's,
the
large
city schools mostly served a population of racial and ethnic minority children,
especially in the older neighborhoods,
called the inner or central city.11 MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY CONTROL OF SCHOOLS The defeat of efforts to Integrate urban schools led to demands for the "transfer of decision-making powers" to the residents of racially-segregated schools.12 unanimously accepted strategy,
Though not a
this idea, which became known
as "community control" had a significant f o llowing.13 Like the advocates of multicultural education, writers who
defended com m u n i t y control did so w i t h a r g u m e n t s about the w ays in w h i c h teachers' failure.
skills and a t titudes caused student
One author e x p lained that teachers needed
"competency skills" for selecting m a terials for the b l a c k experience,
but the most crucial element in their success
w a s an under s t a n d i n g of
"personal bias and prejudices that
m ight be injected into t e a c h i n g . " 14 H i s t o r i a n s argued if this d evelopment represented a u n i q u e shift towards e t h n o c e n t r i s m in A m e r i c a n politics, contended,
as Diane Ravitch
or as Edgar G. Epps maintained,
it was a
challenge to the dominant e t h n o c e n t r i s m of those "behavioral an d cultural models...
exhibited by the A m e r i c a n descendants
of Northern E u r o p e a n s . " 15 Whether because of cuts in funding for research or d iminished interest in the subject,
far fewer studies on
u r b a n schools wer e p u blished in this period.
From 1966 to
1975 ERIC catalogued 1,373 articles or papers containing the descriptor
"urban schools." From 1976 to 1982 the number
drop p e d to 893. In Phi Delta Kappa's e xamination of the m a j o r issues confronting the teaching p r ofession in the 1970's the editor n o t e d that
"to many critics,
the problems of the inner-city
school seem i n s o l u b l e . " 16 Perhaps the intractability of u r b a n school problems d i s c o uraged the authors collection,
for none d i scussed
in the
p r o blems of teaching
di s a d v a n t a g e d students or the c o nditions in cit y schools,
79 arguably two of the profession's most important problems. "HEREDITARIANS" AND "ENVIRONMENTALISTS" In reviewing pertinent resea r c h from 1960 to 1980 on educating inner city children,
A l l a n C. O r n s t e i n devised two
categories,
"environmentalists" and " h e r e d i t a r i a n s ." He
argued that
"environmentalists"
Hunt,
B e n jamin Bloom,
J. McVicker
and Martin Deut s c h used social and economic factors,
like family setting, explain students'
cognitive styles,
lack of achievement.
w er e "hereditarians,"
or family income to On the other side
like Arthur Jensen,
and Richard Herrnstein,
W i l l i a m Shockley,
who a t t r i b u t e d academic failure to
inherited d e f i c i e n c e s .17 Al t hough Ornstein adopted the geographic city"
to describe poo r students,
black,
label
"inner
e s pecially those who were
his study ref l e c t e d the same u n d e r p i n n i n g as earlier
wor k on cultural deprivation.
The sources of
disadvantagement had changed to h e r e d i t y and environment, but the u nderlying theory remained: caused by student characteristics. and environment, control,
school
failure was
The two causes,
heredity
were not subject to student or parent
but they p r o d u c e d the symptoms that resulted In
educational
failure.
However,
Ornstein's research synthesis
omitted reference to the other body of literature w h i c h blamed the school e nvironment or teacher characteristics student
failure,
education,
ignoring material on multicultural
community control,
or the characteristics of
for
80 "effective schools." De:i*.e over the "hereditarian" r e s e a r c h focused on its basic premise rather than on implementation of the ideas. suggesting that student failure was g e n e t i c a l l y driven,
By
the
"hereditarians"
in effect undercut arguments about the need
for educational
change,
academic success.
since b i o l o g y ,
On the other hand,
not schooling,
caused
for the
"environmentalists" whose w o r k Ornstein described, the academic achievement of "disadvantaged"
b o o sting
students was
p r i marily a matter of increasing government spending to assist m i n o r i t y children to "overcome educational d isadvantages of home and e n v i r o n m e n t . " 18 Another g roup of writers whom O r n stein ignored could also be considered "environmentalists," s ince they argued that school reform could not substantially reduce "the extent of cognitive inequality,
as m e a sured b y tests of
verbal
fluency,
reading comprehension,
or mathematical
skill,
Neither school resources nor s e g r e g a t i o n has any
appreciable effect on either test scores or educational achievement,"
they m a i n t a i n e d . 19
These "environmentalists"
contended that schooling could not reduce inequality; would require economic, instance,
not educational,
use of income subsidies.
they concluded that school social
inequality.
Like
reforms, the
that
for
"hereditarians,"
reform w ould do little to correct
Although they themselves did not identify
their perspective as a "schools don't make a difference"
81 argument,
their r e s e a r c h and point of v i e w was c o m m o n l y
a s s o c i a t e d with this point of v i e w . 20 . . .Our r e s earch suggests, however, that the character of a school's output depends largely on a single input, namely the c h a r a c t eristics of the e n t ering children. Ever y t h i n g e l s e — the school budget, its policies, the characteristics of the t e a c h e r s — is either s e condary or c o m p l e t e l y i r r e l e v a n t . 21 F r a n k R e i ssman was one of the few writers wh o attempted to m ove beyond the p o l a r i z a t i o n between "environmentalists" and "hereditarians."
He contended that the debate about the
role of heredity a n d environment in relat i o n to academic achievement was "abstract and absurd" since
"hereditary
factors can only o c c u r to the extent the e nvironment brings them o u t . " 22 He a r g u e d that research s u c h as the studies Jencks used, which revealed no w i d e s p r e a d benefits from the educational programs initiated in the 1960's, was m i sleading because
its broad s c o p e did not reflect the success of
individual projects.
A d dressing a r g uments about schooling's
inability to correct
inequality,
R e i ssman e x plained that
programs had failed to s i g n ificantly improve the learning of inner cit y children because teachers had used a compensatory model
to try to m a k e the inner city child resemble a middle
class child and further, students'
did not k n o w h o w to develop
higher level skills.
But he a lso argued that
structural change in u rban school systems and the management of individual scho o l s was essential
to improve a c a d e m i c
achievement of inner city children.
Exclusive a t t e n t i o n to
82 "training and scapegoating teachers"23 had obfuscated the importance of "change of the [school] organization and the system," he w r o t e . 24
However, Reissman also warned that
improving environmental conditions,
most importantly
creating full-employment, was the single most critical measure the government could take to bolster educational achievement among inner city children. OCEAN HILL-BROWNSVILLE The dispute about the causes of and solutions to minority children's academic failure occurred in its most politically-charged form in 1968 and 1969 when leaders of the United Federation of Teachers
(UFT), the New York City
teachers union with a mostly white membership,
confronted
the mainly black and Puerto Rican advocates of a plan to decentralize administrative control of the city schools. The conflict resulted in a long,
bitter strike named after the
Brooklyn neighborhoods of Ocean Hill and Brownsville where the dispute erupted.
Debate about the strike's purposes and
effects stretched far beyond New York City's borders and echoed for years thereafter.25 Ocean Hill Brownsville became a synonym and symbol for the collapse of hope that teachers, parents, and commmunity members could work together.26 However,
the conflict was rarely analyzed in the context of
both diminished funding for school improvement and the defeat of school integration efforts, matter of record.2?
although both were a
Shortly be f o r e the strike began, use
the UFT a t t e m p t e d to
its posit i o n in contract neg o t i a t i o n s to w i n funding for
its More E f f ective Schools
(MES)
program,
improve target schools serving poor,
d e s i g n e d to
m i n o r i t y students.
The
prog r a m called for d ecreasing class size dramatically, g r o uping students heterogeneously, supplies,
materials,
pro v i d i n g additional
and counselors,
an d involving parents
and commmunity members in school management.
In a
d evelo pment w h i c h was s o o n replicated on a national scale, the Board of E d u c a t i o n reduced because,
o f f i c i a l s argued,
funding for the p r o g r a m
the Board c ould no longer rely on
federal spending for school programs.
Also,
some community
representatives quest i o n e d whether test scores of students in the pilot p r o g r a m had risen enough to justify the massive expenditures.
Furthermore,
in itself objec t i o n a b l e
the premise of the p r o g r a m was
to some educators who saw MES
removing res p o n s i b i l i t y for students'
failure from the
school system and placing it on the family and community, MES was faulted for tying academic a chievement to the success of effo r t s to "approximate the environmental c onditions of s u b urban schools
in inner city schools," an
a p p r o a c h which its critics complained condemned a w h o l e way of life as inadequate.^® Linking the problem of reduced federal school aid to the failure of school
integration,
D avid C ohen p r e d i c t e d the
c o llision betw e e n the community and teachers union a year
84 before the strike began. He argued that community control was a strategy designed to substitute for racial integration, an understandable but harmful response to the civil rights movement's failure to integrate the city schools.
Cohen maintained that the community control
strategy ignored the dire need for massive new resource reallocation and,
in fact, dampened prospects for mounting a
popular challenge to the reductions in federal aid.30 The UPT and its MES strategy also accepted, segregated schooling,
implicitly,
and in so doing ignored the barriers
to learning inherent in schooling segregated by race and class,
Cohen argued. Yet, even vast amounts of money poured
into ghetto schools would scarcely begin to compensate for their racial and social isolation.
Thus,
neither MES nor
community control could succeed in significantly altering conditions in poor,
city schools, he argued,
bowing to segregated schooling,
because in
each sacrificed the
political mainspring of a successful campaign to revise the nation's social and political priorities and win the new funds needed to improve urban education.31 COMPETENCY BASED TEACHER EDUCATION The bitter controversy about the poor academic achievement of minority students combined w ith funding cuts for schools to swell support for a new strategy to improve teacher preparation for urban schools: teacher education.
competency based
From the early 1 9 7 0 's, competency based
or performance based teacher education (CBTE and PBTE) dominated discourse about teacher education.32 Both CBTE and PBTE were introduced in the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors in 1972, with CBTE supplanting PBTE in March 1980.33 From 1966 to 1975, ERIC recorded 478 articles and papers using "CBTE" as a major descriptor;
from 1976 to 1982 the number jumped
to 1,555, about the same number using "compensatory education"
(1,593) and "multicultural education"
major descriptors.
One author noted,
"rarely,
(1,202) as
if ever, has
any movement swept through teacher education so rapidly or captured the attention of so many in so short a time as has the competency-based movement."34 The author did not, however, quote any large-scale surveys of teacher preparation programs to support this conclusion. While CBTE's vocabulary and precepts prevailed in the literature, it may not have actually altered practices in schools of education. Components of CBTE programs varied widely, description,
but one
identified as the "best-known" definition,
outlined these essential characteristics:
students'
progress
depended on their ability to perform satisfactorily discrete teaching tasks or competencies.
The competencies were to be
based on actual teaching conditions,
stated to teacher-
candidates in advance so they would know what they were supposed to accomplish, and subjected to public scrutiny. The teacher preparation program had to assist the student in
86 acquiring these competencies, format,
u s u a l l y in an individualized
known as an "instructional m o d u l e . " 35
Critics of CBTE objected to its unde r l y i n g premise that teaching could be divided into discrete skills,
its
"claim
to scientific stature," and the attempt to standardize teaching through formal performance criteria, a rgued suited schooling's bureaucratic,
w hich they
not pedagogical,
n e e d s . 36 "The idea that there are specific classroom situations to*be hand l e d by special skills learned in s pecific modules of teacher training is a bureaucratic dream q uite divorced from the realities of the modern classroom," one educator fu m e d . 37 Another author argued that CBTE's "allegedly systematic n a t u r e ” was c o n t r adicted by its reliance on pr i m a r i l y prescriptive teaching and learning t h e ories.36 Furthermore,
CBTE over l o o k e d the influence of
the teacher's values and attitudes,
since,
by definition,
only what could be assessed object i v e l y could be included. C B T E ’s claim to individualize teacher preparation, the teacher-candidate into his or her own training, bogus because at the onset of an y module,
drawing was
the teacher-in-
training would not know what skills were needed.
Finally,
CBTE failed to d r a w distinctions about the values of the various c o m p e t e n c i e s . 39 To a great extent, legislatures,
CBTE was driven by mandates by state
which used their au t h o r i t y over teacher
licensing and c e r t ification to introduce CBTE into teacher
87 preparation.
A s u r v e y of state edu c a t i o n departments
conducted in 1972 revealed just h o w w i d e s p r e a d were interest in and support for a d o ption of CBTE: evaluating the idea,
nine st a t e s were
six were launching evaluations,
thirteen were w o r k i n g for future implementation,
seven
states w e r e w a t ching for d e v e l opments in o t h e r states,
and
seven had changed licensing prov i s i o n s to a l l o w for compe t e n c y based certification. had no interest
O nly two st a t e s stated they
in C B T E . 40
If the extent to which CBTE w a s a c t u a l l y adopted by p rograms preparing u r b a n teachers remains in doubt, wha t indisputable was its political draw.
is
What e x p lains this
political magnetism? Two early p r o p o n e n t s of CBTE a ttributed its appeal
to the convergence of four changes
in education:
the h e ightened awa r e n e s s of s u b - c ultures an d their problems in society;
schools'
increasing Inability to perform
traditional
functions;
research d e v e l o p m e n t s w hich p r o v i d e d
new information into instructional methodology;
and
ap p l i c a t i o n of new technologies a n d m a n a g e m e n t systems, well as concern about
as
the impact of technological c h a n g e . 41
The perception that schools w ere failing to educate students was translated into a c o n c e r n that schools and teachers should be m a d e failures.
"accountable"
for students'
The notion of ac c o u n t a b i l i t y was borrowed from
models of product d e l i v e r y systems used in business. schooling,
academic
the product,
In
or "output," was the achievement
level of the learner;
the accoun t a b l e parties w e r e those
responsibile for some part of the educational process, the "Input"
or
to the product deliv e r y s y s t e m . 42 The d i f f i c u l t y
in applying this model
to schooling,
proponents of CBTE admitted,
as even enthusiastic
was that there was no
irrefutable evidence that certain inputs were more successful
than others.
of successful
One author n oted that the a t tributes
inner city teachers couldn't be deduced from
research beca u s e there was so little available. she argued,
educators must rely on "intuition,
and e x p e r i e n c e . " 43 Similarly,
Instead, observation,
an e arly evalu a t i o n of the
Teacher Corps recommended that local programs
"define their
criteria of a c ceptable teacher p r e p a r a t i o n in observable or measurable terms" because there are "legitimately conflicting v i e w s on the behaviors that constitute competent or effective teaching in different environments or s i t u a t i o n s .1,44 CBTE,
as both its supporters and critics understood,
implicitly p r o mised to d e - p oliticize the debate over the skills and attitudes teachers needed by ana l y z i n g teaching behavior in terms of competencies w h i c h could be evaluated objectively.
This mad e CBTE's political appeal almost
ineluctable,
since it seemed to b reak the impassioned s t a n d
off between reformers wh o blamed teachers for m i n o r i t y student failure and those who found student characteristics at fault for poor academic achievement.
However,
CBTE was
89 not neutral
in this debate;
its popularity marked the
ideological ascendancy of the perspective which located student failure in teacher characteristics.
Its exclusive
focus on improving education through the teacher's acquisition of skills and attitudes negated the possibility that material conditions, management,
like full employment and school
as Frank Reismann argued, or school
characteristics,
as Ron Edmonds contended,
shaped student
perfor m a n c e . CBTE's gathering strength mirrored the waning Influence of educators who advocated compensatory programs, as well as urban teachers and their unions.
By the raid-1970's,
teacher
organizations had been seriously weakened by the fiscal problems which buffeted school districts, urban systems,
most especially
as well as by demographic changes which
reduced the size of the school population.
For example,
almost one-quarter of all the pedagogical employees In the New York City schools were laid-off during the city's budget crisis in 1974-1975; over 15,000 teachers and counselors lost their jobs.45 The organizational rivalry between the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers encouraged each to present membership figures in the most advantageous way,
so it is difficult to ascertain
the exact number of teachers who lost their jobs. Since the AFT represented teachers in the largest urban systems,
however,
its memb e r s h i p figures were e s p e c i a l l y revealing.
AFT president Albert Shanker's 1976-1977 report to the union claimed a net
loss of 30,000 members.
not bring enough members
Ke noted that
ir.te the A F T to offset
"we did
the
d evastating effects of reductions in force due to budget crises and the d e creasing numbers of students." He compared the AFT's memb e r s h i p decl i n e to the NEA's
"proportionately
larger loss of 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000 members" de p ending on which of
the NEA's figures
"you choose to
b e l i e v e . 1,46 The loudest oppos i t i o n to CBTE came from teacher organizations,
espec i a l l y the AFT.
The Committee on
Pe r f o r mance-Based Teacher E d ucation of the American Associ a t i o n of Colleges for Teacher E d u c a t i o n agreed that CBTE had "positive potential" and was
"one of the possi b l e
teacher e d u cation types that deserves development," but warned that
it could e a s i l y lend itself to "programs based
only on teaching the simplest mechanical
behaviors and those
dealing so l e l y wit h c o gnitive behavior at t h a t . " 47 In contrast,
Eugenia Kemble,
nothing to recommend CBTE.
w r i t i n g for the AFT,
found
She charged that the schools of
education had greeted state mandates for CBTE w a r m l y because of the d emographic crunch dimini s h i n g the supply of new teachers and the need for teacher preparation.
CBTE
accomodated a shift to inservice edu c a t i o n for teachers already employed,
prot e c t i n g positions a n d budgets for
teacher training institutions.
School boards liked CBTE
because it p r o v i d e d a rationale and m e t h o d to repl a c e old (highly paid)
teachers with ne w
m a n y other authors,
(lower paid)
ones.
Like
Kemble a t t r i b u t e d CBTE's p o p u l a r i t y to
the political climate,
but she argued that CBTE's appeal
relied on the convergence of press u r e to cut government expenditures, w i t h the idea that public schools w ere failing. Kemble main t a i n e d that d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n w ith the schools was unfounded:
"Together the school critics and mone y e d u r b a n
liberals were push i n g the v iew that the schools were no good and that what needed to be changed was the people in them and the way they are c o n t r o l l e d . 1,48 Kemble's other major c r i ticism of CBTE w a s voi c e d by other educators and organizations, stated in the harshest language,
but her o b jections were
which was perhaps a
reflection of the fear which O r n s t e i n and Talmage noted some w hite urban teachers felt. P e r f o r m a n c e objectives were "ludicrous," she wrote,
and they made a "mockery of the
p r o f e s s i o n . " 49 Assessment
in CBTE was "shallow and
simplistic," and the "vindictive political teachers would
implications"
for
"be fought" she w a r n e d . 8®
One significant aspect of Kemble's critique w h i c h was not remarked u pon was its reversal of the u n i o n ' s earlier insistence that school reform wa s years before,
its u l t i m a t e goal.
Ten
the AFT had been a m o n g the "school critics"
demanding a change in the wa y schools wer e controlled,
as
92 d e m o n strated b y provisions in MES w h i c h e n c o u r a g e d parent and teacher involvement
in decision-making.
of the AFT Tas k Force on Educational argued that u r b a n teaching, significant
teachers,
and schools needed no
few authors discussed the connections
between CBTE's rising star,
the economic recession,
d i minished concern about structural For example,
and the
reform of u rban school
while Kemble sa w that CBTE's appeal
was in part financial, funding,
implicitly
improvement.
Curiously,
systems.
Issues
N o w the chairman
a response to cutbacks in government
she ignored the impact of reduced federal
for pr ograms to reform urban schools.
funding
A llan Ornstein and
Harriet Talmage described the ideological character of the d ebate over a c c o u n t a b i l i t y and the grow i n g fear of man y white teachers and administrators programs would
in big cities that these
"be used as a we a p o n against them - and not
for educational p u r p o s e s . " 51 But they a t t r i b u t e d the I mplementation of CBTE and a c c o u n t a b i l i t y programs to "liberal b a ndwagon wisdom and black militant
ideology,"
ne glecting the leading role the federal gove r n m e n t had played in encouraging CBTE, Education's
Office of
model projects and the Teacher C o r p s . 5^
Similarly,
Gaylord Ne l s o n explained that the "overall
surplus of teachers" Corps shift
through the U.S.
in the early 1 9 7 0 's made the Teacher
its focus from preparing n e w teachers to
improving the quality of teachers a l r e a d y serving in schools
93 in low-income areas.
Another report on the Teac h e r Corps
noted that its 1970-1972 guidelines w ere changed to reflect the movement toward c o m p e t ency-based programs,
as a result
of the findings of the federal Model E lementary Teacher Education Program.
Neither report a n a lyzed the relationship
b etw e e n CBTE and teacher employment patterns,
nor their link
to the economic r e c e s s i o n . 53 CBTE AND M U L T ICULTURAL EDUCATION CBTE became e s p e c i a l l y a t tractive as a s t r a t e g y for improving u rban schools, strains and racial districts,
perhaps because both financial
tensions wer e most severe in large school
for when joined to multicultural education,
addressed both problems,
as I will explain.
By 1973,
CBTE
the
American Associ a t i o n of State Colleges and Universities, w hose members h i s t o r i c a l l y educated one-half of the country's teachers, p lanned change"
had instituted
"an experiment
in
to e n courage competency-based urban teacher
education by funding p l a n n i n g g r a n t s . 54 Since CBTE a t t e m p t e d to s tandardize and evaluate teaching skills,
and multicultural
c hanging teachers'
attitudes,
education focused on
the two strategies seemed to
be p e d a gogically an d p o l i t i c a l l y counterposed.
But they
shared two assumptions w h i c h made them natural partners. First they were both predicated on the belief that improving education for u r b a n students, groups,
no w mai n l y from m i n o r i t y
depended on correcting teacher deficiencies.
Also,
both strategies relied on identifying discrete abilities teachers needed for success. A union of the two strategies soon developed: multicultural CBTE.
As one advocate of
multicultural education wrote in endorsing its marriage to CBTE:
"If there is a recognized need for restructuring our
educational system,
CBTE can be the vehicle" because it
"recognizes individual differences as positive" and demands a wide range of sources for determining competencies, "sources not heeded in the past." Finally it provided accountability through the "externalization of assumptions under which desired outcomes" were determined,
that is, by
baring the cultural biases which blocked success for minority students.55 A report issued jointly by two committees of the American Assocation of Colleges for Teacher Education, one on
multicultural education,
their agreements.
the other on CBTE,
outlined
Teachers "need certain unique
competencies in order to teach in culturally diverse situations," the editor noted.56 Another writer explained that "For most Blacks,
bad t e aching... is most often less a
matter of a teacher's deficit in commonly practiced teaching skills than a matter of the reflection of a teacher's fundamentally negative feelings or expectations for Black children."57
Multicultural CBTE focused on the attitudes
teachers needed, as opposed to cognitive skills,
since the
teacher's primary role was defined as the "facilitator of
the acquisition of value systems consonant with a student's ethnic,
cultural and linguistic background."5®
However,
CBTE and multicultural education could be wedded only in a theoretical framework which ignored school structure: accomodating students'
cultural needs would require greater
curricular flexibility, but the more schools diversified their offerings and allowed teachers freedom to adapt to students'
needs,
the more difficult it would be to evaluate
teacher or student performances according to uniform standards,
the sine qua non of CBTE.59 Since urban school
structures were discussed so little in this period,
this
contradiction went virtually unnoticed. RESEARCH AND TEACHER EDUCATION The hope of refining teaching's knowledge base to resolve political challenges to the profession's authority was certainly not n ew.60 However, teachers,
teacher educators,
under attack.
Earlier,
it blossomed with CBTE as
and schools felt themselves
an editorial
in The Urban Review had
predicted just this development: as the urban educator's personal authority was diminished because of racial conflict,
and as the authority bestowed by the educational
system itself was challenged, knowledge,
his reliance on specialized
"technocratic" skill, would increase.6*
"Can science contribute to the art of teaching?" N.L. Gage asked in 1972. He answered that it would be nice if the answer could be a resounding 'Yes' based on a long parade of conclusive evidence and
96 examples of richly useful findings. Unfortunately... the question must receive a rather mor e complex r e s p o n s e .63
Indeed,
one of the p r i m a r y arguments against CBTE wa s
that it relied on an inadequate k n o wledge base,
or rather,
one that could be u sed to defend contr a d i c t o r y propositions about teacher performance.
Three researchers concluded that
a ssessment of teacher effectiveness at the level of pupil achievement was not possible because, research,
a c c o r d i n g to available
more tha n 90% of the variance in student test
scores wa s attributable to unkn o w n influences, factors other than teacher effectiveness. argued that teacher educators
that is,
Their report
"need to k n o w m a n y more things
about the behavior of a teacher and the c h aracteristics of pupils in order to identify the special
teacher behaviors
which ar e effective for parti c u l a r p u p i l s . " 63 analysis
This
is confirmed by e x amining three c o n t radictory
interpretations of a key study by Rosenshine and Furst on improving teacher performance.
Some authors used it to
buttress their commitment to CBTE,
another educator employed
it to conf i r m his oppos i t i o n to CBTE,
and yet a third group
found that the study supported their c ompromise about how and when CBTE would be a p p r o p r i a t e . 6^ Furthermore,
Gage,
himself a leading researcher,
contended that the value of scientific k n o w l e d g e as to what constituted successful
teacher behavior d e p e n d e d on the
97 inference that the behavior was related to something desirable.65 However, deciding what expectations teachers could or should have of students was precisely the poltical controversy which CBTE, and especially multicultural CBTE, was supposed to resolve.
The inherent limitation of
attempting to use research to resolve what was a political dilemma was illustrated when the Educational Testing Service worked out a method of evaluating student progress with the UFT and the New York City Board of Education in 1972.
The
program faltered when the parties could not agree on what aspects of student performance to measure,
nor on how to
correlate teacher reward with student achievement.66 Indeed,
even if research could refine understanding of
how students learned what teachers taught,
one major
obstacle remained in improving academic achievement of "cuturally different" students: where they were concentrated,
conditions in urban schools,
made application of the
knowledge problematic at best. When a distinguished Harvard researcher returned to teach full-time in an urban elementary school,
determined to put into practice some of
the ideas she had been teaching and writing about,
she
described how "objective problems," like overcrowding and class size, undermined her efforts.67 Yet the literature usually ignored the interconnectedness of teacher behavior, student performance,
and school character, i s t i c s .
One notable exception to this was Mary Haywood Metz's
98 study of two junior hig h schools s ystem r e c ently desegregated. culture of the faculty,
in a small m e t r o p o l i t a n
Th e author explo r e d h o w the
the history of the school,
and design of the school building,
as well as the
principal's p hilosophy and leadership style all the ways that students, desegregation.
parents,
the size
influenced
and teachers responded to
Metz's research assumed that
"...
studies of
the e f f e ctiveness of various teaching styles can only be meaningful whe n they spec i f y in subtle detail
the character
of the children taught and the context of the school and school d i s t r ict."®® By i ntroducing the contextual on teacher performance,
influences
Metz implicitly dis m i s s e d CBTE's
claim to have identified and s t a n d ardized competencies teachers needed.
She argued that the p r ocesses through w hich
students learned were "poorly understood," an d educators lacked "any u n i v e rsally effective means"
or an y "trustworthy
w a y of mea s u r i n g the success or failure of w h a tever meth o d s they finally a p p l y . " 69 It is interesting to note that Metz's r e s earch was conducted in a community and school system w h i c h v o l u n t a r i l y committed themselves to racially integrate their public schools.
As she noted,
exception,
this made the co m m u n i t y a political
but her study may illustrate a g a i n how the
failure of efforts
to d e s e g regate urban school systems
contributed to the d i minution of interest in the institutional characteristics of urban schools,
Undergirding
99 CBTE and multicultural e d u cation was an a c q u i e s c e n c e to political developments w h i c h made structural transformation of urban schools seem impossible.
Little research
investigated how the characteristics of u r b a n schools influenced teacher performance,
and d i s c u s s i o n about
characteristics of u r b a n schools and school systems remained peripheral
to the dominant
concerns about CBTE and
multicultural e d u c a t i o n . 70 "EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS" The most important challenge to s c h o l a r l y preoccupation with
teacher and student characteristics was the "effective
schools" strategy,
(a d i fferent p h enomenon from the MES
program which the UFT adv o c a t e d in 1966.) Ronald Edmonds,
Popularized by
at one time director of the Center for Urban
Studies at Harv a r d Graduate School of Education,
the
"effective schools" s t r ategy wa s a response to the "schoolsd o n 't - m a t t e r " arguments of Jencks and C o l e m a n . 71 Its purpose was to demonstrate that there were schools
for poor,
mi n ority children w h i c h succeeded in b o o s t i n g achievement,
academic
and then identify the common c h a racteristics of
these schools in order to replicate their success. Underlying the "effective schools" s t r a t e g y was assumption that urban school districts, torn by racial strife, spark change.
required
Unlike the
the
impoverished and
"external change agents"
to
"change agent" s t rategies of the
1 9 6 0 's which gave teachers responsibility for crystallizing
structural reform of schools,
Edmonds s a w teachers'
primary
role as having a "subservient and receptive frame of mind" to deliver the services w h i c h c ommunities d e s i r e d . 72 Teachers were
"decent men and w o m e n w h o w o r k hard and
c o n s c i e ntiously strive to benefit our p o p u l a t i o n . 1,73 improvement w a s
However,
the needful p o r t i o n s of
their importance in school
limited to u n d e r s t a n d i n g that their clients
w e r e also their constituents,
that is,
that their
job was to
prov i d e the serv i c e that parents and com m u n i t y members requested.
A l t h o u g h Edmonds argued that teachers were
"internal advocates for reform,"
their respon s i b i l i t i e s were
all reactive and resulted from their ac c e s s to insiders' knowledge.
Edmonds e m p h a s i z e d the importance of dialogue
between parents and teachers,
but his model of conversation
consisted of parents telling teachers wha t servi c e s were desired and teachers pro v i d i n g inform a t i o n about how resources could best be used.
The one a t t i t u d e that Edmonds
required of teachers wa s r e j ection of the "cultural autocracy" w h i c h labeled c h i ldren of color deficient.
Hence,
one of the c h a racteristics of an "effective school" was that teachers showed high expectations
for all s t u d e n t s . 74
The only other trait of an "effective school" w hich related to teacher perfor m a n c e was the u s e of standardized achievement
tests to moni t o r student p e r f o r m a n c e . 7® This
characteristic was tied to Edmonds' school
improvement
theory that goals
in "abstract and grandil o q u e n t "
for
terms was
"tactically d i s a s t r o u s . " 76 in arguing for mea s u r i n g schools, teachers,
and students'
p erformance with minimal standards
that allowed external monitoring, political
change,
the reduced interest - or hope - in urban
school improvement. "grand" goal,
Edmonds a d dressed a
Though urban schools could not satisfy a
like d e l i v e r i n g a qual i t y edu c a t i o n to all
black children,
at least they could succ e e d w i t h the minimal
tasks of t e a ching the literacy and n u m e r a c y skills measured on achievement tests.
This accompl i s h m e n t could
"persuade
po o r l y served communities that they need not despair of improvement in the qual i t y of social service n o w available to them" and p r e s u m a b l y prompt even greater r e f o r m . 77 addition,
In
he implicitly a c k n o wledged the legacy of Ocean
Hi 11-Brownsville,
explaining that his "language of minimums"
could "neutralize a hostile social service s e t t i n g " 76 to al l o w the teacher to det e r m i n e "whether or not progress is being m a d e . " 70 Though Edmonds a c k n owledged that the tests did not "adequately m e a s u r e the a p p r o p r i a t e ends of education" he argued that they were accurate,
and equitable basis for portr a y i n g individual
pupil p r o g r e s s . " 80 Edmonds applied City,
"the most realistic,
where he designed a School
his ideas In New York
Improvement Project which
used his "language of minimums." He argued that a uniform district-wide c urriculum and uniform s t andards were essential
for school
to an observable,
improvement because they held schools
e x t e r n a l l y v e rifiable s t a n d a r d of
102 achievement,
in the same way that the tests monitored
student progress. Within this context of a standardized curriculum,
teachers would be given "the widest possible
lattitude in deciding textual materials, organization,
classroom
instructional strategy."81 Furthermore,
the
teacher's diminished discretion in deciding what to teach paralleled the principal's enhanced Importance,
since
another characteristic of an "effective school" was that the principal identified and diagnosed institutional problems.82
Thus,
the "effective schools" strategy that Edmonds
advocated contained circumscribed pedagogical and political roles for teachers.
Their responsibilities within the
classroom were limited since curricula and standards were uniform,
established by a central authority;
their role in
deciding school policies contracted as the principal's importance expanded. were peripheral achievement,
Since teachers' skills and attitudes
to improving schools and student
so was teacher education.
Edmonds required of urban teachers,
The one attitude
their rejection of
"cultural autocracy," was already addressed in multicultural education. Thus,
the "effective schools" model contained
little to inspire new strategies for preparing urban t e a c h e r s .83
CONCLUSION
Scholarship in this period reflected reduced concerns and demands about improving the achiev e m e n t of "disadvantaged" students in u r b a n schools.
The two shifts
in terminology used to describe students p r e v i o u s l y identified as
"deprived" or
"disadvantaged" m i r r o r e d the
increasing racial and social students and reductions schools.
isolation of poor, m i n o r i t y
in gover n m e n t funding for u rban
D escribing u r b a n s t u dents as "culturally diverse"
was accurate in one sense,
an ac k n o w l e d g m e n t of the many
different racial and immigrant communities w h i c h sought political r ecognition of their p r e sence in met r o p o l i t a n areas.
But In another sense,
address a second, of racial
the n e w descri p t i o n failed to
less hopeful political change:
advocates
integration had failed in their efforts to make
u rban schools racially and s o c i a l l y balanced.
Similarly,
adoption of the term "inner city" signalled the effort to move beyond the p o l a r ization of educators about the causes of poor academic achievement of poor,
m i n o r i t y children w h o
were concentrated in u r b a n school systems. city,"
However,
"inner
introduced in the Thesaurus of ERIC D e s c r i p t o r s in
1966 to mean the
"central section of a city w hich is
ususally older and more densely populated" m a y have connoted poverty and d ecay to the k n o w ledgeable reader,
but it did
not denote these conditions as the related terms, and "slums" had.
Yet,
"ghettos"
"inner city" schools w e r e indeed more
impoverished and isolated than they had bee n ten years
104 earlier when writers referred to "slum schools." What explains these linguistic denials of social conditions? Because this question wasn't posed, answered in the literature.
However,
there are three explanations.
First,
it wasn't
it seems to me that chastened by criticism
of their work about "cultural deprivation," many educators were eager to avoid characterizing anything about poor, minority students as a deficit, even poverty. Whether their thinking had been changed by the debate over "cultural deprivation" or they simply wished to avoid conflict is probably impossible to ascertain,
but it is significant that
the change in nomenclature did not erase the political disagreement.
As the controversy over the research of the
"hereditarians" shows, Secondly,
the disagreement persisted.
these semantic sleights of hand allowed
educators to retain their commitment to improve urban schools in the face of a political climate which made the task seem,
to many,
Finally,
impossible.
the change in language paralleled the
ascendancy of strategies which assumed that pupil learning was a function only of teachers' notably,
CBTE.
skills and attitudes,
most
It stands to reason that CBTE had only a
limited practical effect on urban teacher preparation since urban school districts were laying off, not hiring, teachers, job market
and schools of education accomodated to the new (for teachers and teacher educators)
by
105 redirecting their a t tention to inservice education.
However,
CBTE had a profound influence on the w a y educators discussed and concept u a l i z e d teaching. "competencies"
The terms
"performance" and
gained accep t a n c e as the lingua franca for
evaluating a teacher's work. / The osten s i b l y v a l u e - f r e e termin o l o g y for identifying acceptable teaching behavior w h i c h was part of CBTE's ineluctable appeal values.
CBTE's
in fact r e p r e sented a
"i n p u t / o u t p u t " model d e f i n e d "Input" as
teacher input,
with school i n g ' s social context,
funding levels and social
that c o nditions
proponents
Unlike educators wh o argued
in urban schools had to change for teaching
or that social conditions,
unemployment,
including
isolatior of m i n ority students,
eliminated from the equation.
to improve,
distinct set of
like high levels of
depressed student achievement,
CBTE's
Implied that teaching behav i o r was unr e l a t e d to
these "external"
factors.
CBTE presumed that technical
expertise was the key to improved teaching and learning,
in
sharp d i s t i n c t i o n to the implicit goals of the Teac h e r Corps and TTT, w h i c h made curricular reform an d
"parity"
the
pivotal methods of improving education for urban youth. However,
it is important to u n d e r s t a n d that CBTE's
ascendancy was encouraged by developments the Teacher Corps.
in both TTT and
Neither p r o g r a m had e x p l i c i t l y addressed
the need for programs pr e p a r i n g urban teachers of "disadvantaged"
students to take into acco u n t the political
and social context of the schools in w h i c h their graduates w o u l d teach.
Certainly,
T T T ' s goal of
"parity," d e v e l o p i n g a
shared vision of s c h o o ling's means an d ends,
implied that
the context of teaching a n d learning w a s more critical
than
a c q u i s i t i o n of discrete skills or techniques.
the
However,
absence of an y ar t i c u l a t e d p erspective about the i n t e r r e l a t ionship betw e e n teaching,
learning,
school conditions,
and social influences on school performance,
co n t r i b u t e d to
the legitimacy of CBTE's d e c o n t e x t u a l i z e d a p p r o a c h to teacher preparation.
Like TTT,
the T e a c h e r Corps also
contributed to CBTE's ascendancy.
A l t h o u g h it placed
teachers at the center of curricular re f o r m and Identified c urricular reform,
in turn,
e du c a t i o n for u r b a n youth, a ddress
the institutional
In this process, individual
as a pivotal method of improving the Teacher Corps'
failure to
role which teachers had to assume
its d e d i c a t i o n to the idea of the
teacher's abilities,
a l l o w e d CBTE to reduce
curricular change to a formulaic p r o c e s s that ignored the school conditions which the Teacher Corps was c o m m i t t e d to altering. Du r i n g this period,
a d vocates of m u l t i c u l t u r a l
e d u c a t i o n and "effective schools" g overnment's us e of "deficit model" .of poor,
c r i t i c i z e d the federal
compensatory p r o g r a m s w h i c h relied on a
to explain a n d reverse the acade m i c failure
m i n ority children.
Ironically,
few n oted the
leading role the Office of Education took in encouraging
107 CBTE,
a reform w h i c h ignored all of the material barriers to
improving urban schools, problems
and in so doing,
d i smissed the
in theory while aggrav a t i n g them in practice.
Teacher unionists,
the c o n s t ituency w h i c h argued most
consistently about the need to alter school conditions, lost m u c h their political
influence.
had
Their argument that the
"teacher surplus" was dr i v e n by bud g e t a r y rather than educational needs
failed to gain w i d e s p r e a d public support.
The other voices for reform, multicultural education,
those p r oposing CBTE,
and "effective schools"
the education of u r b a n students, material
to improve
made no reference
to the
conditions In u rban schools w h i c h sabotaged efforts
to improve instruction. Even more than before,
d i scourse was fragmented,
divided between educators who blamed student failure on school conditions and those w h o d e s c r i b e d student or teacher failings.
M i r r o r i n g the neglect and isolation of the urban
schools themselves, m i n o r i t y students
debate about pre p a r i n g teachers of poor,
in urban schools unrav e l l e d until
little mor e than a series of monologues, CBTE,
It was
with prop o n e n t s of
"effective schools," multicultural education,
and
teacher u n i o n i s m seldom addressing shared concerns - or each other.
1. Diane Ravitch, The Troub l e d Crusade: A m e r i c a n E d ucation 1945 -1980 {New York: Basic Books, 1983).
108 2.Carl A. Grant, "Education T h a t ’s Multicultural for Urban Schools: Rationale and Recommendations," In Marvin J. Fruth and Booker G a r d n e r , e d s ., 1978 Urban Conference Report (Madison: Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Individualized Schooling, 1979. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 185 218). See, for example, Maxine P. Fisher, "Creating Ethnic Identity, Asian Indians in the New York City Area," Urban Anthropology 7 (Fall 1978). 3.Thesaurus of ERIC D e s c r iptors, 11th edition P r e s s , 1987) , 156.
(Phoenix: Oryx
4.Louise R. White, "Effective Teachers for Inner City Schools," The Journal of Negro Education 42 (Summer 1973):309. 5.Norma G. Hernandez, "Multicultural Education and CBTE: A Vehicle for Reform," (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 091 386), 3. 6.Thesaurus of ERIC Descri p t o r s , llth Edition P r e s s , 1987), 316. 7. Frank Riessman, The Inner City Child and Row, 1976) preface, ix.
(Phenix: Oryx
(New York: Harper
8.T.M. Stinnett, in the introduction to Unfinished Business of the Teaching Profession in the 1970's notes that voters turned down school budgets in 20* of New York's 700 school districts in 1969, the highest rejection rate ever. (Bloomington IN: Phi Delta Kappa, 1971). 9.Diane Ravitch, The Great School Wars. New York City 1805 1973 (New York: Basic Books, 1974); Edmonia W. Davidson, "Education and Black Cities: Demographic Background," The Journal of Negro Education 42 (Summer 1973); Richard A. Rossmiller, "Financing Urban Schools," in Marvin J. Fruth and Booker Gardner, eds., 1978 Urban Conference R e p o r t . 10. Thaddeus H. Spratlen, "Financing Inner City Schools: Policy Aspects of Economics, Political and Racial Disparity, Urban Education 42 (Summer 1973). 11.Richard A. Rossmiller, "Financing Urban Schools"; Martin Schiff, "Community Control of Inner City Schools and Educational Achievement," Urban Education 10 (January 1976); Kathryn M. Borman and Joel H. Spring, Schools in Central Cities. Structure and P rocess (New York: Longman Press, 1984). 12. Hernandez,
"Multicultural Education and CBTE," 3.
109 13.Earle H. West, editorial for a special thematic issue, "Education and the B l a c k Cities," The Journal of Negro E ducation 42 (Summer 1973). 14.Jesse L. Colquit, "The Teacher's Dilemma in Facilitating the Black Experience," The Journal of Negro Education 48 (Summer 1978):198. 15. Diane Ravitch, The Troubled C r u s a d e . 268; Edgar G. Epps, "Improving the E f f e ctiveness of U r b a n Schools: Instruction," in Marvin J. Fruth and Booker Gardner, eds., 1978 Urban Conference R e p o r t , 112. See also D a v i d Tyack, The One Best System (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1974); Bastlan, et al., C h o o s i n g Equality. The Case for D emocratic Schooling (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1986); Ira K atznelson and Margaret Weir, S c h ooling for All: Class. Race and the Decline of the D emocratic Ideal (New York: Basic Books, 1985); M u r r a y Levine an d Adeline Levine, A Social History of Helping Services (New York: A p p l e t o n Century Crofts, 1970); Lawrence Cremin, A m e r i c a n Education: The Metropolitan Experience. 1875 - 1980 (New York: Ha r p e r and Row, 1988). Gerald G r a c e notes that u r b a n edu c a t i o n as subject of Inquiry took institutional shape in the 1960's. Hence It is u n d e r s t a n d a b l e that the political issues of the day w o u l d be reflected In the scholarship. Gerald Grace, ed., Education a n d the C i t y (Boston: R o u t l e d g e and Kegan Paul, 1984). 16. Stinnett, Unfi n i s h e d Business of the T e a ching P r o f e s s i o n . 2. 17.Allan C. Ornstein, E d u cating the Inner City Child: A R e v i e w of Research F i n d i n g s over Two Decades (Chicago: Center for Urban Po l i c y at Loyola U n i v e r s i t y of Chicago,
1981).
18.Marty Schiff, "Community Control of I n ner-City Schools a n d Educational Achievement," 426. 19. Christopher Jencks, "Inequality in Retrospect," Harvard Educational Review 43 (February 1973): 103, In this special section of the Harvard Educational R e v i e w , issued as no. 8 In the reprint series, Jencks a n s wered critics of an earlier work, Ineguality. A R e a s s essment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1973). 20. Laura Cooper, "The Effective Schools Literature as a B asis for School Improvement," (Qualifying Paper, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1984). 2 1 . Christopher Jencks, 2 2 . Frank Reissman, Row, 1976) 72.
et a l ., I n e q u a l i t y . 256.
The Inner City Child
(New York:
Harper &
110 23.
Ibid.,
2 4 . Ibid.,
105. 121.
25. For an informative, p ithy exchange, see Albert Shanker, "The Real Meaning of the N e w York Cit y Teachers Strike," Phi Delta Kappan 50 (April 1969) and Step h e n Zeluck, "The UFT Strike: Will It Dest r o y the AFT?" Phi Delta Ka p p a n 50 (January 1969). D i a n e Ravitch, in a recapit u l a t i o n of events w hich confirms Shanker's version, d e s cribes the strike at length in The Great School Wars. Ne w Y o r k City 1805 - 1 9 7 3 , in "The Fourth School War"; Ira Glasser, author of the report issued by the New Y o r k Civil Lib e r t i e s Union, analyzes events as Zeluck presents them, in "The Burden of Blame; A Report on the O cean H i l l - B r o w n s v i l l e School Controversy," U rban E d ucation 4 (Summer 1969). 26. Carl A. Grant, "Education That Is M u l t icultural for Urban Schools: R a tionale and Recommendations." 27. See David Rogers, 110 L i vingston Street (New York: Random House, 1968) for the most c o m p rehensive examination of the N e w York C i t y Board of E ducation's response to efforts to integrate city schools. Rogers' study was completed about a y ear before the O c e a n H i l l - B rownsville strike. 28.The c ontroversy over the More Eff e c t i v e Schools (MES) program is an important but neglected aspect of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville strike. "The Contro v e r s y Over the More Effective Schools: A Special Supplement," The U r b a n Review 2 (May 1968) contains a d e s c r iption of the program and results of the e valuation c o nducted by the Ce n t e r for U rban Education, as well as rebuttals by one independent source and the MES director of evaluation. See also an earlier first-person account of one MES site, Gloria Channon, "The More Effective Schools," The Urban R e v i e w 2 (February 1967).
29.White, "Effective Teachers for Inner City Schools," 310. Diane R avitch d e f ended the opposite point of view, studying four private programs known for their educational excellence. She concluded that c o m p e nsatory programs succeeded when they dupl i c a t e d the educational conditions that were conventional in leading public and private schools. See "Programs, Placebos, Panaceas," The U rban Review 2 (April 1968).
30. David K. Cohen, "Teachers Want What Children Need - Or Do They?" The U rban Review 2 (June 1968).
Ill 3 1 .Ibid. 32.For example, Floyd T. Waterman warned that some programs claiming to £e CBTE-driven were not identified by education students as having any CBTE component. ("Characteristics of Competency Based Teacher Education Programs" in Competency Based Teacher Education - A Potpourri of Perspectives (Washington, D.C.: Association of Teacher Educators, 1974). 33.Thesaurus of ERIC De s c r i p t o r s , 44. 34.Foreward to W. Robert Houston and Robert B. Howsam, eds., Competency-Based Teacher Education. Progress, Problems, and Prospects (Chicago: Science Research Associates, 1972). 35.Competency Based Teacher Education: Toward a Consensus (Washington, D.C.: United States Advisory Council on Education Professions Development, 1976), 6-7. 36.Richard A. Hillbert, "CBTE Versus the Real World," Urban Education 16 (January 1982): 393. 37.Robert M. W. Travers, "Empirically Based Teacher Education," (Paper presented to the Society of Professors of Education, Chicago, 22 February 1974), 3. 38.Elvira R. Tarr, "Some Philosophical Issues in CBTE," (Paper presented at American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, 26 February 1973). 39.
Ibid.
40.Robert A. Roth, "PBTE: A Survey of the States," (ERIC Document Reproduction Service ED No. 070 753, December 1972). 41.Howsam and Houston, Competency-Based Teacher E d u c a t i o n , 1-16. 42. Allan C. Ornstein and Harriet Talmage, "Teachers' Perceptions of Decision Making Roles and Responsibilities in Defining Accountability," in The Journal of Negro Education 42 (Spring 1973) . 43.White,
"Effective Teachers for Inner City Schools," 311.
4 4 . "Teacher Corps - Two Years of Progress and Plans for the Future" (Washington, D.C.: Washington School of Psychiatry, October 1968. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 029 854), 38. 45.Lois Weiner, "Cracks in Shanker's Empire," New Politics 11 (Fall 1976) .
112 46.Albert Shanker, "Meeting Education's C h allenges Teacher U n ionists Prepare for Action," Report o n the State of the Union. 1976-77 (Washington, D.C.: A m e r i c a n F e deration of Teachers, 1977): 2. 47. Introduction, PBTE: V iewpoints of Two Teacher Organizations (Washington, D.C.: A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1975). 4 B.Eugenia Ke m b l e and Bern a r d McKenna, PBTE: Viewp o i n t s of Two Teacher Organizations (Washington, D . C . : A m e r i c a n As s o c i a t i o n of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1975), 8. 4 9 . Ibid.,
17.
50 . Ibid.,
29.
51. A l l a n C. O r n stein and Harriet Talmage, "A Dissenting View on Accountability," U r b a n E d u c a t i o n 8 (July 1973): 136. 52.Ornstein and Talmage, 149; F o r e w a r d in W. Robert Houston and Robert B. Howsam, eds., C o m p e t e n c y - B a s e d Teacher Edu c a t i o n (Chicago: Science R e s e a r c h Associates, 1972); I n t erview with Richard Graham, "The Teacher Corps Concept: A Journal Interview," Journal of Teacher Edu c a t i o n 26 (Summer 1975). 53.Gaylord Nelson, guest editorial in Journal of Teacher Education 26 (Summer 1975): 98; Jerold P. Bauch, "Community P a r t icipation in Teacher Education: Teacher Corps and the Model Programs" (Athens, GA: Georgia University, 1970. ERIC Document R e p r o d u c t i o n Service No. ED 042 700). 54. Jane Otten, ed., An Experiment in Plan n e d Change (Washington, D . C . : A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n of State Colleges and Universities, 1973).
55.H e r n a n d e z , "Multicultural E d ucation and CBTE,"
17-18.
56.W i l l i a m A. Hunter, e d ., prologue to Multicultural E d ucation Through CBTE (Washington, D . C . : A m e r i c a n Associ a t i o n of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1974),
28.
57.Asa G. Hi 11i a r d ,"Restructuring Teacher Edu c a t i o n for Multicultural Imperatives," in W i l l i a m A. Hunt, ed., Multicultural E d ucation Thro u g h C B T E , 42. ‘5 8 .Hernandez,
"Multicultural
Education and CBTE," 6.
113 59. This basic conflict is dis c u s s e d but w i t h o u t explicit r eference to CBTE and multicultural edu c a t i o n in Edward P. Morgan, "Effective T e a c h i n g in the Urban H i g h School," Urban Education 14 (July 1979). 60. Arthur Powell, The Uncertain Profession: S earch for Educational Aut h o r i t y (Cambridge, Univ. Press, 1980).
Harvard and the MA: Harvard
6 1 . E d i t o r i a l , "Questions of Authority," The U rban R e v i e w 2 (February 1967), no page. 62.N.L. Gage., Teacher E f f e ctiveness and T e a c h e r E d u cation (Palo Alto, CA: Pacific Books, 1972), 27. 6 3.Donald M. Medley, Robert S. Soar, and R u t h Soar, Assessment and R e s e a r c h in Teacher Education: Focus on PBTE (Washington, D.C.: A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n of Colleges for T eac h e r Education, 1975), 22. 64. Theodore E. Andrews, "Certification," in CompetencyBased Teacher Education. Progress, Problems, and P r o s p e c t s ; Rosenshine and Furst, "Research on Teacher P erformance Criteria" in B.O. Smith, ed., R e s e a r c h on Teacher Education: A Symposium (Englewood Cliffs, N J : P r e n t i c e - H a l l , 1971); Travers, "Empirically Based Teacher Education"; U.S. National A d v i s o r y Council on E d ucation P rofessions Development, Comp e t e n c y Based Teacher Education: Toward a Consens 65 . Gage,
Teacher Effectivenss and Teacher E d u c a t i o n , 28.
66.David Stern and Joh n Harter, "Public Schools and Teachers Unions In the Political Economy of the 1970's," in Don Davies, ed.. Communities and Their Schools (New York: M c G r a w Hill, 1981). 67. Courtney B. Cazden, "How Kno w l e d g e about Language Helps the Classroom Teacher - Or Does It?" The U r b a n Review 9 (Summer 1976): 75. 68. Mary Haywood Metz, Classrooms and Corridors. The Crisis of Authority in Des e g r e g a t e d Se c o n d a r y Schools (B e r k e 1e y : Univ. of California Press, 1978), 144. 6 9 . I b i d ., 20. 70.For a comprehensive d i scussion of u rban school bureaucracy see D avid Goodman's D e l i v e r i n g Educational Service. Urban Schools an d Schooling Po l i c y (New York: Teachers College Press, 1977). Also, The U r b a n R eview summarized research in ERIC/CUE on r e forming the large u r b a n high school, "Reforming the Large Urban H i g h School," The
114 Urban R e v i e w 13 (Summer 1981). A few writ e r s c o n tinued to discuss the importance of reforming urban school systems to permit c o m m u n i t y and parent participation. See Do n Davies, ed., Co m m u n i t i e s and T heir Schools (New York: M c G r a w Hill, 1981). H o w e v e r s c h o l a r s h i p on re f o r m i n g u r b a n schools to encourage c o m m u n i t y p a r t i c i p a t i o n wa s rarely joined to a discussion of teacher performance, as Metz an d Goodman attempted. Also, L arry Cuban a n a l y z e d the social and school influences w h i c h h i s t o r i c a l l y s h a p e d teaching styles, in a study later e x p anded into a book. L arry Cuban, "The TeacherCentered Classroom," Educational L e adership 15 (November 1982). 7 1.John H. R a l p h and J ames Fennessey, "Science or Reform: Some Q u e stions about the Effective Schools Model," Phi D elta Kappan 64 (June 1983); Cooper, "The Effective Schools Literature as a Basis for School Improvement Efforts." 72.Ronald E d m o n d s "A The o r y and D e s i g n of Social Reform," Social Policy 15 (Fall 1984): 61. 73.
Service
I b i d . , 57.
74. Ronald Brandt, "On School Improvement. A C o n v e rsation with Ronald Edmonds," Educational Lead e r s h i p 40 (December
1982).
7 5 . Ibid. 76.Ronald Edmonds, Reform," 62. 77.
Ibid.,
64.
7 9 . Ibid.,
62.
81 . Ibid.,
Service
64.
7 8 . Ibid.,
80.Brandt,
"A T h e o r y and D e s i g n of Social
"On School Improvement,"
14.
14.
82.Ron Brandt,
"On School
Improvement."
83. Laura Co o p e r argued there were two, i n c o m patible strands in the "effective schools" literature, E d m o n d s ’ model being one, and B r o o k o v e r and R u t t e r ’s the other. It wa s Edmonds' w ork which w a s applied to urban schools, however, so I have discussed his model alone. Cooper c o n cluded that Edmonds' reliance on c e n t r a l i z e d aut h o r i t y to direct reform, as opposed to R u t t e r ' s emphasis on the individual school developing a n d acting o n values d e v e l o p e d over time, was a less helpful strategy. M y exper i e n c e with the School
115 Improvment Pla n of Ma r t i n Luther King High School In New York City confirms Cooper's observations. A fter months of meetings, the committee arrived at several helpful suggestions for improving the school, but not a single one of its recommendations could be implemented beca u s e of either fiscal restraints, Board of Edu c a t i o n regulations, or state requirements. The SIP committee was m a n d a t e d and funded because of King students' poor perfor m a n c e on state and city tests, but these tests imposed a curricular straightjacket on every department except for English. The mandate to create a plan to improve the school e nded w i t h creation of the plan and contained no p rovisions to assist school committees to carry out their Ideas, so in the end, King's SIP u l t i m a t e l y discouraged and frustrated school personnel who p a r t i cipated in its formulation.
116 C HAP T E R THREE B e g inning In 1983, w i t h p u b l i c a t i o n of A N a t i o n at R i s k , the qual i t y of the nation's schools,
students,
and
teachers became a n important policy Issue for federal and s tate government. government
A report
issued b y prominent b u s iness and
leaders w a r n e d that the e ducational s y s t e m was
eroded b y a "rising tide of mediocrity" which imperiled the n a t i o n ’s ability to compete e c o n o m i c a l l y . 1 W hile educators debated the assump t i o n s a n d c onclusions of the report,
they
ag r e e d that it s p a r k e d a "tidal w ave of reports that sought to reform America's s c h o o l s . " 2
In his i n t r o duction to a
sym p o s i u m p u blished b y the Harvard Educational R e v i e w on the numerous reports w h i c h followed A N a t i o n at R i s k , Harold Howe II s u ggested that it w a s "doubtful that A m e rican ed u cation has ever before received s u c h a concentrated barrage of criticism an d free advice as it has in 1 9 8 3 . 1,3 Governmental and m e d i a att e n t i o n to pu b l i c schools continued into the latter half of the decade, w i t h a n e w r ound of reports initiating a second wav e of r e f o r m . 4 Reformers' original concern,
student achievement,
s tandardized tests,
m e a sured by
s o o n shifted to d i s c u s s i o n about the
q u a l i t y of teachers an d their preparation, "dominant conversation about educational For the most part,
w h i c h became the
reform."8
d iscourse di d not d i r e c t l y address
the special needs of u rban schools or their students,
nor
p articular skills and attitudes w hich u r b a n teachers of
117 "disadvantaged" students should acquire. however,
There were,
two significant exceptions to the dominant
conversation.
One was the "emancipatory" perspective which
developed in curriculum studies; the other emerged from efforts to develop an "ecological" approach to urban school reform. Though some analysts saw a "bewildering array of policy initiatives" resulting from state efforts to improve the schools, the reforms of both waves shared several characteristics and assumptions which had Important implications for urban teacher preparation.6 Neither the problems of urban schools nor the reforms'
effects on at-
risk students were Integral parts of the debate on improving public education,
although some educators charged that the
reforms enacted w ould erode any success which had been made in boosting academic achievement of poor, minority students.
EDUCATION AND THE ECONOMY The causal relationship between improving education and rescuing the economy was emphatic in
A Nation at R i s k ,
which prophesied second-class status for the nation if its second-rate schools could not be made excellent. Most of the subsequent national reports similarly conflated economic revitalization with educational reform,
including the
Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession, a "second wave" document.7 The Carnegie report, A Nation Prepared:
118 Teachers for the Twentvfirst Century offered this rationale for educational reform:
As jobs requiring little skill are automated or go offshore, and demand increases for the highly skilled, the pool of educated and skilled people grows smaller and the backwater of the unemployable r i s e s . .. As in past crises, Americans turn to education. They rightly demand an improved supply of young people with the knowledge, the spirit, the stamina and the skills to make the nation fully competitive - in industry, in commerce, in social justice and progress, and, not least, in the ideas that safeguard a free society.8 Later in its report the Carnegie Task Force reiterated the urgency of schooling's economic Imperatives,
Identifying
its concerns with those sounded by earlier reports, Education Commission of the States,
the President's
Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, Alliance of Business.
Indeed,
from the
and the National
the Carnegie Task Force
report on teaching described education itself as a financial Investment, one w ith a need for "improving the rate of return" and "capturing the benefits of productivity."9 Some educators objected to the economic theory underlying this conflation of school Improvement and economic competitiveness,
as well as. its political implications,
which one writer charged represented "a retreat from democracy," but its pervasiveness was acknowledged by its sharpest critics, as well as its proponents.10 THE ASSUMPTIONS OF "EXCELLENCE" REFORMS Without explicit reference to the compensatory programs begun in the 1 9 6 0 's or previous debate about the sources of
119 d i s a d v a n t a g e m e n t , the "excellence" on both.
reforms took a p o s i t i o n
The c o n n e c t i o n betw e e n p o v e r t y an d academic s u c c e s s
h a d been w i d e l y deba t e d in the 1960's,
but the "excellence"
reforms reflected non e of that controversy.
T h e y w ere
empha t i c in e s t a b l i s h i n g c a u s e - a nd-effeet r e l a tionships betw e e n schooling and prosperity:
just as the nation's
economic resurgence d e p e n d e d o n technological gen e r a t e d by a n Improved e ducational system,
innovations so the
s t u d e n t *8 e c o nomic future d e p e n d e d e n t i r e l y on a c q u i s i t i o n of advanced skills. Re f o r m m e a s u r e s a d d r e s s e d first stud e n t then teacher characteristics, practices,
rather than funding levels,
societal conditions,
institutional
or a co m b i n a t i o n of these.
Robert Dreeban ar g u e d that a report issued b y deans of the m a j o r schools of education,
the report of the Holmes Group,
takes on faith the p r i m a c y of teacher qual i t y and falls to pos e open q u e s t i o n s about h o w c u r r i c u l a r ,\ i n s t r u c t i o n a l , a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e c o n siderations c o ntribute to e ducational outcomes... [It proceeds from] no a n a l y s i s of schooling, of school s y s t e m organization, or of t e a ching as an o c c u p a t i o n . 11 W h i l e the civil rights m o v e m e n t had a i m e d to use sc hooling to e q u a l i z e social relations,
to "democratize the
competition" for economic success by p r o v i d i n g m i n ority s tudents with the social and a c a d e m i c skills they needed to counteract racism's legacies,
the "excellence"
looked to h e i g h t e n competition,
reforms
in school a n d the market.
the chairman of X e r o x corporation,
one of the most
As
120 Influential corporate leaders of the reform movement, wrote, "Competitiveness begins at s c h o o l . " 12
Critics charged that
increasing c ompetition without p r o viding more assi s t a n c e to students w h o needed it w o u l d translate into greater educational
inequalities.
T h e y argued that d i v e r s e reform
measures "enacted in the name of excellence"
from 1983 to
1986 often set n e w s t a ndards for achievement, but not ne w resources or s t r a t e g i e s to en s u r e that all c h i l d r e n will have the a p p r o p r i a t e means to meet these standards. There are n e w tests for performance, but rarely n e w designs to create m o r e r e sponsive learning e n v i r onments or to combat exist i n g patterns of rigidity, inequity, and e x c l u s i o n . ..Such n e g l l g l e n c e is w i d e n i n g an alarming gap b e t w e e n the educational haves a n d h a v e - n o t s . 13 This "dark side of the excellence movement" would be e s pecially g l o o m y for u r b a n schools,
beca u s e of the high
percentage of students consi d e r e d educational h a v e - n o t s . 14 T h e d emographic trend w h i c h b egan in the m l d-1960's continued thro u g h the 1980's, with the central cities h a v i n g an Increased conce n t r a t i o n of "older,
poor,
and non-white"
r e s i d e n t s . 15 Students from these p opulations w e r e p r e cisely the ones schools had bee n least successful addition,
in educating.
In
one educator o b s erved that their degree of
d i sadvantagement had Increased as well, as immigrants arrived from more impoverished regions of their own countries into the nation's c i t i e s . 16 One of the few major reports to d e s c r i b e problems of u r b a n schools,
a report Issued by the Carnegie F o undation
for the Advanc e m e n t of Teaching,
warned that the students in
urban schools were a n "imperiled generation," and the "excellence" reforms w e r e "irrelevant" to m a n y of t h e m . 17 Though this report empha s i z e d that "excellence in e d u cation ulti m a t e l y must be judged by what happ e n s to the least advantaged students,"
it als o accepted the economic
rationale for the reforms,
observing that the q u a l i t y of
ed u cation w o u l d d e t e r m i n e "the v i t a l i t y of our economy," adding to this e c o nomic Imperative for reform the notion that reform w o u l d det e r m i n e the "strength of our democracy" as w e l l . 18 Like the reforms it faulted,
this report made
public e d u cation the k e y to national a n d u rban renewal.
In
doing so it rejected arguments that m a n y of the problems exhibited in urban school systems had to be addressed by slowing or reversing u r b a n decay I t s e l f . 19 The economic rationale for change influenced the locus of reform,
as well as its content.
Wher e a s school
Improvements twenty years earlier had c o n c e n t r a t e d on developmental
Issues raised in improving e arly education,
the "excellence" reforms took up the dema n d s of school i n g ' s later years.
This concern logically flowed from the new
reform movement's raison d'etre,
as exp l a i n e d in A Nation at
R i s k : p r oviding students w i t h the high level skills they and the country needed for ascen d a n c y in w o r l d markets controlled by technological raw materials.
innovation rather than plentiful
The reform movement's p e rvasive economic
rationale did little to encourage a t t e n t i o n to the issues of
122 schooling w hich d o m i n a t e early y e a r s . 20 E ven s h a r p critics of the "excellence" reforms tended to exam i n e issues of s e condary schooling a n d c u rriculum Independent from the problems of e d u cation in the student's first y ears of s c h o o l .21 F EDERAL INVOLVEMENT AN D FISCAL LIMITA T I O N S Two critical changes in federal funding of edu c a t i o n w h i c h occur r e d s h o r t l y before pu b l i c a t i o n of A Na t i o n at Risk also shaped the d e c ade's dis c o u r s e an d reforms.
In 1981
the federal g overnment m ade "cuts and mor e cuts" so that e ducators r e membered "the first six months of the Reagan a dminis t r a t i o n as a period of fiscal d i s a s t e r . 1'22 This "disaster" was followed by another s e v e n years du r i n g w h i c h the Re a g a n a d m i n i s t r a t i o n "chipped a w a y u n r e l e n t i n g l y at federal aid to e d u c a t i o n . " 28 The federal s hare of total e xpenditures for e l e m e n t a r y an d s e condary e d u c a t i o n d e c lined from 8.7* in 1980 to 6.2* in 1988, and total federal funding to e l ementary and s e c o n d a r y schools d e c lined 26* during this period.
C o m p e nsatory e d u c a t i o n lost 25* of its funding,
w h i c h was a p a r t i c u l a r l y heavy blo w for u r b a n school districts,
espec i a l l y those in states w h i c h did not
compensate for the d e c rease in federal e x p e n d i t u r e s . 24 One result of the chronic
fiscal problems of u r b a n schools was
d e t e rioration of school shabby,
unsafe,
facilities that had bec o m e so
and overcrowded,
one author argued,
that
they mani f e s t e d conditions w h i c h wer e p r o h i b i t e d by most
123 municipal building codes for rental housing.25 However, as In the previous decade,
little attention was paid to the
immediate or cumulative effects of funding cuts on teacher or student performance in urban classrooms.26 Perhaps as critical as the amount of aid the federal government gave to urban schools was the method of funding. In 1982 the federal government altered the system of contributing to state and local school systems, replacing many of the categorical aid programs of the 1960's and 1 9 7 0 's with block grants.
By restricting how the money In
categorical programs could be spent,
the federal government
had regulated change; by shifting the form of financial support to a general package of aid, about how it was to be spent,
cut loose from mandates
the federal government
transferred its authority and power to control school reform to state and local authorities.27
One policy analyst
described the developments which began in the 1 9 8 0 's as a "counterrevolution in full swing. The Reagan administration, eager to return responsibility for education to the state and local levels, has condemned the recent federal presence as officious intermeddling. Because Washington lacks both the competence to set requirements [for school reform] and the capacity to carry them out, the argument runs, it should only provide education support (at levels markedly lower than those previously fixed), leaving decision making to those with a more nuanced understanding of the issues,28 In an analagous development,
the Johnson era reliance
on a prominent role for the federal government in promoting research and development in education was completely
124 rejected In the 1980's,
resulting in "federal fiscal
starvation" of educational r e s e a r c h . 29 One significant result of these alterations was that programs like TTT an d the Teacher Corps,
d e s igned and funded by the federal
government in the 1960's to improve p r e p a r a t i o n of teachers of d i s a d v a n t a g e d students on a n a t ional scope,
were
v i r t u a l l y n o n e x i s t e n t . 30 To the extent that r e s earch and experiment in p r e p a r i n g teachers for u r b a n scho o l s were undertaken,
the progr a m s w e r e small a n d local,
in many cases
*
funded by foundations, universities.
corporations,
a n d individual
E ven s upporters of the p r i m a r y national re f o r m
to emerge from a decade of reports a n d recommendations,
a
National B o a r d for Professional T e a c h i n g Standards, s t r uggled to g a i n eve n a port i o n of r e s e a r c h a n d development expenses from the federal government,
no t i n g that the
remaining costs w o u l d be matc h e d by b u s i n e s s e x e c u t i v e s . 31 The p ush for educational reform at the state level o f t e n came from gov e r n o r s and business leaders, "instrumentally linked" national reform:
and it wa s
to the same issue w h i c h energized
jobs and economic g r o w t h . 32 T h o u g h states
a d o p t e d w i d e l y vary i n g measures to improve their schools and their teachers,
for the most part the state Initiatives
r eflected the Ideological u n d e r p i n n i n g s of A N a t i o n at R i s k .33 T EAC H E R QUALITY The debate about teacher quality w h i c h characterized
125 dis c o u r s e du r i n g the 1980's con t a i n e d little disc u s s i o n about conditions of racial s e g r e g a t i o n or p a r t i c u l a r skills and a t titudes teachers of " d i s a d v a n t a g e d 11 s t u d e n t s might need.
One of the few writ e r s to take u p the issue of urban
teacher p reparation w r o t e that the m a j o r reports
"pay lip
serv i c e to the d e m o g r a p h i c dynamic" of i n creased numbers and concentrations of poor, m i n ority s t u dents in u r b a n school systems,
but "have n o t h i n g s u b s t a n t i v e to say about
pr e p a r i n g u rban t e a c h e r s . " 34 Since little d i s c u s s i o n oc c urred about a n y special problems u r b a n school districts faced,
b y implication,
the same r e m e d i e s for Improving
teacher qual i t y c ould be applied to all school systems.
Thus
the dominant an s w e r to the q u e s t i o n of what ski l l s or att i t u d e s teachers of d i s a d v a n t a g e d students in u rban schools needed wa s that they r e q u i r e d the same attributes and prepar a t i o n as all other teachers. P o i nting to a n a l y s e s of d e c l i n i n g scores on a range of s t a n d ardized reports,
a stream of reports complained,
(usually in m ore subd u e d prose than the author quoted),
that
the country's "teaching corps is u n a c c e p t a b l y incompetent" and that the n a t i o n c ould expect to linger in teaching c a r e e r s . " 35
"only the n u m b an d the dull Not only wa s the
"intellectual d i m i n u t i o n of the cohort of a v a i l a b l e new teachers" a ma t t e r of great concern,
in addition,
the best
"are not being h ired and the best of ex p e r i e n c e d teachers are leaving the s c h o o l s . " 36
To improve the q u a l i t y of the
126 teaching force,
the reports agreed,
r e q u i r e d improving
teacher p r e p a r a t i o n and p r o f e s s i o n a l i z i n g the o c c u p a t i o n . 37 IMPROVING TEAC H E R P R E P A R A T I O N One author categorized the major proposals to reform teacher prepar a t i o n into four models: content of teacher preparation;
o n e e x p anded the
a n o t h e r transferred
re s p o n s i b i l i t y for teaching teachers to master teachers in schools,
an a p p r o a c h clos e l y tied to d e m a n d s for
professi o n a l i z i n g teaching;
a third m o d e l proposed changes
w h i c h w o u l d take p r o f essional schools out of r e s earch institutions,
ma k i n g them like teaching hospitals;
the
fourth model s u ggested ways of s p reading teaching of teaching to all d e p a r tments within the university, e l i m i nating separate scho o l s and c o l leges of e d u c a t i o n . 33 As these categories indicate,
none of the proposals d i r e c t l y
addressed u rban teacher pr e p a r a t i o n or the Issues of teaching "disadvantaged" students,
issues which d o m i n a t e d
d i s c u s s i o n about teacher prepar a t i o n d u r i n g the 1960's. Why? One answer is that the "excellence" movement w a s fueled b y concerns which displaced,
even con t r a d i c t e d the "equity"
reforms of the I960's. A n a t i o n at r isk of becom i n g a s econd-rate economic and political p o w e r had less interest in children at-risk.
Furthermore,
state initiatives a i m e d at
raising exit requirements for students a n d entrance requirements for teachers w e r e not b a l a n c e d or cou n t e r a c t e d
127 by federal programs aimed at reducing educational inequalities. Another explanation is that discourse centered on individual characteristics of teachers or students,
even
when their collective attributes, such as declining performance on standardized tests, were examined. Whereas educational reforms two decades before had focused on group problems and characteristics, of poor, minority children,
for instance the special needs
the debate over "excellence"
took up national performance by way individual achievement. The most prominent "equity" concern was the diminishing supply of black teachers.39 However, debate over this problem also mirrored the assumptions of the "excellence" agenda. Many writers attributed the decline in the numbers of black teachers to the civil rights and women's movements, which,
they argued, had opened up alternative careers for
black college graduates.
Thus education was losing black
college graduates to more lucrative and hlgher-status careers because of the nation's success in eliminating barriers to minority students' academic achievement. However, Patricia Graham connected the decline to continued and greater problems in educational achievement for blacks, exemplified by a drop in the proportion of blacks attending college and those receiving Master's degrees.40 Perhaps more significantly, discussion over how to recruit, attract, and retain black teachers followed the same contours as debate over the teaching corps in general, grounded in assumptions
128 a b o u t the n e e d for p r o f e s s i o n a l i z i n g teaching. objected to
W h i l e writers
c o mpetency tests for entry into t e a c h i n g which
e l iminated p r o p o r t i o n a t e l y more m i n o r i t y candidates,
few
quest i o n e d th e absence of parti c i p a t i o n by parent or c o mmunity g r o u p s in the process of d e t e r m i n i n g s e l e c t i o n requirements. P A R T N E R S H I P V E R S U S SERVICE D E L I V E R Y The p r o p o s a l s for re f o r m of teacher p r e p a r a t i o n linked t heir m e a sures to conceptions of the teacher's role.
Their
v i s i o n s of the teacher's a p p r o priate r e l a t ionship to colleagues,
administrators,
"service delivery" model
and parents w e r e d e r i v e d from a
for education.
T h e y c o nceived of
schooling as a service d e l i v e r e d to clients, students, bureaus,
p a r e n t s and citizens, that
that is
by p r o f e s s i o n a l l y staffed
is the school s t a f f . 41
"Service delivery"
conceptions o f s c h ooling have been used b y e d ucators c oncerned a b o u t equitable d i s t r i b u t i o n of services, instance,
for
by R o n a l d Edmonds, w h o s e School Improvement Plan
was based on a "service delivery" m o d e l . 42
However,
some
educators a r g u e d that b y reducing both parents a n d citizens to client status,
"service delivery" mod e l s e ncouraged
polarization betw e e n client and provider,
ma k i n g families
either victims or v i l l a i n s . 43 They p r o p o s e d a n alternative p a r a d i g m for ana l y z i n g p u b l i c services, v i e w parents,
students,
school staff,
like schooling:
to
and com m u n i t y members
as partners w h o shared r e s p o n s i b i l i t y for s c h o o l i n g ' s means
129 and outcomes.
This approach,
w hich a s s u m e d that the
teacher's professional a u t h o r i t y wa s derived from the s t r e n g t h of the teacher-stud e n t - p a r e n t a l l iance was v a r i o u s l y labeled an "ecological," "partnership" concept.
"holistic" or
A l t hough not identified as such,
it
wa s the theoretical unde r p i n n i n g for TTT's e m p hasis on "parity," as d i s c u s s e d in Chapter O n e . 44 The "ecological" vie w of teacher p r e p a r a t i o n and school reform was i mplicitly rejec t e d in the reports issued the Carnegie Task F orce on Teaching as a Profession, Group,
the Holmes
the A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n of C o l l e g e s for Teacher
Education,
and both teacher u n i o n s . 45
The y all made
teacher qual i t y the sine qua non of reform,
and in so doing,
rejected the importance of "properties of classes,
schools,
an d school systems as they impinge o n i n s t r u c t i o n . 1,46 The focus on teacher a ttributes encouraged, by,
and was
in turn fed
the effort to p r o f e s s ionalize teaching. P R O F E S S I O N A L I Z A T I O N AND U R B A N TEACHERS The idea of a p r o f e s s ionalized occup a t i o n has been
debated among educators for a century and was not unique to this wav e of reform.
Lee Shulman's d e f e n s e of teaching's
claim to professional status was not v e r y much different from the e x p l a n a t i o n Harvard pro f e r r e d for creating its School of Education.
Shulman argued that
...the s t a ndards by w h i c h the e d u c a t i o n and performance of teachers must be judged can be raised and m o r e clearly a r t i c u l a t e d . ..[through use of teaching's] k n owledge b a s e . . . a c o d ified or
130 codifiable a g g r e g a t i o n of knowledge, skill, understanding, a n d technology, of et h i c s a n d disposition, of collective r e s p o n s i b i l i t y . 47 E ven what p r o b a b l y became the most p o l i t i c a l l y popular proposal,
to cr e a t e a national b o a r d to c e r t i f y teachers a n d
deve l o p teaching s t a ndards and norms,
a b o d y w h i c h w o u l d be
independent of local government,
local schools,
institutions of hi g h e r learning,
was not n e w . 48
Shanker a d vocated s uch a national board, Ocean H i l l - B r o w n s v i l l e strike,
and Albert
s h o r t l y a fter the
as a n al t e r n a t i v e to a l l o w i n g
local school boards to set standards for h i r i n g and p e r f o r m a n c e .49 In contrast to the 1960's an d 1970's reforms,
this
drive to p r o f e s s i o n a l i z e teaching v i r t u a l l y dom i n a t e d di scourse about teacher p r e p a r a t i o n and school
reform.
Improvement of t e a ching was the critical element in the p r omotion of educational exce l l e n c e throughout the states, and professionalization,
in turn, was a c c e p t e d as the
solution to better teaching. P r o f e s s i o n a l i s m also implies a ne w social contract: the replacement of b u r e a u c r a t i c a c c o u n t a b i l i t y w i t h professional responsibility, w i t h teachers themselves setting standards... P r o f e ssional s t andards rest ultimately in attitudes, beliefs, and acti o n s of tea c h e r s . 50 In the p r o f e s s i o n a l i z a t i o n model,
the teacher's
professional a u t h o r i t y replaced b u r e a u c r a t i c control of schools. paradigm,
Both mo d e l s w e r e based on the "service delivery" deriving the t e a c h e r ’s a u t h o r i t y from special or
superior knowledge.
B o t h un d e r s c o r e d the d i s t a n c e between
131 the expert d e l i v e r e r s of a service and their clients. occasion,
On
e d u cators who s u pported efforts to p r o f e s s i o n a l i z e
te a ching att e m p t e d to redefine professional responsibility, to reconcile it w i t h ideas about s c h o o l i n g ' s broader d e m o c r a t i c purposes.
For instance,
P a t r i c i a Gr a h a m argued
that W e Americans... nee d to come to fundamental agreement about what w e want our schools to do. In reaching that agreement, one g r o u p of A m e r i c a n s has a particular responsibility, though not a n e x c lusive one, to p a r t i c i p a t e in that discussion. They are professional educators... 1 Such cautions about the political
implications of
p r o f e s s i o n a l i z a t i o n w ere rare among its supporters,
however,
a n d discourse a bout the need to p r o f e s s i o n a l i z e teaching generally
c o m pared teaching to law, medicine,
or
a r c h i t e c t u r e .52 Most of the literature on p r o f e s s i o n a l i z a t i o n concurred that two c h a racteristics d i s t i n g u i s h e d a profession: control over w o r k i n g conditions and e n t r y into the occupation.
Teachers'
powerlessness was g e n e r a l l y a t t r i b u t e d
to schooling's b u r e a u c r a t i c conditions,
and in c o nnecting
recruitment and r e t e n t i o n of h i g h - q u a l i t y teacher candidates,
dis c o u r s e about teacher p r e p a r a t i o n became
inextricably c o n n e c t e d to e x a m i nation of cond i t i o n s in s c h o o l s . 53 However,
the "service model"
concept of
p r o f e s s i o n a l i z a t i o n implied one a n a lysis of teaching's problems,
and an
"ecological" pe r s p e c t i v e q uite another. TEACHING CONDITIONS
In a c cepting the "service delivery" model of education, supporters of profess i o n a l i z a t i o n tended to analyze the structural char a c t e r i s t i c s of schools w h i c h w ere barriers to teachers deliv e r i n g a p p r o p r i a t e services.
On e w i d e s p r e a d
s o l u t i o n wa s "shared governance," w h i c h g e n e r a l l y included some form of parent participation, r o l e . 54
A related idea,
but in a n aux i l i a r y
"differentiated staffing,"
c o nfirmed the client status of parents a n d students and introduced n e w layers of salary an d a u t h o r i t y in teaching. For example,
A Nation Prepared argued that school systems
based on b u r e a ucratic aut h o r i t y should be "replaced by schools in w h i c h a u t h o r i t y is grounded in the professional competence of the t e a c h e r . " 55 Parents w o u l d not be involved in e s t a b l i s h i n g standards for teaching or the school goals, w h i c h were to be set b y the state an d district.
Teachers
w o u l d meet w i t h parents to try to adjust w hat the parents want to state objectives,
but parental w i s h e s w o u l d p r o bably
carry very little w e i g h t when compared to state requlrments since teachers'
s a l aries would be k eyed to their students'
fulfillment of state standards. The Holmes Group proposed a different relationship betw e e n parents and teachers, as well as m a n y teachers,
one which w o u l d make parents,
clients.
certified as a "professional
Only an instructor
teacher" could be a "child
advocate" or could "speak wit h legitimate authority" to school experts,
like psychologists and read i n g
133 s p e c i a l i s t s .56 The designs to reform teacher p r e p a r a t i o n an d schools d iffered in important aspects but all of them ar g u e d for pr o f e s s i o n a l i z i n g teaching by i ntroducing a different d i v i s i o n of labor into the occupation,
reinfo r c i n g a
c l i ent/provider r e l a t ionship b e t w e e n teachers a n d parents, an d a s signing educators e x clusive control over entry into the p r o f e s s i o n . 57 T omorrow's T e a chers p r o p o s e d a n a c a demic model
to
d iffe r e n t i a t e in bot h salary a n d r e sponsibilities between "Instructors" at the bottom of a ladder, teachers" on the next rung,
and
"professional
"career professionals" at
the top. A Nation P r e pared s u g gested four tiers, from "licensed teachers,"
ranging
to "certified teachers," to those
w h o are "advanced c e r t i ficate holders," an d at the top, "lead teachers." The National C o m m i s s i o n for Excellence in T eac h e r Education,
issuing a report for the A m e r i c a n
A s s o c i a t i o n of C o l leges for Teac h e r Education,
s u pported the
concept of diff e r e n t i a t i o n in general but did not outline one specific p l a n . 58 "instructors,"
The A P T r ecommended two tiers, w i t h
recent college graduates w i t h no pedagogical
training performing less skil l e d labor an d "career teachers" handl i n g the tasks that require greater expertise. addition,
In
some career teachers w o u l d train Interns and be
g i v e n the status of faculty at cooperating universities or c o l l e g e s . 59 The AFT proposal,
perhaps refle c t i n g the unio n ' s
134 traditional rejection of reforms w h i c h linked p a y to the qual i t y of a teacher's performance,
made no m e n t i o n of
d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n in p a y or benefits for instructors and career teachers. Mary A n n e R a y w l d ’s critique of the Ho l m e s G r o u p report could be appl i e d to all of the propposals for d i f ferentiated staffing.
Ra y w i d arg u e d
...Instructors h a v e v i r t u a l l y no autonomy... Professional T e a c h e r s will be p e r mitted to run their own classrooms, but denied input to school policymaking; o n l y Career Profes s i o n a l s w i l l be both autonomous professionals a n d d e c ision participants. The d i v i s i o n m a n a g e s the job of spl i t t i n g u p teacherrelated functions into three distinct levels of role and status, but it does so at the cost of denying to the two lower levels functions essential to maximal performance! 60 One of the d o m inant criticisms of p r o p o s a l s to create career ladders was that they introduced a n o t h e r layer of hi e r a r c h y into schools.
Robert Dree b a n ar g u e d that the
Holmes Grou p ' s "career professionals" wer e adminis t r a t o r s g i v e n anot h e r title.61 Raywid o b s erved that diff e r e n t i a t i o n of responsibilities w o u l d p r o b a b l y be most eff e c t i v e if the divisions w e r e not linked to h ierarchies of p a y a n d status. Po r instance,
the h elp e xperienced teachers p r o v i d e d as
mentors w o u l d
"surely p r o v e more w e l c o me...if
not
formalized into two classes of citizens,
the roles wer e w i t h yet
another tier of superordinates and s u b o r d i n a t e s . " 62 While critics of di f f e r e n t i a t e d s t a ffing a r g u e d against introducing pa y and p o w e r differentials b ased on n e w job classifications,
few a n a l y z e d the implications for urban
135 teaching.
If career ladders w o u l d "extend bureaucracy" by
"making ever finer functional d i s t i nctions b e t w e e n and among school personnel" u r b a n schools,
then they might be e s p e c i a l l y harmful
in
w h i c h w e r e a l r e a d y m a r k e d by a h i g h de g r e e of
b u r e a u c r a c y and h i e r a r c h y . 63 M a r t i n Haberman, the "excellence"
one of the very few w r i t e r s to relate
reforms to s p e cific p r o blems in p r eparing
teachers for u r b a n schools,
argued that the m a j o r reform
proposals wer e irrelevant to improving urban schools. Instead,
he contended,
training and a special
u r b a n teaching required special license.
Furthermore, u r b a n teaching
was so exhau s t i n g it d e m a n d e d a "truncated career" of five to eight years;
a s s u m p t i o n s that u r b a n teachers can m a i n t a i n
"lifetime careers at full tilt are superhuman,
u nrealistic
e x p e c t a t i o n s . " 64 H a b e r m a n di d not d e s c r i b e e x a c t l y how b ureaucratic conditions
in u r b a n scho o l s made teaching in
them a special o rder of work,
as he ar g u e d it w a s . 65
Kenneth Tewe l ' s portrait of how three p r incipals r esponded to a crisis a t m o s p h e r e in u r b a n high schools illuminated those conditions. schools' disorder, that was
crises,
In Tewel's study,
the
m a n i f e s t e d b y w i d e s p r e a d v i o l e n c e and
encouraged princ i p a l s to a d o p t a leadership style "hierarchical,
competitive,
authoritarian,
excessively
and rui n o u s l y uncommun i c a t i v e . " E a c h principal
adopted an a u t h o r i t a r i a n a t t i t u d e and m a i n t a i n e d tight control over the change process.
Each assumed a crisis
136 mentality in which action to "save" the school took precedence over all e l s e . 66
Tewel noted that the principals
acted as they did because no institutional mechanisms constrained their intuitive behavior. Ho w then would differentiated staffing have ameliorated the conditions which made the schools and principals susceptible to authoritarian practices? If combined with some form of "shared governance" as the major reports proposed,
teachers would have been insured
an institutional role in deciding how to respond to the schools'
crises.
However,
"shared governance" which placed
parents and students in a peripheral role might well exacerbate problems of urban schools. Perrone,
For instance, Vito
in a supplement to Boyer's High School which
examined four urban high schools, noted that they were struggling "for a consensus about p u r p o s e . ”67 It seems unlikely that consensus could emerge without participation by all of the schools' constituencies. EXAMINING THE INDIVIDUAL IN PUBLIC SERVICE Another way to exami ne the conditions which affect urban teachers'
performance is to analyze the similarities
between teaching and other human services delivered in government bureaucracies, sometimes
medicine.
like social work,
police work, and
In Street Level Bureuacracv Michael
Lipsky argued that individuals who delivered human service in public service bureaucracies,
regardless of their
137 occupation,
faced the sam e systemic barriers to job
satisfaction.
For instance,
doctors in Veter a n s
A d m i n i s t r a t i o n h o s pitals and their patients confronted frustrations a n d d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n s identical in type to those v o i c e d by social work e r s and their clients.
Lipsky
maint a i n e d that the essential dilemma was one of giving "street-level bureaucrat s"
the d i s c r e t i o n they needed to
a cco m p l i s h their jobs and an d fulfill their aspirations w h i l e simulta n e o u s l y e n s u r i n g that all clients received equal treatment,
the litmus test of fairness for a
b u r e a u c r a c y .68 How valid is Lipsky 's analysis of teachers as "street level bureaucrats"? One g a u g e is whether studies of conditions in s c h o o l s h a v e s u p ported his conclusions as they a p p l y to teaching.
For example,
Lipsky arg u e d that "street-
level bureaucrats"
exper i e n c e a l i e n a t i o n from their jobs in
four ways, all of them s t e m m i n g from unsatis f a c t o r y relationships w i t h clients: (1) They tend to w o r k o nly on segments of the product of their work; (2) they do not control the outcome of their work; (3) they do not control the raw materials of their work; and (4) they do not control the p ace of their w o r k . 69 Judith W a r r e n L i t tle's r e s earch on the conditions of teaching which contribute to c o l l e g i a l i t y supports Lipsky's first condition.
He r analysis of the systemic conditions in
scho o l s which contribute to teachers'
isolation from each
o ther confirms the v a l i d i t y of L i p sky's c o ntention that
like
138 other
"street-level bureaucrats"
teachers w o r k In Isolation
from other t e a c h e r s . 70 Rebe c c a Bar r and Robert Dreeban's work ana l y z i n g h o w factors of school organization,
like the
propo r t i o n of low-aptltude students in their class, restricted teachers'
Instructional a l t e r natives confirms
Lipsky's third and fourth c o n d i t i o n s . 71 A s t u d y of w o r k i n g conditions in u r b a n schools, Nation at Risk w a s published,
conducted at the same time A identified four "stressors"
teachers e xperienced in six schools in two l arge cities;
all
were conditions over w h i c h teachers had no di r e c t control but w h i c h influenced how well
they felt they c o u l d do their
j obs.72 The s tudy reinforced,
at least for u r b a n teachers,
the presence of a sense of powerlessness d e s c r i b e d in (2) above. Lip s k y n oted the appeal of professional d evelopment as a method of resolving the "street-level bureaucrat's" dilemma
but he argued that "the professional
only e xacerbate the conflict,
s ince it ignored
fix" would "the great
gap b e t w e e n the service o r i e n t a t i o n of p r o f e s s i o n a l s in theory and professional service orientations in p r a c t i c e . " 73 He noted three areas in w h i c h prof e s s i o n a l i s m u n d ercut the Ideals of service: First, p r o f essionals by d efinition ar e a c c o u ntable o nly to p e e r s ...[which] i n sulates them from the criticism of clients and people w h o w ould s peak on clients' behalf...Of greater impact overall are informal p eer pressures (as opposed t o reviews) that guide professional d e v e l o p m e n t ... U n t e m p e r e d peer d e f i n i t i o n of professional n orms thus e f f e c t i v e l y e rodes the client or i e n t a t i o n to which p r o f essionals
139 are theoretically committed [and] the norma u s u a l l y Inhibit profe s s i o n a l s from s e e k i n g guidance In solving problems or providing services to clients, s ince to ask for help w o u l d be to admit a d e g r e e of i n c a p a c i t y . .. Third, the most powerful agent in professional s o c i a l i z a t i o n Is the w o r k setting. Thus It Is the ex t remely rare n e w comer who Is a b l e to assert u n p o p u l a r or u n s a n c t i o n e d v a l u e s .74 Finally,
he argued that
"the r e c o r d of the p r o f e s s i o n s
suggests that the model t h e y provide In practice Is not necess a r i l y a n a u spicious one for I ncreasing r e s ponsiveness to c l i ents."75 To summarize,
Lipsky's analysis of the teacher's role
In deli v e r i n g a human s e r v i c e within a bureaucratic o r g a n ization a r g u e d against the a d v i s a b i l i t y of Implementing reforms w h i c h w o u l d professionalize t e a c h i n g and prepare prospective teachers for n e w roles In a p rofessionalized occupation.
Furthermore,
Lipsky's c r i t i q u e c o n t r adicted the
as s u m ptions a n d strategies of the m a j o r reform proposals, most
Importantly that teacher quality could be Improved
without examining relations between t e a chers an d their clients,
as well as the social and c u l tural values
reinforced by the o r g a n i z a t i o n and d e l i v e r y of services. Because the fundamental p r o b l e m for teachers who functioned In b u r e aucracies w a s that their professional Instance,
Ideals,
deal i n g with s t u dents as Individuals,
for
contradicted
the b u r e a ucratic Ideal of treating all clients in a standardized fashion, a t t empts to make professional offe r e d no solution. parental participation,
the
teaching m o r e
In fact,
"professional
by limiting fix" w o u l d
140 u l t i m a t e l y h e i g h t e n alienation, cut off from their clients'
because teachers w o u l d be
own k n o w l e d g e about their needs.
Lipsky's critique was unde r t a k e n to under s t a n d how public policy could make h u m a n services equitable, efficient,
and humane,
that is,
to m ake the d e l i v e r y of
services better for both clients and providers.
Perh a p s his
conclusions d i f f e r e d d r a m a t i c a l l y from the proposals s p a w n e d by the " e x c e l l e n c e " movement because of their c ontrasting objectives.
Lipsk y ' s purpose was to u n d e r s t a n d ho w to make
public services m o r e responsive to clients, Identified their needs.
The
as they
"excellence" reforms had a l r e a d y
d e termined those aspirations:
higher level skills for
greater economic competitiveness. T H E "ECOLOGICAL" P A R A D I G M Altho u g h L i p s k y used the language of
"service
delivery," his sugges t i o n s for reform p a r a l l e l e d the "ecological" p r oposals of o ther writers.
One significant
d iff e r e n c e b e t w e e e n Lipsky and educators w h o analyzed school using a n "ecological" a p p r o a c h derived from their v a r y i n g specializations w i t h i n the social sciences. political scientist and p o l i c y analyst, broad,
Lipsky,
a
empha s i z e d the
systemic c h a r a c t eristics of d e l i v e r i n g h uman services
in bureaucracies.
James Comer,
a psychiatrist,
s t r essed the
importance of under s t a n d i n g the social and psychological climate of schools.
However,
their wor k is mutually
complementary, w i t h Lipsky pro v i d i n g a sociological
141 ex p l a n a t i o n for the problems of school clim a t e w h i c h Comer detailed.
Lipsky explained w h a t Comer observed:
schools
"cannot adjust e a s i l y to gr o u p s or individuals w i t h needs different from those of the m a jority" because of their "hierarchical and a u t horitarian" o r g a n i z a t i o n . 75
Lipsky's
analysis led him to conclude that clients had to become a more potent
force in service delivery,
a n d the deliv e r e r s of
services ha d to educate clients to m a k e better judgments about s e e k i n g serv i c e and a s s e s s i n g the service they received.
Similarly,
one of the ke y c o mponents in James
Comer's School Development P l a n was p r o v i s i o n for parent education,
as well as parent p a r t i c i p a t i o n in d e t e r m i n i n g
s chooling's objectives and m e a n s . 77 Comer termed his School D e v e l o p m e n t P l a n a n "ecological . appro a c h to intervention" beca u s e it a n a l y z e d student and school staff b e h avior as a f u n c t i o n of b o t h p e r s o n and e n v i r o n m e n t . 70 He arg u e d that student
learning in four
envi r o n m e n t s a f f ected teaching and learning in s c h o o l : in the child's home;
in the family's social network;
in school;
an d within the larger s o c i e t y . 70 By w e a v i n g together all these factors in his e x p l a n a t i o n for the failure of poor, m i n o r i t y children in urban schools,
Comer fashioned a theory
w h i c h bridged the "victim/villain" d e f i c i e n c y of the "service-delivery" model.
In e m p h a s i z i n g the school's ethos,
as d e veloped jointly by school staff and parents,
Comer
avoi d e d the dlchot o m o u s e x p l a nations that focused either on
142 teacher abilities or student c h aracteristics w h i c h characterized m u c h of the literature o n t e a ching "disadvantaged" students. few writers,
Furthermore,
Comer w a s one of the
along w i t h F r a n k Reissman, w h o a n a lyzed t h e job
of teaching “disadvantaged" students w i t h i n the school organization,
co n s i d e r i n g h o w the culture and
characteristics of schools caused their failure to ad j u s t to s t u d e n t s 1 human n e e d s : For this reason, c h i l d r e n from families under stress, c h l l d ren^who ar e underdeveloped, or those wh o are less likely to l earn and behave as e x p ected ar e at grea t e r r i s k in the school structure. The sources of risk are in the schools, as well as in societal an d family conditions outs i d e the s c h o o l . 80 Comer argued that all aspects of school
functioning
must be part of a n ecological a p p r o a c h to educational improvement,
including
curr i c u l u m planning,
psychological services, c l a ssroom management,
social and
e x t r a - c u r r i c u l a r activities,
and the man y personal
w h i c h o ccur between and a mong staff,
interactions
parents,
a n d students
on a d a l l y b a s i s . 81 He ar g u e d that goo d people, teaching strategies,
innovations,
i neffective in a "confusing, the staff
is unhappy,
superior
and mat e r i a l s w ould be
chaotic school climate w h e r e
isolated,
and o v e r w h e l m e d . " 82 He
explicitly cou n t e r p o s e d his theory of school reform to the "Effective Schools" approach,
noting that the " c o nsideration
g i v e n to climate is really onl y superficial
in the sense
that only such s u r f a c e o p erations as d i s c i p l i n e and rules are e m phasized but not deeper and more basic concerns s u c h
143 as school organization, decision sharing and parental involvement."83 AN "ECOLOGICAL" APPROACH TO TEACHER PREPARATION Comer's work shared a focus on child development with many projects that, 1960's;
like his New Haven program, began in the
but unlike many of the contemporaneous projects,
Comer's program continued for more than seven years. His thinking about teacher preparation evidently developed from his project experience, by his own admission,
especially the first year, which was
less than successful.
Comer described
the project's history in School Power but did not explain how his ideas about teaching "disadvantaged" students or preparing their teachers evolved over the years, to the program's strengths and deficiencies.
in response
Therefore,
it
is informative to compare Comer's account to the one given by Roland S. Barth, who served as a school principal in the program's troubled first year.
Unlike Comer's description,
Barth's study analyzed the project's failures from inception through its first year, suggesting what lessons should be drawn from the experience.04 Comer's own description of disputes between the young, idealistic, newly minted teachers who were recruited to the project,
the veteran teachers, and parents illuminates that
the program was conceived without a philosophy of education, an observation that Barth makes as well. What is clear from Comer's account in School Power is that he gradually learned
144 that an experiential approach to schooling best complemented his thinking about the centrality of the child's psychological and social development to learning. Ironically,
the teachers who were initially invited to teach
in the project schools but were fired after the first year held this philosophy;
the older, more experienced teachers,
whose traditional teaching styles and values parents approved of, had to learn these techniques from curriculum s p e c i alists. School Power outlined a program of teacher preparation which Comer more or less repeated in subsequent publications.
Its essential elements were "in-depth training
in child development,
supervised exposure to children in
schools for several years, and career guidance before beginning to work as full-time,
licensed teachers in
schools."85 in the project's first year, most of the new teachers hired lacked these characteristics, so Comer evidently learned from that experience, although School Power noted no connection between the kinds of teachers recruited for the project initially, experience,
their disastrous
and Comer's subsequent ideas about teacher
preparation. However,
Barth described the teachers as
"inappropriately trained or inappropriately selected (or both)" and explained what he had learned about teacher preparation.86 School Power demonstrates that project participants and
145 leaders analyzed Its shortcomings to reformulate strategies. Unfortunately,
the book contains no analysis or discussion
of this process.
Therefore,
it is not possible to know why
Comer's prescription for teacher preparation duplicates an aspect of the original plan which apparently, own account, was flawed.
from Comer's
However, from his experience in
the project, Barth concluded that teacher preparation could not assume that teachers would function in the ideal school environment: Those who w ould prepare teachers to change public schools do an irresponsible disservice to the teachers, their students, the parents of students, and the schools unless they acknowledge certain realities: teachers must be trained to teach as they will be expected to teach. Teachers, as part of their training, must have ample opportunity to experience the problems of the real world for which they are being prepared.87 Comer called for three major changes in teacher preparation. First, academic learning should be understood as a product of overall child development, mechanical function.
not an isolated
Second, school personnel needed
training to develop "skills to create a school-relatlonshlp climate that promotes development and learning,"88 Third, school personnel should be selected for their capacities to work in a collaborative fashion.
Comer maintained teachers
had to be prepared to work collaboratively with support staff,
like school psychologists and social workers, who in
his School Development Plan played a criticlal role as a mental health team. Teacher preparation had to help future teachers
146 to understand how a power-sharing organizational structure and a collaborative management style, with strong administrative leadership, reduces parent and student distrust and alienation. They also need to know how to create and participate in this climate.89 Comer's plan would indeed prepare teachers for w o r k in schools which were involved in his School Development Plan, but the project has thus far been implemented only in a few school districts. His course of study would probably be far less helpful,
even counterproductive,
for teachers whose
first jobs would be serving in schools with none of the structural changes or supports the School Development Plan provides. For example,
training to work collaboratlvely with
school support personnel would be of little value to teachers in schools which have quite limited access to services of school social workers and psychologists.
In
fact, one might argue that they must acquire the ability to function without these services,
despite the pressing need.
None of C o m e r ’s writing about teacher preparation directly addressed the issue of the role teachers should assume in inducing changes in school climate. He wrote that pre-service programs should teach prospective teachers how to "create" a different school environment,
but he noted
elsewhere that for his School Development Plan to be effective, school authorities must commit resources for a number of years,
implying that it requires institutional
support.90 School people can't "greatly modify...
economic
and social risk-producing factors" but they can change
147 educational practice and policy, however,
he argued.
He did not,
clarify what school people can or should do to
effect school change in buildings which have not participated in a School Development Plan such as the one he proposed.91 A NEW "CHANGE AGENT" STRATEGY In the middle of the decade, some educators in the field of curriculum studies advanced a strategy of "critical pedagogy" to prepare teachers to promote social change. many ways,
In
it was a variation on the "change agent" strategy
discussed in Chapter One. One difference was that teacher educators,
rather than the teachers themselves, were the
focus of this new attempt to make teachers the agents of social change.
Arguing for the education of teachers as
"transformative intellectuals," Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren described a new role for teacher preparation: instilling intellectual practices which are grounded in forms of moral and ethical discourse exhibiting a preferential conncern for the suffering and struggles of the disadvantaged and oppressed,92 Giroux and McLaren maintained that teacher educators must prepare teachers to treat students as critical agents, to question how knowledge is produced and distributed, that it would be "meaningful,
critical,
so
and ultimately
emancipatory."93 Schools of education had a responsibility to make schooling a part of an ongoing struggle for democracy by training teachers who would teach their
148 students to mak e "moral choices" and "engage in civ i c - m i n d e d a c t i o n in order to remove the social an d political constraints that restrict the victims of this soci e t y from leading decent and h u m a n e l i v e s . " 94 D r a w i n g on the w o r k of P a o l o Freire,
Ira Shor de s c r i b e d the n e c e s s i t y to train
teachers in "participatory and critical p e d a g o g y . " 95 Educators must "oppose dominant s o c i a l i z a t i o n w i t h critical d e s o c i a l i z a t i o n , " he a r g u e d . 96 Like the a d v ocates of the earl i e r "change agent" -L
strategy,
M c L a r e n and Gi r o u x a s s i g n e d teachers and schools
of e d u cation a political function w h i c h transc e n d e d c l a ssroom borders.
Teachers were,
for instance,
to deve l o p
"oraganlc links" w i t h c o m munity agencies a n d h elp their students engage in political a c t i v i t y that would be e m a n c i p a t o r y . 97 The teacher's m i s s i o n was not n e c e s s a r i l y to c hange the school structure.
In fact,
there was ver y little
a bout school o r g a n i z a t i o n in the w r i t i n g a bout educating teachers for "critical consciousness" or "emancipatory pedagogy," different terms for the same p h e n o m e n a in curriculum s t u d i e s . 96 This a b s e n c e of a t t e n t i o n to the school environment contrasted s h a r p l y w i t h the earlier focus on preparing teachers to change their schools, to be teachers and school
leaders.
training them
The n e w "change agent"
strategists did not a r g u e for ad d i n g a n e w role but rather for transforming the teacher into a political
leader,
who
educates students to be "critical of the dominant culture
149 that offers s u c h a dis a b l i n g mass e d u c a t i o n . " 99 Some e d ucators sympathetic to the c o n c e r n about social inequality w h i c h "critical pedagogy" a t t e m p t e d to addr e s s o b j e c t e d to its c o n f l a t i o n of the teacher's role as activist a n d educator.
F o r instance,
Daniel Liston and K e n n e t h
Zeichner argued that teacher p r e p a r a t i o n sho u l d encourage moral education,
not political inculcation,
recogn i z i n g the
p l urality of m o r a l stances teachers might a p p r o p r i a t e l y assume.
Noting that it wa s important to h e l p teachers
examine how school conditions could inhibit their chosen goals,
these teac h e r e d u cators called for p r e p a r a t i o n
programs which e n c o u r a g e d the teacher's political activity outside of the classroom,
in o p p osing school p r actices w h i c h
p romoted i n e q u a l i t y . 100 Z eichner a n d Liston's emphasis on "moral education" was shared by teacher educators wh o called for programs that promote d "reflective t e a c h i n g . " 101 However,
the d i s t i n c t i o n
betw e e n "reflective teaching" and "critical pedagogy" was m u r k y in a t e x t b o o k sel e c t i o n w h i c h Zeichner and Carl A. Grant authored.
G r o u n d i n g their theory of r eflection in
Dewey's wor k on refle c t i v e action, ne cessa ry attitudes:
they i d entified three
openmindedness;
is, a sense of consequences;
and wholeheartedness.
description of a reflective teacher, to Giroux's respect:
responsibility,
however,
"transformative intellectual"
that
Their
sounds similar
in an important
150 As a reflective teacher, you do not hesitate or forget to fight for your beliefs and for a quality education for all... The reflective teacher is dedicated and committed to teaching all s t u d e n t s , not just certain students.102 In this passage from Zeichner and Grant,
reflection
invariably generates a commitment to equal educational opportunity - or it is not authentic reflection.
However,
"equality" can be defined in terms of entry requirements, it was by the "excellence" reforms, or by achievement outcomes, as it was in the compensatory programs initiated in the 1960's.103 Which definition the reflective teacher selects may be a product of his or her political thinking and not necessarily the capacity to critically analyze teaching. ECHOES OF EARLIER DISCOURSE Reverberations of debates twenty years earlier were still apparent in discourse about preparation of urban teachers of "disadvantaged" students. Perhaps most Importantly,
educators still stiftiggled to define which
students were "disadvantaged," how, and why. One author noted that "things are much calmer on the educational dlsadvantagement front today - but that is not because the problems have been resolved. Rather,
practically everyone
now avoids the issue."104 There was indeed far less discussion about "disadvantaged" students, term,
but a new explanation and a new
"at risk," emerged during this period.
Instead of
as
151 desc r i b i n g students'
attributes,
some e d u c a t o r s n o t e d that
"certain large, demog r a p h i c a l l y - l d e n t l f l a b l e groups gai n s i g n i f i c a n t l y less than others from public s c h o o l i n g . " 105 This n e w d efinition of acceptance,
"dlsadvantagement" s i g n a l e d wider
at least among educators,
of a n ex p l a n a t i o n
w h i c h made the fit betw e e n students and s c h o o l i n g the critical factor in school
failure.
This d e f i n i t i o n r e j e c t e d
bot h the student-deflclt and the t e acher-deficit models, an d it g e n erated a ne w term,
students "at risk."
Students w ere des c r i b e d as "at risk" of falling to c o m plete their edu c a t i o n wit h an a d e quate level of s k i l l s . 106 Others d e f i n e d students
"at risk" w h e n s c hooling
failed to provide them w i t h the skills they needed to surv i v e in the w o r k force and be Informed,
active
c i t i z e n s . 107 Anot h e r d efinition d e s cribed "at risk" students s o l e l y in demographic terms,
not i n g that a large p o r t i o n are
from poo r families of all races, m i n o r i t y an d immigrant children,
females, an d children wit h h a n d i c a p s . 108 Another
wr i t e r employed the term "educationally d i s advantaged" but combined the d emographic and outcome d e s c r i p t i o n s g e n e r a l l y u s e d by writers u sing the term "at r i s k " : [Educationally d i s a dvantaged students] lack the home a n d community resources to benefit from conventional schooling practices. Because of poverty, cultural differences, or linguistic differences, they tend to have low academic achievement an d e x p e r i e n c e a hig h s e condary school drop-out rate. Typically, such students are h e a v i l y concentrated a mong m i n o r i t y groups, immigrants, non-En g l i s h s p e a k i n g families, economically disadvantaged p o p u l a t i o n s . 109
T here wa s still d i s a g r e e m e n t about wha t caused the mismatch b e t w e e n students and schools,
a n d h ere the ol d
arguments a bout student a n d teacher d e f i c i t s framed the discourse.
Two writers a r g u e d that
"too m a n y teachers and
principals are still u n a w a r e of the a reas of conflict between the culture of the school and and that of c h i l d r e n raised in u r b a n black c o m m u n i t i e s . " 110 One school improvement s t u d y in C h i c a g o used James Coleman's distin c t i o n b e t w e e n families w h i c h wer e "structurally deficient" a n d " f u n ctionally deficient" p o l i c y . 111
Still,
to examine school
the fact that the m a t c h between s t u dents
and school had become the focus of debate e n couraged more discussion of the p r o b l e m in "ecological" rather than "service delivery" t e r m s . 112
For instance,
the previous
authors concluded that school goals had to be n egotiated w ith educators and pare n t s to avoid the c o l lision of school culture and b l a c k culture.
Carl Grant's d i s c u s s i o n of u r b a n
teaching r e flected the sam e tension.
He a c k n o w l e d g e d the
v a l idity of arguments that urban teachers
"are kept b usy
just trying to m a i ntain their own professional sanity" and have neither the time nor ene r g y to d e v e l o p m a t erials w h i c h w ould overcome the limitations of curri c u l a r mandates. However he complained that "teachers rarely ask how, spite of bureaucratic constraints,
they themselves
contribute to problems w i t h the c u r r i c u l u m . " 113 CONCLUSION
in
153 The decade of re f o r m w h i c h b e g a n w i t h p u b l i c a t i o n of A N a t i o n at Ris k focused pu b l i c a t t e n t i o n on e d u c a t i o n but the res u l t i n g changes d i d little to improve ed u c a t i o n for "disadvantaged" students.
Th e p r o blems of funding a n d racial
isolation w h i c h plag u e d cit y schools w e r e not r e l i e v e d by m e a s u r e s to achi e v e educational However,
"excellence."
the neglect of issues w h i c h were pivo t a l to
improving e d u c a t i o n for "disadvantaged" students m a y also hav e allowed a less p o l i t i c a l l y - c h a r g e d environment for debate, w h i c h p e r m i t t e d som e consensus to develop a b o u t the sour c e s of an d s o l utions to d i s a d v a n t a g e m e n t . Nonetheless,
the shift to d e f i n i t i o n s of
d i s a d v a n t a g e m e n t that empha s i z e d the fit between students a n d schooling o c c urred w i t h i n a larger discourse compl e t e l y d o m i n a t e d by concerns w h i c h p r evented a n y w i d e s p r e a d reform b a s e d on this principle.
First,
the s i n gular e m p h a s i s on
s chooling's e c o nomic p u r p o s e s e x c luded debate about e ducation's political a n d social role
in a democracy,
a
d i s c u s s i o n w h i c h w o u l d hav e n e c e s s i t a t e d a focus on students w h o m schools ha d h i s t o r i c a l l y served least successfully. "Excellence" and
"equity" were ver y m u c h counterposed,
p r a c t i c e if not in theory,
in
and debate about teacher
p r e p a r a t i o n r e flected the ascen d a n c y of
"excellence"
reforms. Debate a bout school c o n d i t i o n s of work,
improvement included r e f e r e n c e to
a d evelopment w h i c h could have
154 encouraged attention to systemic characteristics of urban schools which undercut student and teacher performance. But this valuable insight was overshadowed by the prevailing strategy of
professionalizing teaching.
In accepting this
framework: for analyzing the teacher's relationship to parents, students, and citizens,
educators accepted a
paradigm for school reform which contradicted the benefit of including school conditions in the discourse about improving achievement of at-risk students.
It further conteracted the
j.
other significant development in debate,
adoption of the "at
risk" label for students previously identified as "culturally deprived."
1.National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 1983). 2.Carol Camp Yeakey and Gladys Styles Johnston, "High School Reform. A Critique and a Broader Construct of Social Reality," Education and Urban Society 17 (February 1985): 157. 3. Harold Howe II, "Introduction to the Symposium on the Year of the Reports: Responses from the Educational Community," Harvard Educational Review 54 (February 1984): 4.Susan Moore Johnson, "Schoolwork and its Reform," Journal of Education Policy (in press), paper 37142. 5.Madhu Suri Prakash, "Reforming the Teaching of Teachers: Trends, Contradictions, and Challenges," Teachers College Record 88 (Winter 1986), 217. 6.National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 1983); Thomas B. Timar and David L. Kirp, Managing Educational Excellence (New York: Falmer Press, 1988), 13. 7.Lois Weiner, "The Corporate Ethos and Educational Reform" (Paper presented at the New England Educational Research Organization, Rockport Maine, May 1990).
3.
155 8.Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession, A Nation Prepared; Teachers for the Twentvflrst Century (Washington, D . C . : Carnegie Forum, 1986),2. 9.A Nation Prepared:
Teachers for the Twentvflrst C e n t u r y . 107.
10.Joel Spring, ''Education and the Sony War," Phi Delta Kappan 65 (April 1984). Barbara Flnkelsteln, "Education and the Retreat from Democracy in the United States," Teachers College Record 86 (Winter 1984): 275. 11. Robert Dreeban, "Comments on T o m o r r o w 's T e a c h e r s .11 Teachers College Record 88 (Spring 1987): 359. 12.David K. Cohen and Barbara Neufeld, "The Failure of High Schools and the Progress of Education," Daedalus (Summer 1981). David Kearns, "Competitiveness Begins at School," Hew York T i m e s , Sunday, 17 December 1989, section 3, p . 2. 13.Ann Bastian, et a l ., Choosing E q u a l i t y . (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1986), 4. 14.Tomas Toch, "The Dark Side of the Excellence Movement," Phi Delta Kappan 66 (November 1984). 15.Kathryn M. Borman and Joel H. Spring, Schools in Central Cities. Structure and Process (New York: Longman Press, 1984), 7. 16. Henry M. Levin, Educational Reform for Disadvantaged Students; An Emerging Crisis (Washington, D.C.: National Education Association, 1986). 17.Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Imperiled Generation. Saving Urban Schools (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Foundation, 1988), prologue. 18. An Imperiled Generation.
An
Saving Urban S c h o o l s , prologue.
19.Jonathan H. Mark and Barry D.Anderson, "Schools and the Transformation of a Metropolis," The Urban Review 16 (Spring 1984). 20.Harold Howe II, "Education Moves to Center Stage: An Overview of Recent Studies," Phi Delta Kappan 65 (November 1983). Harold Howe II, "Introduction to Symposium on the Year of the Reports: Responses from the Educational Community," Harvard Educational Review 54 (February 1984). 21.See Ernest L. Boyer, High School (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), issuing a report for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Theodore R. Sizer, H o r a c e 1s
156 Compromise. The Dilemma of the A m e r i c a n High School (Boston: Houghton M i f f l i n Co., 1984). Their studies reflected a n d encouraged p o l i c y concerns about s e c o n d a r y school cur r i c u l a and organization. While m a n y of Sizer's r e c o m m e ndations c o n t r adicted the major ref o r m proposals, it is interesting to compare t hese two v o l u m e s to the kinds of schola r s h i p u nder t a k e n as schools w e r e desegregating. For Instance, see Shirley B r i c e Heath's e x a m i n a t i o n of children's language acquisition in three di f f e r e n t c ommunities a n d its ramifications for school success, in Wavs w i t h Words (New York: C a m b r i d g e Univ. Press, 1983). 22.David L. Clark, T erry A. Astuto, and P a u l a M. Rooney, "The C h a n g i n g Structure of Federal Edu c a t i o n Po l i c y in the 1 9 8 0 's," Phi D e l t a Ka p p a n 65 (November 1983): 188. 23.Deborah A. Ver s t e g e n an d David L.‘ Clark, "The D i m i n u t i o n in Federal Expenditures for E d u cation Du r i n g the Re a g a n A dministration," Phi D e l t a Kappan 70 (October 1988): 134. 24. V e r s t e g e n a n d Clark,
"The Dimi n u t i o n in Federal Expenditures.
25.Philip R. Plccigallo, "Renovating Urban Schools is Fundamental to Improving Them," Phi Delta Kap p a n 70 (January 1989). 26. One e x c e p t i o n was Ira Shor's work. See "Equality Is Excellence: T r a n s f o r m i n g Teacher Edu c a t i o n an d the Learn i n g Process," H a r v a r d Educational R e v i e w 56 (November 1986} an d Culture Wars. School a n d Society in the C o n s e rvative Restoration 1969 - 1984 (New York: Rou t l e d g e and K e g a n Paul, 1987). 27. David L. Clark, T e r r y A. Astuto, and P aula M. Rooney, "The C h a n g i n g Structure of Federal Ed u c a t i o n Policy in the 1980's 28.David L. Kirp, "Introduction: The Fo u r t h R: Reading, Writing, 'Rithmetic-and Rules," in David L. Kirp and Donald N. Jenson, eds., School Days. Rule Davs (Philadelphia: Falmer Press, 1966), 3.
29.James W. Guthrie, "Education R an d D's Lament (And What to Do about It)," Educational Researcher 19 (March 1990): 34. 30. A b i p a r t i s a n group of Senators Introduced S. 1675, a bill to r e surrect the T e a c h e r Corps, to the 101st Congress. Its scope is c o n s i derably smaller t han the original project, however.
157 31.Steven A. Holmes, "Senate Votes B u s h E d u c a t i o n Bill, w i t h Plan for Teacher Standards," The Ne w Y o r k T i m e s . 8 F e b ruary 1990, p. 26. 32.A l l e n Odden, "Financing Educational Excellence," Phi Delta K a p p a n 65 {January 1984); 311. 33.Thomas B. Tlmar and D a v i d L. Kirp, M a n a n g i n o Educational Excellence. 34.Ma r t i n Haberman, "Recruiting and Sel e c t i n g T e a chers for U r b a n Schools," (ERIC D o c ument R e p r o d u c t i o n Serv i c e No. ED 292 942, N o v e m b e r 1987), 16. 35.D onna H. Kerr, "Teaching C o mpetence a n d Teac h e r Education in the U.S.," Teachers C o l l e g e Re c o r d 84 (Spring 1983): 531. 3 6 . Ibid.,
528.
37.The most w i d e l y deba t e d reports w e r e issued by the Holmes, N C A T E , and the C a r n e g i e Task F o r c e on T e a c h i n g as a Profession, a c c o r d i n g to a n assessment by Ala n R. Tom, Ho w Should Teachers Be Educated; A n Asse s s m e n t of the Reform Reports (Bloomington, IN; Phi Delta K a p p a n Educational Foundation, 1987). 38.Prakash,
"Reforming the T e a c h i n g of Teachers."
39. A m e r i c a n A s s o c iation of Colleges for Teacher Education, M i n o r i t y T e a c h e r Recrui t m e n t and Retention; A Call for Action (Washington, D . C . ; 1987); J oan C. Baratz, "Black P a r t i c i p a t i o n in the Teacher Pool," (Paper p r e p a r e d for the Carnegie F o r u m on E d u c a t i o n and the Economy, J a n u a r y 1987); Linda Darllng-Hammond, et al., "Career Choices for Minorities: Who Will Teach?" (Paper p r e p a r e d for the National E d u c a t i o n A s s o c a t l o n and Council of Chief State School Officers Tas k Force o n Minor i t i e s in Teaching, June 1987). 40.P a t ricia Albj e r g Graham, "Black Teachers: A D r a s t i c a l l y Scarce Resource," Phi D elta Kap p a n 68 (April 1987). Michael Sedlak and St e v e n Schlossman, Who Will Teach? Historical Perspectives on the C h a n g i n g Appeal of T e a ching as a Profe s s i o n present the point of v i e w w h i c h d o m i n a t e d discourse about the issue. 41. This is most apparent in A Nation P r e p a r e d , w h i c h contains a scenario d e s c r i b i n g ho w schools will, o r at least should, be organized in the twenty-first century. 42.Ronald Edmonds, "A T h e o r y and Design of Social Service Reform," Social Po l i c y 15 (Fall 1984).
158 43.David S. Seeley, "Education Through Partnership," Educational Leadership 40 (November 1982). 44. Don Davies refers to it as an "ecological" approach in "Looking for an Ecological Solution. Planning to Improve the Education of Disadvantaged Students," Equity and Choice 4 (Fall 1967); James Comer also used the word "ecological" to describe the approach to school reform he advocated in his School Development Program in "Academic and Affective Gains from the School Development Program: A Model for School Improvement," (Paper presented at the American Psychological Association, Washington D . C . , August 1986). In a n earlier article he referred to the approach as "holistic." See "Black Education: A Holistic View," The Urban Review 8 (Fall 1975). David Seely distinguishes "educational partnership" from "service delivery" in "Educational Partnerships and the Dilemmas of School Reform," Phi Delta Kappan 65 (February 1964). 45.Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, A Nation P r e p a r e d ; The Holmes Group, T o m o r r o w ^ Teachers. A Report of the Holmes Group (East Lansing, MI: The Holmes Group, 1986); National Commission for Excellence in Teacher Education, A Call for Change in Teacher Education (Washington, D . C . : American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1985); Albert Shanker, "The Making of a Profession," American Educator (Fall 1985); National Education Association, Excellence in Our Schools. Teacher Education, an Action Plan (Washington, D.C.: National Education Association, 1982). 46.Robert Dreeban,
"Comments on T o m m o r r o w *s T e a c h e r s .11 363.
47. Lee S. Shulman, "Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform," Harvard Educational Review 57 (February 1987): 4. Arthur G. Powell traces the perennial controversies about professionalizing teaching in his history of Harvard Graduate School of Education, The Uncertain Profession (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980). One of the themes of Unfinished Business of the Teaching Profession in the 1970's, T.M.. Stinnett ed., (Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa, 1971) was that teaching had to become a real profession by taking control over standards for admission, preparation, licensure, professional growth, and continuance in practice. 48.Rob Wright, "1994 Target Date Eyed for US Teacher Exam," The Boston Globe 4 September 1988. 49 . Interview with Albert Shanker, The Urban Review 3 (November 1968). S h a n k e r ’s discussion of national certification illuminates how professionalization necessarily excludes significant community or parental
159 pa r t icipation in schools. 50 . Gary Sykes, Introduction, "Policy Initiatives for Developing a Teaching Profession," Elem e n t a r y School Journal B6 (March 1986): 366. 51.Patricia Albjerg Graham, "Schools: Cac o p h o n y about Practice, Sile n c e about Purpose," D a e dalus 113 (Pall 1984): 55. 52.Arthur E. Wise, Linda Darllng-Hammond, and Barnett Berry, Effective T e a c h e r Selection: Prom Recrui t m e n t to R e t ention (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1987). 53 . Carnegie Forum, A N a t i o n Prepared: Teachers for the Twentvflrst C e n t u r y ; L i n d a D a r l l n g - H a m m o n d a n d Barnett Berry, The E v olution of Teacher P o l i c y (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1988); N a t ional R e s e a r c h Council, Toward Unders t a n d i n g Teacher S u p p l y and Demand: P rlorltless for R e s earch a n d D evelopment (New York: National A c a d e m y Press, 1988); Michael Sedlak a n d Steven Schlossman, W h o Will Teach? Historical P e r s p e c t i v e s o n the C h a n g i n g Appeal of Teaching as a P r o f e s s i o n (Santa Monica: Ran d Corporation, 1986); Wise, Darllng-Hammond, and Berry, E f f e c t i v e Teacher S e l e c t i o n ; Shulman, "Knowledge and Teaching: F oundations of the New Reform." 54.Proposals for "school governance" or "school-based management" v a r i e d widely. Those w h i c h made parents partners in school governance, acc o r d i n g to m y categories, belong u nder the "ecological" approach. In contrast, S u s a n Moore John s o n in " Schoolwork an d Its Reform," Journal of E d u c a t i o n Po l i c y (forthcoming) Includes only pare n t s and a d m i nistrators in her concept of "shared governance," adding that parents m ight be involved in rethi n k i n g sc h o o l purposes so teachers d on't feel as Isolated a n d unsupported; their partic i p a t i o n w o u l d c l e a r l y be tangential to the real exercise of a u t h o r i t y by teachers an d administrators, however. Parental Involvement is e v e n more peripheral in Albert S h a nker's proposal for restructured scho o l s outlined in "The Mak i n g of a Profession," The A m e rican Educator (Fall 1985). In the S h a n k e r / A F T plan, p a r e n t s and students w o u l d be given a ch o i c e of school but g o v e r n a n c e of e a c h school w o u l d be controlled by teachers. 55.A Nation P r e p a r e d , 55. 5 6 .Tommorrow's T e a c h e r s . 40. 57.The reports differed over which of the profession's s egments sh o u l d regulate entry. The H o l m e s G roup w o u l d give research universities control of sta n d a r d s through a series
160 of teacher examinations. The National Com m i t t e e for Excel l e n c e in Teac h e r E d u c a t i o n w o u l d g ive s t a t e g overnment the control over sta n d a r d s but argued that the task should then be d e legated in the m a i n to edu c a t i o n professionals, pr e s u m a b l y Including r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s of scho o l s of education. Th e N E A ad v o c a t e d a u t o n o m o u s state agencies g o v e r n e d by a m a j o r i t y of K-12 teachers, all N E A members, to approve teacher p r e p a r a t i o n p r o grams an d admi n i s t e r a test. None of the p r oposals a d d r e s s e d the fact that eac h p l a n gave control over e n t r y to the g r o u p a u t h o r i n g the report. 58.The Holmes Group, Tomo r r o w ' s Teachers. A Report of the Holmes G r o u p ; C a r n e g i e Forum o n E d u c a t i o n and the Economy, N a t i o n P r e p a r e d : National C o m m i s s i o n o n Excellence in Teac h e r Education, A Call for Cha n g e in Teacher Education (Washington, D . C . : A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n of C o l leges for Teacher Education, 1985).
A
.4
59.Shanker,
"The M a k i n g of a Profession."
60.M a r y Ann e Raywld, "Tomorrow's T e a chers an d Today's Schools," Teachers Coll e g e Record 88 (Spring 1987): 414. 61.Dreeban,
"Comments on T o m m o r r o w 1s T e a c h e r s ."
62. Raywid,
"Tomorrow's Teachers an d Today's Schools," 416.
63.Robert V. Builough, Jr. a n d A n d r e w D. Gltlln, "Schooling and Change: A V i e w from the Lower Rung," T e a chers College Re c o r d 87 (Winter 1985): 220. M a r t i n H a b e r m a n argues that the country's 120 largest school dis t r i c t s have the worst p r o blems of bureaucratization, In "Recruiting an d Selecting Teachers for U rban S c h o o l s ." 64.M a r t i n Haberman, Pre p a r i n g T e a c h e r s for U r b a n Schools (Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta K a p p a E ducational Foundation, 1988), 23. 65.M a r t i n Haberman,
P r e p a r i n g Teachers
for U r b a n Schools.
66.Kenn e t h A. Tewel, "The Best C hild I Ever Had. Teacher Influence on the D e c i s i o n - M a k i n g of Three U r b a n H i g h School Principals," Urban Edu c a t i o n 23 (April 1988): 39. 6 7.Vito Perrone, "Observation on the C a r negie Themes," in Portraits of High Schools (Princeton: P r i n c e t o n Univ. Press, 1985), 645. 68. Mic hael Lipsky, Street-Level B u r e a u c r a c y Russell Sage Foundation, 1980). 6 9 . Ibid.,
76.
(New York:
161 70.Judith Wa r r e n Little, R l c h a r d s o n - K o e h l e r eds.,
"Teachers as Colleagues," in E d ucators Handbook: A R e s e a r c h Perspecti
71.Rebecca Barr an d Robert Dreeban, How Schools W o r k (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1983). 72.Rick Ginsberg, H e n r i e t t a Schwartz, G e o r g e Olson, Albert Bennett, "Working C o nditions in Urban Schools," The Urban R e v i e w 19 (Spring 1986). 7 3 . Ibid.,
202.
7 4 . Ibid.,
203.
75.
Ibid.,
204.
76.James P. Comer, "New Have n ' s School Com m u n i t y C o n n e c t i o n , ” Educational Lead e r s h i p 44 (March 1987):
14.
77.Li p s k y outlines his recommendations for reform in chapter 13, "Support for H u m a n Services: Notes for Reform an d Reconstruction"; C omer des c r i b e s his p r o g r a m at length in School Power (New York: The Pree Press, 1980). He a lso describes his p r o g r a m in N e w Haven, later applied in Benton Harbor, Michigan, and his theories in "Academic an d A f fective Gains from the School Development Program: A Model for School Improvement," (Paper presented at the A m e r i c a n Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., August 1986); "Home-School R e l a t i o n s h i p s as T h e y Affect the Academic Success of Children," Edu c a t i o n and Urban Society 16 (May 1984); "New H a v e n ' s School C o m m u n i t y Connection," Educational L e a d e r s h i p 44 (March 1987). 76 . Comer,
"Academic an d Af f e c t i v e Gains," p . 11.
79.comer,
"Home-School Relationships."
80.Comer,
"New H a v e n ' s School C o mmunity Connection,"
8 1.Comer,
"Academic and Aff e c t i v e Gains."
8 2.Comer,
School P o w e r , 69.
8 3.Comer,
"Academic and A f f e c t i v e Gains," p . 9.
14.
84. James P. Comer, School P o w e r ; Roland S. Barth, Ope n E d ucation and the A m e r i c a n School (New York: Agat h o n Press, 1972). Barth does not iden tify the name of his school or district in his account of the project, but several incidents that he describes, as well as the program's l ocation and a f f i l i a t i o n s identify the site. In discussing his w o r k wit h me o n 20 April 1990, Barth con f i r m e d that he
162 was a principal In the Comer-Yale-New Haven School District project during Its first year. 85.Comer,
School P o w e r . 20.
86. Barth, Open E d u c a t i o n . 207. 87.I b i d . ,207 88.Ibid. 89.Ibid. 90.C o m e r , School P o w e r . 91.Comer,
"New Haven's School Community Connection," 14.
92.Henry A. Giroux and Peter McLaren, "Teacher Education and the Politics of Engagement: The Case for Democratic Schooling," Harvard Education Review 56 (August 1986}: 210. 9 3 . Ibid. 94.Ibid.,
225.
95.Ira Shor,
"Equality is Excellence," 412.
96.Ibid.,
413.
97.Ibid.,
236.
98.Beverly M. Gordon, "Teaching Teachers: Nation at Risk and the Issue of Knowledge in Teacher Education," The Urban Review 17 (Spring 1985) argues that teacher educators should teach critical consciousness, using the methodological accounts of teachers practicing an "emancipatory pedagogy." 99.Shor,
"Equality is Excellence," 413.
100. Daniel P. Liston and Kenneth M. Zeichner, "Critical Pedagogy and Teacher Education," Journal of Teacher Education 169 (Spring 1987), 101.Carl A Grant ed., Preparing for Reflective Teaching (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1984); George J. Posner, Field Experience. A Guide to Reflective Teaching (Ne w Y o r k : Longman, 1985). 102.Carl A. Grant and Kenneth M. Zeichner, "On Becoming a Reflective Teacher," in Carl A. Grant ed., Preparing for Reflective T e a c h i n g .
163 103. An n Bastlan, Norman Fruchter, M a r i l y n Glttell, Colin Greer, and Kenn e t h Haskins, C h o o s i n g Equality: The Case for Democratic S c h ooling (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press). 104.Carl Berelter, "The Chang i n g Face of Educational Disadvantagement," Phi Delta K a p p a n 66 (April 1985): 540. 1 05.Ibid.,
538.
106.Robert E. S l a v i n and N ancy C. Madden, "What Works for Students at Risk: A Research Synthesis," Educational L ead e r s h i p 46 (February 1989). 107. Anne Bastian, et al., C h o o s i n g Equality. T h e C ase for D emocratic S c hooling (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1986). 108.National C o a l i t i o n of Adv o c a t e s for Students, Barriers to Excellence: Our Children at R i s k (Boston: National Coa l i t i o n of A d v o c a t e s for Students, 1986). 109.H e n r y M. Levin, introduction. Educational Reform for Disadvantaged Students: An E m e r g i n g Crisis (Washington, D . C . : National Edu c a t i o n Association, 1986). llO.Shirl E. Gilb e r t II and Ge n e v a Gay, "Improving the Success in School of Poor Black Children," Phi Delta Kappan 67 (October 1985): 134. 111.Barbara Schneider, "Assuring Educational Quality for Ch i ldren At Risk," (Paper p r e s e n t e d at the American Educational R e s e a r c h Association, Boston, 18 April 1990.) The discussant, W i l l i a m Boyd, remarked a f t e r the pres e n t a t i o n that identifying families as "deficient" echoed the earlier "repugnant" error of labeling students as deficient rather t h a n culturally different, 112.Anthony S. B ryle and Y eow M e n g Thum, "The Effects of Hig h School Org a n i z a t i o n on D r o p p i n g O u t : An Explor a t o r y Investigation," A m e r i c a n Educational R e s e a r c h Journal 26 (Fall 1989). 113.Carl A. Grant, "Urban Teachers: Their N e w Colleagues and Curriculum," Phi D e l t a Kappan 70 (June 1989):769.
S U M M A R Y FINDINGS CHAPTERS ONE, Ch a pters One,
TWO, AN D THREE
Two, a n d Three have exami n e d four related
questions: (1) W h a t skills and att i t u d e s do teachers of "at risk" y outh in u r b a n schools nee d to be successful? (2) H o w should teacher pr e p a r a t i o n be changed to give teachers the skills and a t titudes d e s c r i b e d in #1? (3) H o w d o c h aracteristic s of u rban school systems affect teacher performance? (4) H o w should the characteristics identified in #3 b e used to r e f o r m p r e p a r a t i o n of u r b a n teachers? T h i r t y years of s c h o l a r s h i p about pr e p a r i n g teachers of at- r i s k students in u rban schools yields no c o nclusive answers to the first two qu e s t i o n s but instead p r e s e n t s a compe l l i n g argument for rejecting the prescriptive f ormula tion w h i c h und e r l i e s b o t h the q u e s t i o n s an d the answers
that researchers h a v e a t tempted to p r o v i d e . As
e x p lained in Chap t e r One,
because e d u cators have d i s a g r e e d
about the sources of a c a demic failure,
no consensus has
emerged about needed correctives in u r b a n teacher preparation.
Because the issue of disadv a n t a g e m e n t has
evoked wha t are e s s e n t i a l l y political d i s p u t e s about the purposes and processes of e d u cation in a pluralistic society,
pre s c r i p t i v e s o l utions cannot be synthe s i z e d from
the scholarship.
165 The futility of combing the literature for a comprehensive list of approp r i a t e skills a n d at t i t u d e s for teachers of a t - r i s k students in u rban schools is an important outcome of this study,
however,
for in r e jecting
the se a r c h for pre s c r i p t i v e a n s w e r s to the first two questions,
it raises the p o s s i b i l i t y of s u b s t i t u t i n g a
different framework,
analysis of the social context of
e d ucating at-risk s t u dents in u r b a n schools. In e ach of the periods examined,
shifts in the
political climate hav e shaped the dominant reforms for pre p a r i n g teachers of risk" students.
"deprived,"
"disadvantaged," or "at
Yet a c k nowledgment of this broader context
has b een vir t u a l l y ab s e n t from the literature since the early 1 9 7 0 's. Just as the p o l itical tensions of the 1960's charged sch o l a r l y discourse,
s h a r p l y p o l a r i z i n g debate
between a d vocates and opponents of theories of "cultural deprivation,"
the alte r e d political climate of the last two
decades has also sh a p e d answers to Issues in u r b a n schooling and u rban teacher preparation.
The political
impetus for
pedagogical change in u r b a n teacher pr e p a r a t i o n dur i n g the last two decades, F or example,
however,
has ra r e l y been examined.
few writers have e x p lored h o w changes in
funding formulas a n d amounts hav e altered Instructional practices or h o w the failure to r a c ially I n t egrate u rban schools has changed educational outcomes.
Perh a p s the most
d ramatic example of b oth the Impact of a chan g e d political
166 climate and the un a c k n o w l e d g e d sch o l a r l y a c c o m o d a t i o n to the shift wa s the r a p i d i t y w i t h w h i c h edu c a t o r s b e g a n to d e s cribe urban school p o p u l ations as
"multicultural,"
a
label w h i c h Ignored the a b s e n c e of w h i t e s t u d e n t s in u r b a n school systems,
as well as the defeat of e f f o r t s for
authentic racial
integration.
The third an d fourth q u e s t i o n s cannot be a n s wered either,
for a c o nnected but rela t e d reason.
T h e y raise the
prob l e m of the broa d e r social context of stud e n t a chievement and teacher performance.
No sus t a i n e d or syst e m a t i c d e b a t e
about urban school effects o n teacher a n d student p erformance has t r anspired and thus the final question,
how
to a p p l y the r e s earch to u r b a n teacher preparation,
cannot
be a n s wered d e f i n i t i v e l y from e x i sting scholarship.
While
p rograms to prep a r e u rban teachers,
like the Teacher Corps,
contained implicit theories about the s y s t e m i c c o n d i t i o n s in urban schools,
the absence of explicit d i s c u s s i o n or
a nalysis of this framework obscu r e d their e m b e d d e d "ecological" concerns and enco u r a g e d a c c e p t a n c e of CB T E ' s expli c i t l y technical approach. In the 1 9 6 0 's social s cientists had b e g u n to expl o r e the c h a r a c t eristics of u r b a n school systems, were not applied to pedagogical concerns.
but their ideas
In part,
this was
due to the h e g e m o n y of research models w h i c h d e p e n d on teacher and student deficits,
mod e l s w h i c h d e n y the
relevance of u r b a n school conditions.
The d o m i n a t i o n of
167 teacher or student deficit paradigms for research,
in part
the legacy of political conflicts over the reasons poor, minority students fail to be educated in urban school systems, has meant that the effects that well-documented characteristics of urban school systems,
like o v e r
regulation and standardized curricula,
have on student and
teacher functioning remain unexplored.
Moreover,
a good deal
of the work purporting to examine life in urban classrooms has been personal narrative which relies on a teacherdeficit paradigm for explaining student failure,
in essence
rejecting the interaction between teacher performance, student needs, and school conditions. Moreover, conditions, achievement,
analysis of the impact which social
like unemployment rates, have on educational has been even more tangential to research.
Frank Rlessman, with his brief reference to the critical importance of full employment in boosting academic achievement of poor, minority children, was one of the few writers in an y period to attempt to place problems of teacher and student interaction within a political framework.
Ironically,
as a literature on the
relationship between school conditions,
student learning,
and teacher performance has begun to emerge as a result of the "excellence" movement,
the political context of the
latest reforms has minimized attention to urban schools and at-risk students.
The semantic shift to "at risk" to
168 d e s c r i b e the p r o b l e m of student and school sign a l s wider acceptance,
failure c e r t a i n l y
at least a m o n g educators,
of
theories which reject the elther/or d i c h o t o m y of teacher and student deficit mo d e l s to expl a i n school failure;
but the
change has p r o bably b e e n e ased by the extent to w h i c h u rban s c h o o l i n g and "at risk" students are n o w m ore peripheral p o l i c y concerns. B e f o r e teacher educators can generate more definitive s o lutions to the four questions posed,
far more needs to be
k nown about the m e c h a n i s m s teachers u s e to adapt to c o nditions in u r b a n schools.
For example,
how do
b u r e a u c r a t i c and hierarchical organization, isolation,
racial
chronic shortages of instructional mat e r i a l s and
support personnel,
a n d the schools'
isolation from pare n t s
and n e i g hborhoods affect the u r b a n teacher's interaction w ith a t - r i s k s t udents? Without a c k n o w l e d g i n g that these characteristics of u r b a n schools pla y a significant part in c l a s s r o o m life, w e cannot a d equately p r e p a r e u rban teachers for their job. Unfortunately,
s c h o l a r l y discourse about
pre p a r i n g teachers of at-risk s t u dents in u rban schools has, for the most part, u nder s t a n d i n g —
failed to ac k n o w l e d g e that we lack this
and that we nee d to a c q u i r e it.
169 C H A P T E R POUR Many p r o g r a m s to Improve p r e p a r a t i o n of u r b a n teachers of a t - r i s k s t u d e n t s have b e e n p redicated o n the a ssumptions that Improved s c h o o l i n g can brighten t h e economic prospects of poor,
m i n o r i t y students in urban s c h o o l systems,
an d that
teach e r s and t e a c h e r p r e p a r a t i o n can i m p r o v e urban schooling.
However,
or asserted,
these p r o p o sitions a r e usua l l y presumed
r a t h e r than e x a m i n e d or analyzed.
Determining h o w urban scho o l s and teachers c a n — and c a n ' t — influence students'
e c o n o m i c and political
future is
critical to a p r o g r a m to p r e p a r e teachers of at-risk s t u d e n t s because the answer frames what educators w i l l d e m a n d of society,
teacher p r e p a r a t i o n a n d urban teachers.
If schooling an d teacher p r e p a r a t i o n a r e not ap p r o p r i a t e p o l i c y Instruments
for a l l e v i a t i n g inequality, a s s i g n i n g
them the task i n v i t e s failure,
along w i t h public c y n i c i s m
a n d despair about reducing p o v e r t y and d e t e r m i n i n g h o w ed u c a t i o n best s e r v e s soc i e t y ' s needs.
Indeed,
one prominent
ex p l a n a t i o n for th e a cceptance of a "schools don't m a k e a difference" p e r s p e c t i v e was that it a r g u e d that the co m p e nsatory p r o g r a m s of the 1 9 6 0 's w e r e charged w i t h a task they could not fulfill:
el i m i n a t i o n of so c i a l inequality.*
If teacher pr e p a r a t i o n encourages prospe c t i v e teachers to b e l i e v e that a s individual s c h o o l s and their students'
teachers t h e y can a l t e r urban
lives,
but in fact they cannot,
then their careers as urban teachers w ill probably b e
170 shortlived,
truncated by defeats that they att r i b u t e to
personal shortcomings or the conviction that no teachers can mak e a n y difference.
Conversely,
if programs to prepare
u r b a n teachers of at-r i s k students expect that the teachers they educate ca n hav e no success,
either because "schools
don't matter" or because institutions of teacher p r e p a r a t i o n and teachers cannot Influence school reform,
there is little
reason to u n dertake a job as d i fficult as teaching in u rban schools or p r e p a r i n g teachers for this job. A N IMPOVERISHED D I SCOURSE Unfortunately,
debate about
the correlation between
ed u cation and economic m o b i l i t y has almost evaporated, displaced by consensus that the n a t ion's competit i v e n e s s and each citizen's financial p r o spects are tied to schooling. The "excellence" reforms h ave b e e n pred i c a t e d on economic theories challenged in business pub l i c a t i o n s far m o r e than in educational
jou r n a l s . 2 W o r k of e conomists and political
scienti sts who disp u t e the causal link betw e e n the nation's p r o d u c t i v i t y and its global c o m p e t i tiveness or the citizen's academic a chievement and e m p l o y a b i l i t y is rarely a ckn o w l e d g e d in the c o n t e mporary c o n v e r s a t i o n o n improving urban schools.
Similarly,
de b a t e a mong h istorians about the
complex interaction between illiteracy, c r i m i nality on the one hand, other,
poverty,
and
and e t h n i c i t y a n d ge n d e r on the
has not bee n reflected in m ajor pr o p o s a l s to reform
schools or teacher p reparation in the past d e c a d e . 3
171 P e w educators t oday question the economic theories u n d e r p i n n i n g the last decade's reforms. an a l t e r native view,
Fewer still p r o p o s e
for instance a r g u i n g as F r a n k R e i s s m a n
has that full-employment is the sine qu a n o n of improving education.
Most s c h o l a r s either ac c e p t the economic
rationale of the "excellence" m o v e m e n t or Ignore its a s s u m p t i o n s and ramifications.
Robert Roth's a n a lysis of
threats to the success of the latest w a v e of school r e f o r m is typical shortage,
in this regard.
He identifies a looming teacher
the d i m i n i s h i n g pool of m i n o r i t y teachers,
and
a l t e r n a t i v e certif i c a t i o n plans w h i c h undercut p r o f e s s i o n a l i z a t i o n as the major perils. the social roots of these problems,
His w o r k ignores
the decline in federal
exp e n d i t u r e s for s c h o o l s and e ducational research,
and
d i s c u s s i o n of the "excellence" m o v e m e n t ' s impact on a t - r i s k s t u d e n t s .* A few works have a t t empted to e x a m i n e the comp l e x rel a t i o n s h i p between u r b a n schooling a n d its social context, like M i c h e l l e Fine's e t h n o g r a p h y of d r o p o u t s from a N e w Y o r k C i t y hig h school.3 However,
Fine's w o r k stands out because
so little scholarship in the past fifteen years has c riti c a l l y examined the relationships b e t w e e n school and society an d the cultural disjunctures betw e e n hom e and s c h o o l , as they affect student and teac h e r perfor m a n c e in u rban s c hools.®
The p a u c i t y of q u a l i t a t i v e r e s e a r c h like
that done b y Michelle F ine or John O g b u and Sig n l t h i a
172 Fordham,
tracing the academic trajectory of at-risk students
to determine who is poorly served by u r b a n schools and why, is striking.7
As noted earlier,
the decline in attention to
urban schools began in the m i d - 1 9 7 0 ls, but the impoverished state of qualitative research on at-risk students is connected to broader developments in the social sciences. Micaela DiLeonardo explained the changes this way:
...Ethnographers fled American inner cities. In part it was the new dearth of jobs and grants for those doing anthropological w o r k in the United States, in part a white response to race-nationalist hostility (only Xs should study X s ) , in part the mass movement of black anthropologists to Caribbean and African w ork and of minority scholars in general away from social science to literary studies. Those who continued laboring in u rban ethnography were less published, less reviewed, no longer newsworthy.®
SCHOOLING AND ECONOMIC SUCCESS What makes the absence of ethnography on urban schooling most significant is that by examining schooling from the viewpoint of at-risk students a n d urban teachers, qualitative research illuminates the c o m p l e x relationship between schooling and economic success,
challenging the
simple cause-and-effeet correlation presumed by the "excellence" reforms, as well as the assumptions of the service delivery model of education. For example. Fine described four cateogries of circumstances under which poor, minority students left their urban high school prior to graduation: some failed to graduate because of family, economic, and social obligations; a small group left in
173 protest, w i t h a w e 11-developed, schooling;
n e g ative critique of their
a third g r o u p i n g saw no hope for the future and
h ence no reason to re m a i n in s c h o o l ; a fourth type of student was drop p e d from school rolls a f t e r long p e r i o d s of absence and was
“p a s s i v e l y d i s c h a r g e d . 11®
These categories reveal h o w s c h o o l i n g might medi a t e students'
economic prospects,
but only if u r b a n schools
dram a t i c a l l y change ho w they respond to at-r i s k students, b r i dging the g a p between students'
personal
and a d d r e s s i n g educat i o n ' s social context.
lives an d school For example,
students w h o drop p e d out because their families needed the income they c ould provide w ould p r o b a b l y be helped v ery little by a change in curri c u l u m unless the y were a l s o given jobs w hich p aid enough to satisfy their financial obligations. But this ch a n g e relies on a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g that students'
h ome lives mus t be connected to s c hooling in ways
they and their families h e l p determine.
By excluding parents
and students from major d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g about schooling's outcomes and procedures,
the service d e l i v e r y model of
education and its corollary, teaching,
p r o f e s s i o n a l i z a t i o n of
inhibits this n e c e s s a r y change.
The limitations an d potential of a p p r o p r i a t e school reform are a l s o revealed in the contrast between students who left school with a d e v e l o p e d critique of their i nstruction a n d those w h o drifted away, drop p e d from school rolls for absenteeism.
T h e small g r o u p w h o decided to leave
174 be f o r e graduation,
as a conscious protest against their
instruction and school norms, w o u l d benefit from pedagogical r e f o r m which a d d r e s s e d their objections;
but those w h o s a w
little reason to g r a d u a t e because they d o u b t e d they w o u l d find we l l - p a y i n g jobs w i t h or w i t h o u t a d i p l o m a would p r o b a b l y not be d e t e r r e d from leaving school because of instructional
improvements.
For them,
w a s schooling's practicality,
the critical
factor
w h i c h was chall e n g e d by the
n umb e r s of u n d e r e m p l o y e d and u n e m p l o y e d ad u l t s around t h e m . 10 Ambivalent about the v alue of an education,
these a d o l e scents recognize that there are few jobs w a i t i n g -diploma or not. But they als o realize that without a d i p l o m a 'it's t ough out here. After two weeks of looking for w o r k I star t e d watchln' the stories [soap operas]. T h e y don't wan t a b l a c k girl w i t h no degree for n o t h i n ’ but M i k k l e D's [McDonald's] or maybe s ome factory work. Not for m e . ’11 F ine concluded that the students'
"seemingly
c o n t radictory c o n s ciousness captures a c c u r a t e l y the economic realities faced by poor and workin g - c l a s s b l a c k and Latin a d o l e s c e n t s . 1,12
She argues that o n l y schools w h i c h address
the social reality p r ompting their a m b i v a l e n c e can hope to convince them to try to graduate,
but this m e a n s rejecting
the dominant theory that academic a c h i e vement by itself can a l t e r historic d i sadvantagement a n d s u b s t i t u t i n g for it a v i e w of education's v alue which reflects students'
economic
reality. D avid Cohen and Barbara N e u f e l d have a r g u e d that
schooling matters for poor, m i n o r i t y s t u d e n t s because improved e d ucation ca n democr a t i z e c o m p e t i t i o n b y g i v i n g all children the o p p o r t u n i t y to a c q u i r e the s k i l l s an d k n owledge they need to have m o r e equal ac c e s s to job opportunities. This concept of the r e l a t i o n s h i p between u r b a n school reform and social m o b i l i t y a c k n o w l e d g e s the e c o n o m i c arguments driving the "schools d on't matter" critique but s i m u l t a n e o u s l y employs educational reform as an Important vehicle for c h a l l enging inequality.
The critical role of
education for at-risk students in urban s c h o o l s is a f f i r m e d but circumscribed:
be t t e r ed u c a t i o n in our cities cannot
a bol i s h labor market tyrannies but it can d i s t r i b u t e them m or e evenly, inequalities,
challe n g i n g present social a n d economic though not e l i m i nating t h e m . 13
This conceptual f r a mework for urban school reform, u nlike the Initial a r g ument for com p e n s a t o r y programs and the rationale for the
"excellence" reforms,
affirms
education's limited usef u l n e s s as an instrument for a ddre s s i n g social i n equa lity as well as its political,
non
economic functions. U r b a n schooling's m i s s i o n does not end w it h its economic purposes,
a n y mor e than it does in non-
urban settings. A democ r a t i c s o c i e t y needs to prepare all y oung pe o p l e for lives as produ c t i v e and thoughtful citizens,
an d the dec i s i o n s we m a k e about h o w future
citizens wil l be e d u c a t e d are a m o n g the m o s t critical we mak e as a democratic society. A m y Gutmann,
a philosopher,
176 argues that an essential characteristic of democracy is that citizens deliberate on education to decide how the society should reproduce itself.14 To summarize then,
improved urban schools can remedy
some "risk" factors for poor, minority students,
for
instance by bridging the gulf between home and school, but other perils for poor, minority children which endanger their academic success are beyond the school's reach. Schools can provide the skills students need to be able to compete in the job market and to be citizens who know how to define and execute their social and political responsibilities;
urban schools cannot,
however, by
themselves alter many of the external conditions which subvert students'
economic and political success. To succeed
with at-risk students, urban schools must substitute a "partnership" or "ecological" view of their mission, addressing the realities of students'
lives at home and
their social hardships. THE ROLE OF TEACHERS If we accept this formulation about what we can expect of urban schools,
a subsidiary issue remains: How can
teachers and teacher preparation Improve the education of at-risk students in urban schools? Of all the explanations for the academic failures of at-risk students and their teachers, or "holistic" perspective,
only the "ecological"
which argues that bureaucratic
and hierarchical relations excl u d e the c o o p e r a t i v e relations that a l l o w schools to address students' begins
individual needs,
to define a role for teacher p r e p a r a t i o n w h i c h allows
it to address the complex w e b of psychological, economic, success.
and political
social,
factors w h i c h d e t e r m i n e academic
The v a r i a t i o n s on "cultural d e p r ivation" w h i c h
a t tribute student
failure to student,
family,
class,
or
racial char a c t e r i s t i c s fail to answer w h a t sch o o l i n g and teacher pr e p a r a t i o n can do to ameli o r a t e a c a d e m i c f a i l u r e . 13 Explanations w h i c h mak e teacher d e f i c i e n c i e s respon s i b l e for p oor student achiev e m e n t Ignore the p o litical and social context of urban schools,
as well as structural
characteristics of schools themselves;
teacher p r e p a ration
programs p r edicated on this e x p l a n a t i o n mise d u c a t e pr o s p ective teachers about w h a t they can r e a l i s t i c a l l y expect from themselves and their students. Educators w h o attrib ute the poor a c h i e v e m e n t of a t - r i s k students to school c h aracteristics freq u e n t l y a cknowledge schooling's political context.
However,
h i s t o r i c a l l y they
have tended to rel y on solutions w h i c h ar e t e acher-centric and neg lect the di s j u n c t u r e b e t w e e n home and school learning.
For example,
teacher unionism,
form that became institutionalized, d e l i v e r y paradigm for school
at least in the
a c c e p t e d the service
improvement,
m a k i n g parents and
students clients a n d teachers s e r v i c e - d e l i v e r e r s , rather than p a r t n e r s . 16 T h e various
"change agent"
strategies
178 minimized or ignored parent and community Involvement in school reform. Moreover,
the strategy of preparing
prospective classroom teachers to reform school structures demanded that teachers in the most pressed instructional circumstances become political organizers in addition to their pedagogical responsibilities. As the Teacher Corps experience demonstrated,
"change agent" programs fail to
recognize that the job of teaching in urban schools is so taxing that individual teachers,
even those who are
talented,
cannot sustain the effort
fresh, and idealistic,
needed to make structural improvements in schools. It is w o r t h examining the reasons the "change agent" strategy became a popular method of urban school reform because it still drives much of the literature on teacher preparation w hich acknowledges schooling's political context. One curious aspect to the "change agent" perspective is that It emerged concurrently with unionization of urban teachers and yet contradicted its basic premise.
If urban teachers had been persuaded that
Individuals could reform schools, would not have mushroomed,
then teacher unionism
for it relied on the belief that
institutional change depended on collective activity.
In
voting to have unions represent them, urban teachers rejected the individualistic view of reform proposed by educators who argued for preparing teachers to be "change a g e n t s ."
In her review of two m a g azines critical of schooling, M axine Greene noted a d i chotomy between them, which,
she
ar g u e d represented an u nfortunate split in the p rogressive m o v ement in education.
One side, s y m b o l i z e d by a pu b l i c a t i o n
of the American F e d e r a t i o n of Teachers,
defended quality
e d u c a t i o n for all in Institutional terms but said little about teachers'
a f f e c t i v e goals;
school change but m a d e e x c l u s i v e focus,
the other side adv o c a t e d
"the s e l f - a c t u a l i z i n g individual"
its
r e j e c t i n g a n y d i s c u s s i o n of a lternative
institutional a r r a n gements that w o u l d a l l o w teachers to take u p these v a l u e s . 17
Greene's f r amework e x p l a i n s ho w the
adv o c a t e s of "change agent" programs, individual teacher their focus,
by m a k i n g the
rejec t e d teacher unio n i s m ' s
ar g u m e n t s about the n e e d for c o llective a c t i o n to force structural changes. Two other factors help e x p l a i n the emergence and resilience of appr o a c h e s to u r b a n teacher p r e p a r a t i o n w h i c h ignore the i nteraction of school,
home,
and political
Influences on teacher and student achievement. C o c h r a n - S m i t h and S u s a n Lytle wrote,
As M a r i l y n
the dominant p a r adigms
in r e s e a r c h on t e a ching over the last twenty years have e xcluded teachers' frames.
voices,
questions,
and interpretive
This conceptual oversight has bee n mirrored in the
s canty research about teaching as work,
a topic w hich w o u l d
illuminate the conditions w h i c h influence u r b a n teachers' performance.
In 1973 D a n Lortie lamented the absence of such
180 research,
no t i n g that the "most influential depi c t i o n s of
t e a ching in city schools a r e those of i ndividuals who, ha v i n g under t a k e n the experience,
w r i t e exposes of what
transpires t h e r e . .. a tr a d i t i o n w hich s e r v e s to gener a t e b lame rather than to e x p l a i n recurrent p a t t e r n s . " 18 The scarcity of s c h o l a r s h i p about h o w conditions in u r b a n schools a l t e r i nstruction and l e a rning r e inforces the procl i v i t y to s t u d y student failure w i t h student a n d teacher deficit paradigms.
Moreover,
despite the small but growing
number of studies about the school as a workplace,
man y
researchers,
continue
e v e n those u s i n g qualit a t i v e methods,
to Isolate their analyses of student p e r f o r m a n c e from school characteristics.
For example,
Nancy L. Comm i n s and Ofella B.
M lramontes r e c e n t l y co n d u c t e d an ethn o g r a p h i c s t u d y of four low-achieving H i s panic s t u d e n t s 'language ability a n d use. The y n o ted that the teacher m a d e as s i g n m e n t s with a skillsb ased orientation,
devoid of an y m e a n i n g f u l context,
but
they never c o n n e c t e d their criticism of the teacher to a factor they a c k n o w l e d g e d but did not explore:
lessons were
dri v e n b y the dema n d s of d i s t r i c t - m a n d a t e d compe t e n c y exams a d m i n istered e v e r y ten weeks.
Use of w h o l e - c l a s s i nstruction
to accomodate the d istrict's testing p o l i c y was not Incorporated into their e x p l a nation for the teacher's behavior.
Thus,
they c o ncluded that the p r o b l e m w a s the
teacher's unde r e s t i m a t i o n of students' a c a demic a b i l i t i e s . 19
linguistic a n d
Ironically,
Comm l n s and Miramontes'
w o r k reveals why
examination of systemic conditions is n e c e s s a r y to understand
teacher performance,
y e a r s e a r l i e r demonstrated.
a s a s tudy c o n d u c t e d twenty
Five researchers,
teachers in a large u r b a n school system,
all former
o b s e r v e d four inner
city junior h i g h schools to det e r m i n e ho w bureaucratic conditions alte r e d teaching.
S i n g l i n g out the demands of
external e x a m s as a p r i m a r y Influence on u r b a n teacher performance,
they d o c u m e n t e d how the lock-step curriculum
dictated t hat children w h o were dif f e r e n t in som e wa y were treated in a custodial
fashion,
b e c a u s e they c o u l d not
m aster the material in the same w a y and at the same pace as the c u rriculum demanded.
They catal o g u e d ho w the demands of
external exam i n a t i o n s further d i m i n i s h e d the teacher's a bility to m o d i f y the curr i c u l u m a n d the repercussions of adhering to i t . 20 In a t t e m p t i n g to o u t l i n e speci f i c ways that teacher a n d student pe r f o r m a n c e w e r e changed b y systemic conditions, these researchers s u g g e s t e d a r e l a t ionship b e t w e e n school conditions,
teacher performance,
an d student achievement
that complements Comer's ideas a b o u t reform. This
"ecological" school
line of r e s e a r c h assu m e s that ch a n g e in
systemic an d structural
conditions in schools serv i n g at-
r i s k students must a c c o m p a n y or p r e c e d e efforts to radically change teachers'
interactions w i t h students.
Exa m i n i n g u r b a n
schools as s y s t e m s contra d i c t s the idea that teacher
162 deficiencies or strengths can be separated from the conditions that encourage certain types of behavior, students,
in
parents, and teachers. THE NEW "CHANGE AGENT" THINKING
As discussed in Chapter Three,
in the last decade a new
variation of the "change agent" strategy has been developed by proponents of a "critical pedagogy." This analysis assigns educators the task of transforming society through their classroom function, either as teachers or teacher educators.
Unlike the previous "change agent" proposals,
the
contemporary versions say little about the teacher's responsibility to change school structures,
though like
their antecedents emphasize curricular change.21 Many of the advocates of making teachers political catalysts base their understanding of this role on the work of Paulo Preire.
They
echo his theory that teaching victims of social and economic inequality "implies a correct method of approaching reality in order to unveil it."22 Preire's "correct method" is to "unveil oppression,
committing oneself to its
transformation," thus fusing the teacher's roles as educator and political activist.23 The most frequently cited of Preire's works,
Pedagogy
of the O p p r e s s e d , identifies three revolutionary leaders who exemplified his thinking about the melding of politics and pedagogy: Mao Tse Tung, Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro. Although Freire admiringly cites statements of these leaders
183 w h o placed themselves In the t r adition of Soviet Communism, he does not refer to Lenin, Russia in the 1920's.
nor to the schools of Soviet
However,
his
formula for m e l d i n g
p olitical a c t i v i s m and edu c a t i o n c l o s e l y r e sembles J o h n Dewey's d e s c r i p t i o n of e d u c a t i o n in R u s s i a in 1927. w r o t e that in Russia,
Dewey
the purpose of s c hooling w a s to
"counteract a n d transcend i n d i v i d ualistic tendencies in society." T his
“single an d compr e h e n s i v e social purpose"
g u i d e d "conscious control of of e v e r y educational procedure" a n d disti n g u i s h e d Soviet schools from those of o ther nations,
p r o g r e s s i v e s c h o o l s i n c l u d e d . 24 D ewey o b s e r v e d that
the elements of p r o p a g a n d a wer e p e r s o n a l l y obnoxious,
but
n o t e d that all attempts at social control have a s p e c t s of p r o p a g a n d a .25 D ewey ex p l a i n e d to his A m e r i c a n readers that L enin dee m e d effo r t s to reform soci e t y t h r o u g h e d u c a t i o n as utopian,
e x p l a i n i n g that fundamental social change could
occur only thro u g h the a c t i v i t y of the work i n g c lass a n d its o r g a niz ations in seizing political power. however,
e d u c a t i o n became critical,
as the center of gravity
s hif t e d from the conquest of power to work." At this point,
After revolution,
"pacific cultural
"socialism is e c o n o m i c a l l y speaking,
identical to c o o p e r a t i o n a n d that is n o t p o s s i b l e w i t h o u t an intellectual r e v o l u t i o n . 1,26 Dewey's u n d e r s t a n d i n g of Lenin's critique of educational
re f o r m and its r e l a t i o n s h i p to p o l itics is
184 c onfirmed by seve r a l passages in Lenin's collected works. For exam p l e in e s t a b l i s h i n g a Commi s s i o n for Ab o l i t i o n of Illiteracy in 1920,
Lenin w r o t e that a c q u i s i t i o n of b a s i c
literacy was the p r e c o n d i t i o n for his N e w Economic P o l i c y to succeed:
A n illiterate p e r s o n stands outside politics; he m u s t first learn h i s ABC. W i t h o u t that t here can be no politics; w i t h o u t that t h e r e are rumors, gossip, f airy tales, and prejudices, but not p o l i t i c s . 27
Th u s Freire a n d many a d v o c a t e s of a "critical pedagogy" for teacher p r e p a r a t i o n invert the r e l a t i o n s h i p between political
reform a n d educational
change w h i c h Lenin
endorsed.
"The R e v o l u t i o n is the finishing school for
Russian workers," L e n i n w r o t e . 28 w i t h the r eins of g o vernment passed to the w o r k i n g class,
he argued,
education
became the primary vehi c l e for political change, wit h universal
literacy t h e linchpin.
The con t e m p o r a r y "change
agent" proponents g i v e teachers a n d teacher educators the political
task w h i c h Lenin a s s i g n e d to the work i n g c lass and
its organizations. social
Edu c a t i o n ha s become the vehicle for
transformation.
A l t h o u g h the p r o f e s s e d a ims of the "excellence" reformers and the adv o c a t e s of a "critical pedagogy" teacher education a r e d i a m etrically opposed,
for
bot h groups
assign a preponderant role to edu c a t i o n in a l t ering the nation's economic a n d political
future.
In so doing they
propose a scenario f o r both political and educational r e f o r m
185 which excludes all c i t i z e n s who are not edu c a t o r s from shaping social change.
Furthermore,
the political
consequences of the successful effort to c o n f l a t e e d u c a t o r s 1 political and p edagogical roles in Soviet R u s s i a in the 1920's provides a c a u t i o n a r y tale. W h e n the revolution's educational
leaders m a d e teachers and schools vehicles for
propaganda as Lenin encouraged,
the y wer e c e r t a i n they w e r e
s t r e ngthening social
forces of emancipation.
tragically mistaken.
W i t h hindsight,
They were
we have no excuse for
repeating their e r r o r . 29 W h i l e noting their sympathy w i t h
“critical pedagogy's"
eman c i p a t o r y goals,
L i s t o n and Z e i chner enc o u r a g e an
alternate strategy:
the moral ed u c a t i o n of p rospective
teachers,
to help them k n o w and u n d e r s t a n d students'
perspectives, teachers'
to exam i n e ho w conditions in schools inhibit
success and to d eliberate on e ducational goals of
their own c h o o s i n g . 30 L i s t o n and Z e ichner's perspective corresponds to the ideas D ewey a d v a n c e d about deve l o p i n g the prospective teacher's a b i l i t y to anal y z e all the p e dagogies derived from them. argue that change,
ideologies a n d
In contrast to writers w h o
individual t e a chers must be agents of political
Liston and Z e i c h n e r argue instead that e xamination
of school conditions and the entire social context of schooling is essential
for teacher p r e p a r a t i o n . 31 Their
approach expands the "ecological" p e r s p ectives on school reform w h i c h take into acco u n t school conditions,
as well as
186 students'
social realities. A P P L Y I N G A N "ECOLOGICAL" APPROACH
A l t h o u g h it was not identified at the time as a "holistic" or "ecological" a p p r o a c h to teacher preparation, TTT's emphasis on "parity"
implied suc h a framework.
By
s t ressing the Importance of d e v e l o p i n g ne w institutional relationships between liberal arts faculty, faculty,
schools,
and community,
education
T T T seemed to set a far
more circu m s c r i b e d role for teacher p r e p a ration than did the "change agent" programs.
Actually,
teacher p reparation programs,
TTT deman d e d m ore of
for it made schools of
edu c a t i o n the institutional vehi c l e for ass i s t i n g urban schools to overcome the s c h o o l - s o c i e t y and home-school d i s j u nctures w h i c h sabot a g e achiev e m e n t of a t - r i s k students. To the extent that "change agent" programs,
as wel l as
programs desig n e d to correct teacher deficiencies to Improve student achievement,
desig n a t e d the individual teacher as
the key to improving u r b a n schools, p r e p a r a t i o n of an y institutional schools.
they relieved teacher
Involvement w i t h u r b a n
T heir task be c a m e edu c a t i n g "change agents" and
teachers in a c cordance w i t h teacher educators,
the val u e s and ideals of the
negle c t i n g the m o r e difficult tas k of
r econciling the frequently c o n t r a d i c t o r y demands m a d e on teachers by school conditions,
parents,
and students,
the
goal of "parity." Each of "parity's"
components represented a critical
187 e l e m e n t for a c a d e m i c success.
Parent p a r t i c i p a t i o n addressed
the conflict b e t w e e n school a n d home values;
c o m munity
r e p resentation w a s designed to bridge the s c h o o l - s o c i e t y c h a s m which I s o l a t e s urban schools from the social and p o l itical rea l i t i e s which so grea t l y influence academic achievement, a s O g b y and F i n e demonstrated;
the school
s t a f f ' s involvement with p a r e n t s and citiz e n s in implementing t e a c h e r p r e p a r a t i o n encourages the "ecological" c h a n g e s within scho o l s that Comer a d v ocates and accomodates v a r i a t i o n s in t h e culture of each school site.
Thus the
c onc e p t of "parity" made the school of edu c a t i o n a vehicle for u r b a n school
reform by u s i n g teacher p r e p a r a t i o n as an
institutional catalyst. CONCLU S I O N S Just as individual teachers cannot re f o r m schools, teac h e r pr e p a r a t i o n cannot b y Itself reform u r b a n school systems. As L a r r y Cuban a r g u e d in criti q u i n g the Holmes Gr o u p plan, t e a c h e r pr e p a r a t i o n cannot subst i t u t e for the p o litical and s o c i a l mov e m e n t s that are ne e d e d to a lter the s y s t e m i c d e f i c iencies of s c h o o l s . 32 TTT's e x perience co n f i r m s that a prog r a m of teacher p r e p a r a t i o n can improve individual s c h o o l s with w h i c h it is involved through its relationships w i t h parents, arts faculty,
bu t
community members,
and liberal
it cannot a l t e r the s y s t e m i c
characteristics o f urban schools, s t e m m i n g from bureaucracy.
most Importantly,
As Carl Kaes t l e noted,
those
188 bu r e a u c r a c y and s t a n d a r d i z a t i o n in u rban s c h o o l i n g d e veloped In response to the political pre s s u r e s exer t e d b y the rapid e x p a n s i o n and dive r s i f i c a t i o n of the p o p u l a t i o n in A m e r i c a n cities. W h e t h e r b u r e a u c r a c y and s t a n d a r d i z a t i o n in u r b a n schools,
as Kaestle argues,
of fairness an d efficiency, maintains, control,
r e f lected the school m en's sense or w h e t h e r as Michael Katz
they w e r e pri m a r i l y techniques of political
there is little argument that the y w e r e p o l i t i c a l l y
m o t i v a t e d but ha d s i g n i ficant educational results:
The d i l e m m a of s t a n d ardized imp a r t i a l i t y and qual i t y control through s y s t e m a t i z a t i o n is that the d e c i s i o n making pr o c e s s e s are taken out of the hands of the p erson who deals d i r ectly w i t h the s y s tem's clientsthe children- a n d therefore tends to d e p e r s o n a l i z e the relationship. The teacher beco m e s m ore a part of the apparatus and less able to be flexible. Also, to the extent that the sy s t e m intentionally masks the identity of the student to ensure impartiality, the student loses part of his individuality. Forma l i z e d i mpartiality leads to a n o n y m i t y . 33 Cuban's a s sessment of the n eed for broa d e r political forces to be brought to bear on school re f o r m rested on the e xperim ents w i t h teacher p r e p a r a t i o n in the 1960's. Historical d e s c r i p t i o n s of the formation of u rban systems indicate that the essential c h a racteristics of u r b a n school systems persist because their t r a n s f o r m a t i o n requires a political and social movement w h i c h can o v e rcome the forces of
inertia w h i c h inhibit any change,
as well as resolve the
c o nflicts w h i c h p r o m p t e d school m e n to construct u r b a n s yst e m s as they did. Unfortunately,
c o n t e mporary d i s c u s s i o n about teacher
pr e p a r a t i o n a n d school r e f o r m barely ackn o w l e d g e s the political roots of s t a ndardization an d bureaucracy, n o w plague n o n - u r b a n school districts as well,
w hich
t h o u g h to a
lesser degree beca u s e the c o nditions en c o u r a g i n g a n d su s t a i n i n g these practices ar e not as developed. p o p u l a r proposal
Th e most
for I n v olving schools of e d u cation in
school reform through p r o g r a m s of teac h e r preparation,
the
Professional D e v e l opment Scho o l s a d v o c a t e d by the Holmes Group,
ma y improve the e d u c a t i o n of the students a n d
teachers d i r e c t l y served;
however,
t here Is no m e n t i o n of a
s t r a t e g y to r e p licate a c c o m p l i s h m e n t s In other schools.
The
Ho l m e s Group report assumes that the Professional Development Scho o l s will h a v e a lighthouse effect, Illuminating th e correct p a t h to I m p roved education.
The
ach i e v e m e n t s of these ne w lab schools w i l l result from the involvement an d resources of schools of education;
to
suggest that o t h e r schools c a n apply these lessons without direct support an d p a r t i c i p a t i o n by the school of e d ucation Ignores the s y s t e m i c c onditions w hich u n d e r l y p r o b l e m s in u r b a n schools,
a n error w h i c h the Holmes G roup repeats but
d i d not i n v e n t . A carefully designed p r o g r a m of teacher p r e p a r a t i o n can br i n g the resources and exp e r t i s e of teacher educators and liberal arts facu l t y to a n u r b a n school and, w o r s e n e d conditions,
despite the
improve that p a r t i c u l a r school,
as
m e m b e r s of the Holmes Group an d other u n i v e r s i t i e s h ave
190 d e m o n s t r a t e d In the past few y e a r s . 34 But succ e s s In e s t a b l i s h i n g an Institutional r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h a school will be undercut w h e n teacher e d u c a t o r s bring a mess a g e of professionalization,
for it o b s c u r e s the n e c e s s i t y for u r b a n
schools to bridge h ome-school a n d s c h o o l - s o c i e t y chasms,
as
well as the gulf b e t w e e n p r a c titioners a n d professors.
1.O ther critics a c c o u n t e d for th e wo r k ' s favorable r e c e p t i o n quite differently, a t t r i b u t i n g its p o p u l a r i t y to racism a n d its u s e f u l n e s s in justifying cutbacks in c o m p ensatory programs. See C h r i s t o p h e r Jencks, et al., Inequality (Harper C o l o p h o n Book£: N e w York, 1972), the r e s ponses to Jencks, and his reply, in P e r s p e c t i v e s o n I n e q u a l i t y . (Cambridge, MA: H a r v a r d Ed u c a t i o n a l Review Repr i n t Series No. 8, 1973). 2. See J o h n Holusha, "Are We E a t i n g Our Seed Corn?" in the N e w Y o r k T i m e s . Sunday, 13 M a y 1990, sect i o n 3, p. 1. Holusha reports that man y economists, scholars, executives and o t h e r experts o n American industrial p o l i c y argue that financial manipulations, like G. E . ' s p u r chase of its own stock, a r e sapping t h e nation's global c o m p e t i t i v e n e s s by d i v e r t i n g e x p e n d i t u r e s from b a s i c research. In another article in the b u s i n e s s pages, F r o m a Joselow's, "What's N e w in the Costume J e w e l r y Business," The N e w Y o r k Times S u n d a y 16 April 1989, s e c t i o n F, p. 17, chief eco n o m i s t for a b a n k in Providence, R h o d e Island, the national costume jewelry m a n u f a c t u r i n g capital, argued that low p r o d u c t i v i t y in the i n d ustry was due to " p r o ductivity sins" like poo r s c h e d u l i n g of w o r k e r s and a r r i v a l of raw materials, or the layout of pr o d u c t i o n lines. 3. A contrasting v i e w of productivity, e ducational a t t a i n m e n t of the workforce, a n d the n a t ion's economic competitiveness is g i v e n in the Center for Popu l a r Economics' p u b l i c a t i o n Economic Report of the People (South End Press; Boston, 1986). Ha r v e y J. Graff, The L abyrinths of L i t e r a c y , (Falmer Press; New York, 1987) c o n t e n d s that economic growth and edu c a t i o n a r e not n e c e s s a r i l y "sequential" or "collateral" (p.65), p o i n t i n g to Sweden and S c o t l a n d as examples of societies w h i c h a c h i e v e d near universal literacy b e f o r e the 19th century yet remained d e s p e r a t e l y poor. 4.F r a n k Reissman, T h e Inner C i t y Child (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); Robert A. Roth, T e a c h i n g and T e a c h e r Education: Impl e m e n ting Reform (Bloomington, IN: Phi D e l t a Kappan
191 Educational Foundation,
1986).
5.M i c helle Fine, "Why U rban Adoles c e n t s D r o p Into a n d Out of Public Hgh School," T e a chers College Record 87 (Spring 1986). 6.Fine, "Why Urban Ad o l e s c e n t s D r o p Into a n d Out of Public High School." In addition, Ana M a r i a Villegas, in "School Failure and Cultural Mismatch," The Urban R e v i e w 20 (Winter 1988) argues that the s o c i o l i ngulstic literature on homeschool language dis j u n c t u r e s e x c l u d e s consi d e r a t i o n of social inequalities that sust a i n the school failure of m i n o r i t y students a n d thus dooms school Improvement efforts. A few other researchers, like Sar a Lawrence Lightfoot, have investigated r e l a t i o n s h i p s b e t w e e n families a n d schools and conditions in u r b a n schools, c o n t r i b u t i n g to our u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the social context of u r b a n schooling, so the studies d e s c r i b e d in this s e c t i o n are not pre s e n t e d as a n exclusive listing of relevant scholarship. What is clear, however, is that there is no b o d y of w o r k in w h i c h s c h o l a r s have dis c u s s e d one ano t h e r ' s findings, to c h a llenge or refine it. 7.Slgnithia F o r d h a m and John U. Ogbu, "Black Students' School Success: Co p i n g wit h the Bu r d e n of 'Acting W h i t e ' , ” The U r b a n R e v i e w 18, 8.Mlcaela DiLeonardo, "Who's R e a l l y Getting Paid?" The N a t i o n . 14 M a y 1990, 672.
9.Fine, "Why U rban A d o l e s c e n t s D r o p Into a n d Out of Pu b l i c High School," 397. 10.Fine's w o r k confirms one of R i c h a r d M u r n a n e ' s c onclusions in "Education and the P r o d u c t i v i t y of the Workforce: L o o k i n g Ahead," in R. Lawrence, R. Lltan, and C. Schultze, e d s . , American Living St a n d a r d s (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, In press). Murnane arg u e s that the educational achievement of the w o r k f o r c e can improve p r o d u c t i v i t y but also notes that the e c o nomy's ope r a t i o n damp e n s academic achievement of m i n o r i t y students in inner c i t y schools w h e n they hav e little chance of finding we l l - p a y i n g jobs, eve n wit h a high school diploma. 11.Ibid.,
399.
12.Ibid. 13.David K. C ohen and Barb a r a Neufeld, "The F a i l u r e of H igh Schools and the P r o gress of Education," D a e d a l u s 110 (Summer 1981); A n n Bastian, et a l ., Choos i n g E q u a l i t y (Philadelphia: Temple U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1986).
192 14.A m y Gutraann, Democratic Education (Princeton: Pri n c e t o n Univ. Press, 1986). As d i s c u s s e d In C h a p t e r Three, this critical role of education has been s l i g h t e d In the major r e f o r m proposals since 1983. Choosing E q u a l i t y ar g u e s that not o n l y does It deserve as muc h c o n s i d e r a t i o n as education's e c o n o m i c usefulness, It Is a c t u a l l y the cause of the malaise In n o n -urban a n d urban schools. What Is at the root of public education's failures Is a "crisis of citizenship" w h i c h has m a d e education's constltuences p a s s i v e clients. Urban e ducation's n o n - e c o n o m l c p u r p o s e s are not e xplicitly discussed in this s t u d y because the y are a s s u m e d to hol d for the e n t i r e society. 15.Joint Center for Political Studies Press, Visi o n s of a B e t t e r Wa v (Washington, D . C . : Joint Ce n t e r for Political S t u d i e s Press, 1989). 16.A l t h o u g h teac h e r u n i o n i s m became I n s t i t u t i o n a l i z e d In this form, In Its earliest years Its s e l f - d e f i n i t i o n was far different, or at least far m o r e ambiguous. The p a r a d i g m c o u n t erposed to the s e r v i c e - d e l i v e r y model, w h i c h made teacher u n i o n i s m a speclal-interest group, was a c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n of teacher unionism as a segment of a b r o a d social m o v e m e n t com m i t t e d to i m proving public education. Ma x i n e Greene d e f e n d e d this latter model, as d i s c u s s e d in the following pages. The a l t e r native p a r adigm Is explained fully In two articles. See Lois Weiner, "Cracks in Shanker's Empire," Ne w P o l itics 11 (Fall 1976) and "Democratizing the S c h o o l s , ” N e w P o l itics (New Series) 1 (Summer 1987). 17.Max i n e Greene, review of Changing Edu c a t i o n an d This M a g a z i n e Is about Schools in Harvard Educational R e v i e w 37 (Fall 1967): 671. 18.Mari l y n C o c h ran-Smlth a n d Susan Lytle, "Research on T e a c h i n g and T e a c h e r Research: The Issues that Divide," Educational Resea r c h e r 19 (March 1990); Dan C. Lortie, "Observations o n Teaching as Work," In Robert M.W. Travers, ed.. Second H a n d b o o k of R e s e a r c h on T e a c h i n g (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973), 484. 19.N a n c y L. Comm I n s and O f e l l a B. Mlramontes, "Perceived and Actual Linguistic Competence: A D e s c r iptive S tudy of Four L o w - Achieving H i s panic B i lingual S t u d e n t s , ” A m e r i c a n Educational R e s e a r c h Journal 26 (Winter 1989). 20.Joan I. Roberts, Scene of the Battle 'Doubleday & Co., 1970).
(Garden City,
NY:
193 21. See Stanley Aronowitz and Henry A. Giroux, Education under Siege (Cambridge, MA: Bergln & Harvey, 1985) for the philosophical and political underpinning of this Idea; it is applied directly to teacher preparation in a textbook for prospective teachers by Henry A. Giroux, Anthony N. Penna, and William F. Pinar, eds., Curriculum and Instruction: Alternatives in Education (Berkeley, CA: McCutchan Pub. Corp., 1981); a condensed version of this analysis was written by Henry A. Giroux and Peter McLaren, "Teacher Education and the Politics of Engagement: The Case for Democratic Schooling," Harvard Educational Review 56 (August 1986). Ira Shor offers a similar analysis of the appropriate role of teacher education in "Equality is Excellence: Transforming Teacher Education and the Learning Process," Harvard Educational Review 56 (November 1986). 22.Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed Continuum, 1982), 103.
(New York:
23.Ibid., 40. 24.William Russia and (New York: originally
Brlckman, ed., John Dewey's Impressions of Soviet the Revolutionary World: Mexico, China. Turkey Teachers College Press, 1964), 83. Dewey's essays appeared in the New Republic between 1920 and 1928.
25.Ibid.,
87.
26.Ibid.,
100.
27.V.I. Lenin, "N.E.P. and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments," Collected Works 33, (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1965), 78.
28.V.I. Lenin, Speech at the First All-Russian Congress on Education, Augst 28, 1918, Collected Works 28, p. 437. 29.In Lucy L. W. Wilson, The New Schools of New Russia (New York: Vanguard Press, 1928) the author describes, uncritically, the Bolsheviks' initial transformation of the educational system; William Brlckman, "Soviet Attitudes Toward John Dewey as an Educator," in Douglas E. Lawson and Arthur E. Lean, eds., John Dewey and the World View (Carbondale IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1964) traces how the Soviet government's political changes from the mid1 9 2 0 's through the 1 9 3 0 's paralleled revisions of the school curricula and organization, as well as Dewey's official loss of prestige; George E. Hein, "The Social History of Open Education: Austrian and Soviet Schools in the 1 9 2 0 's," The Urban Review 8 (Summer 1975) describes the evolution of "open schools" in the Soviet Union and their precipitous
194 decline under Stalin. He argues that S t a lin's r u l e couldn't tolerate the "spirit of investigation a n d looseness" that characterized the e a r l y reforms inspired by D e w e y ' s work (p.
112) . 30.Daniel P. Lis t o n and K e n n e t h M. Zeichner, "Critical Pedagogy an Teacher Education," Journal of E d u c a t i o n 169 (1967). A l t h o u g h L i s t o n an d Zeichner a d v o c a t e a "critical pedagogy" for teacher education, they de f i n e It as moral e d ucation an d cri t i c i z e the writers w h o blur the d i s t i n c t i o n between teacher as activ i s t an d teacher as educator. 31.John Dewey, "The R e l a t i o n of The o r y to Pract i c e In Education," Third Y e a r b o o k (Chicago: National S o c i e t y for the Scientific S t u d y of Education, 1904); Daniel L i s t o n and Kenneth Zeichner, "Teacher E d u cation a n d the Social Conditions of Schooling," (Paper p r e s e n t e d at the A m e r i c a n Educational R e s earch Association, Boston, April 1990). 32. Larry Cuban, "The Hol m e s G roup Report: W h y R e a c h Exceeds Grasp," Teachers Coll e g e R e c o r d 88 (Spring 1987). 33.Carl Kaestle, T h e E v o l u t i o n of a n U r b a n School System. N e w Yor k C i t y 1760-1850 (Cambridge: H a r v a r d Univ. Press, 1973), 178; Michael B. Katz, R e c o n s t r u c t i n g A m e r i c a n E ducation (Cambridge: Harv a r d Univ. Press, 1987). 34.See for Instance In f o r m a t i o n about the Kent State U niversi ty M.A.T. p r o g r a m initiated w i t h Akron C e n t r a l - H o w e r High School in The Holmes G r o u p F o r u m . 4 (Fall 1989).
195 C H A P T E R FIVE B y using the terms "urban" and "at risk" interchangeably to describe the problems of poor, m i n o r i t y children,
scholars h ave c o n fused d i s c u s s i o n about w h a t kind
of spec i a l preparation, s t u dents require.
if any,
F o r example,
urban teachers of a t - r i s k the NDEA N a t ional I n stitute
for A d v a n c e d S tudy in T e a ching D i s a d v a n t a g e d Y outh T a s k Force report,
d i s c u s s e d in C h a p t e r One,
r e j e c t e d t h e ories of
"cultural deprivation," and w i t h them the idea that teachers of "disadvantaged" However,
students r e q u i r e d special preparation.
the report noted that
like t h e i r students,
teachers in "deprived areas,"
"quit b e c a u s e they fail," p r i m a r i l y
because of working conditions a n d student b e h a v i o r . 1 W h e n the r e p o r t ' s own findings, consideration,
then,
its conclusion,
special preparation,
are taken into
that u r b a n teachers n e e d no
needs revision.
In its failure to connect the organizational characteristics of u r b a n schools to student a n d teacher failure,
and in turn,
teacher preparation,
use this u n d e r s t a n d i n g to adapt the Task F o r c e report was no dif f e r e n t
from o t h e r s c h o l a r s h i p of the period, the next
twenty years.
sources of school
or for that matter,
But u n d e r s t a n d i n g the systemic
failure is critical to tra n s c e n d i n g the
debate o v e r causes of d i s a d v a n t a g e m e n t , an d a p p l y i n g these insights to teacher p r e p a r a t i o n is essential
if urban
teachers are to be p r e p a r e d to adapt to their setting.
of
196 Urban school systems cannot adjust to d i f f e r e n c e s , In student learning styles,
family cultures,
or weaknesses, as James Comer has noted. urban education have explained,
teacher strengths As historians of
the adoption of standard
procedures and uniform performance measures to insure Impartiality produced urban school systems Incapable of accomodating to individual or group differences,
indeed
ideologically opposed to doing so. Thus students who for any reason do not^readily adapt to the behaviorial or Instructional norms dictated by highly regulated,
inflexible
curricula and policies fall. Urban teachers of at-risk students, some kind of special preparation,
then, do require
but the education they
receive must focus on addressing the needs of students within social and school contexts which discourage accomodation to students' particular strengths, weaknesses, or differences. Framed in this fashion,
the problem then
becomes how teacher preparation can educate teachers to address students'
needs in urban schools afflicted with
chronic underfunding,
bureaucracy,
curricular rigidity, and
pressures for standardized performance which restrain and discourage flexibility. Urban teachers confront the greatest diversity of student needs, but the conditions in urban schools severely limit individualization.2 Urban teachers of poor, minority students need to master a wide range of teaching strategies,
but they also need practice in applying
197 their training in a sett i n g w h i c h discourages experi m e n t a t i o n . 3 T o resist institutional p r e s s u r e s for custodial treatment of children w h o fare po o r l y w i t h the standardized Instruction urban school systems r e l y on so heavily,
urban teachers must have a developed u n d e r s t a n d i n g
of ho w children learn.
But they m u s t also acqu i r e the skills
that will produce a classroom en v i r o n m e n t that permits them to learn about student differences. The problem is not with the exclusive p r e p a r a t i o n of teachers of at-risk students to detect and adapt to students'
differences,
because all teachers,
as the Task
Force noted, need to be able to deal wit h stude n t s as h uman beings,
to be able to share k n o w l e d g e and expe r i e n c e with
students,
to be trustworthy,
to under s t a n d their students'
to b e abl e to communicate,
and
w o r l d . 4 The special demand
made of u rban teacher p repartlon is to educate teachers who can deal w i t h s t u dents as individuals and human beings in settings w h i c h d e p e r s o n a l i z e learning,
making students and
teachers anonymous a n d p o w e r l e s s . T h e problem of p r e paring teachers of at-risk students in u r b a n schools is then one of i dentifying how to e d u c a t e teachers to allow Ideals about learning to prevail
in a setting w h i c h undercuts these
values an d the teaching strategies w h i c h stem f r o m them. In W h i t e T e a c h e r . Vivian P a l e y described h e r personal struggle to accept differ e n c e s in h e r black students, observing that "anything a child feels Is different about
198 hims e l f which cannot be referred to spontaneously,
casually,
naturally, and unc r i t i c a l l y b y the teacher c a n become a c a u s e for a n x i e t y and an o b s tacle for l e a r n i n g . " 5 She ar g u e d that
There is no activity useful only for the black child. There is no manner of s p e aking or u n i q u e approach or special environment r e q u i r e d only for b l a c k c h i l d r e n . .. The c h allenge in teaching is to find a w a y of c o m m unicating to e ach c h i l d the idea that his or her special q u a l i t y is understood, is valued, and can be talked about. It is not easy, because w e are i nfluenced by the fears and prejudices, a p p r e h e n s i o n s and expectations, which have become a c a r e f u l l y hidden part of every on e of us . 6 In their Introduction to Paley*s work,
J ames Comer an d
A l v i n Pouissant note that P a l e y taught in scho o l s that w e r e "well-supported,
primarily m i d d l e class,
and p r e d o m i n a n t l y
w h i t e . " 7 They suggest that m a n y mor e teachers like Paley, wh o understand,
value, a n d discuss eac h c h i l d ' s special
q u alities w ould emerge if
they enjoyed the economic and
a dminis t r a t i v e support w h i c h P a l e y could d r a w upon. T heir conte n t i o n is confirmed by a follow-up e v a l u a t i o n of former student teachers trained in a collaborative p r o g r a m betweeen a university training center and an u r b a n pu b l i c school district.
W hile student teachers su c c e s s f u l y
t ransferred m a n y of the techniques they studied, demonstrated,
saw
and practiced In their training onc e they
star t e d teaching,
several environmental factors inhibited or
encou r a g e d them in doing so:
the a v a i l a b i l i t y of resources;
the nature of adminstrative,
staff and parental support;
199 their actual teaching a s s i g n m e n t . 8 What s p e c i f i c a l l y are the conditions w h i c h make a d d r e s s i n g student differences a Her c u l e a n task in u r b a n schools? Unfortunately, a n d Three,
as e x p l a i n e d in C h a p t e r s One,
Two,
few w r i t e r s have a t t e m p t e d s y s t e m a t i c a l l y to
a p p l y research about c h a r a c t eristics of u r b a n school systems a n d schools to Issues of teac h e r and s t u d e n t performance. However,
one s t u d y confirms that the c r i tical problem in
u r b a n teacher pr e p a r a t i o n is n o t to educ a t e pr o s p e c t i v e teachers to deal w i t h specific student c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s but instead to assist them to interact wit h s t u d e n t s of v a r y i n g sensib i l i t i e s and abilities in a setting w h i c h discou r a g e s this behavior. Four observers,
all former u r b a n teac h e r themselves,
found seven r e curring c onditions in inner c i t y junior hig h schools w h i c h u n d ercut teachers'
efforts t o m a k e their
classes functioning groups: 1. A r e q uired adhes i o n to n u m erous sc h o o l r u l e s . 2. The seem i n g i n t e r changeability of teachers and assignments. 3. The overs p e c i a l i z a t i o n of pedagogical
functions.
4. An inordinate amount of class time spent on p rocedures designed to m a i n t a i n sc h o o l organization. 5. Both teachers and c h i l d r e n had little control over their a ssignment to classes.
200 6. The lock-step curr i c u l u m enco u r a g e d custodial treatment of c h i ldren different
in an y way.
7. External exa m i n a t i o n s dicta t e d m u c h of the course c o n t e n t .9 In examining the effect the u r b a n school structure and orga n i z a t i o n have o n student and teacher interaction, researchers,
like the Tas k Force,
"cultural deprivation." However, q uite a different solution:
these
rejec t e d theories of their findings indicate
a prog r a m of u r b a n teacher
prepar a t i o n to assist prospe c t i v e teachers to u nderstand and resist conditions w h i c h rob teacher a n d learner of their individuality.
Conversely,
this study reinforces the Task
F orce conclusion that the prob l e m of training teachers for u r b a n s chools is "not the same as p r e p a r i n g teachers to deal w i t h racism in school a n d society" beca u s e teachers of poor, mi n o r i t y students do not need this u n d e r s t a n d i n g more-or less- than other teachers. All programs of teacher edu c a t i o n should lead to an e x a m i n a t i o n of one's o w n prejudices,
in
ad d i t i o n to u n d e r s t a n d i n g the problems an d concerns of students and p a r e n t s . 1® The- Task Force was proba b l y overly o ptimistic whe n it a r g u e d that "If the a dvantaged had been pr o p e r l y educated in the essence of d e m o c r a c y perhaps there would be no disadvantaged," but their point was critical: all teachers need to k n o w h o w inequality Is reflected in s c h o o l i n g . 11 HOW SHOULD URBAN T E A C H E R P R E P A RATION BE SPECIALIZED?
201 Schola r s h i p of the past definitive,
thirty years does not provide a
empiri c a l l y - d e r i v e d a n s w e r to the q u e s t i o n of
ho w urban teacher p r e p a r a t i o n should be changed to address the u r b a n school c o n t e x t . Eve n issues w hich s e e m to have b een "solved," experience, example,
like the importance of early field
are c h allenge d by some research findings.
For
a d i s s e r t a t i o n c o mparing two u n d e r g r a d u a t e teacher
training p r o grams con c l u d e d that f o l lowing their preparation,
students
in the experimental p r o g r a m w hich
p rovided Increased e arly field e x p e r i e n c e sh o w e d a less positive a t t i t u d e towards teaching than did the students in the regular courses.
A n o t h e r study of the effect of
interning in schools s e r v i n g "disadvantaged" s t u d e n t s in u r b a n schools found no differ e n c e s in attitudes between these interns and a control group. all interns'
attitudes,
Th e major indicators of
those t e a ching in the s c h o o l s wit h
"disadvantaged" students an d those not,
were t heir prior
attitudes and the att i t u d e s of their c ooperating teachers. Still another study,
this u s i n g v i deotapes of teacher
candidates p rior to and a fter student teaching, videos of cooperating teachers,
a l o n g with
sho w e d that s t u d e n t teachers
imitated only the techniques of their c o o p e rating teachers which were effective,
m u d d y i n g even m o r e our u n d e r s t a n d i n g
of ho w and w hat students learn during their field e x p e r i e n c e s .12 It m a y be, as the A s s o c i a t i o n of Teacher E d u cators
202 contends,
that "research studies in teacher education
consistently show the professional experiences [early field experiences,
student teaching, practlcums,
and Internships]
are effective in shaping professional p r a c t i c e . 1,13 However, research does not explain
how prospective teachers'
attitudes and behaviors change, or why, let alone how characteristics of urban schools alter the scenario.14 Two counterposed ideas have dominated programs to improve urban teacher preparation:
an apprenticeship model
which emphasizes the need to acquire specialized skills for urban teaching, and a "lab school" or "professional development school," as the other concept has been labeled, stressing the prospective teacher's acquisition of a theoretical understanding of pedagogy. This tension is not unique to u rban teacher preparation, and indeed has pervaded teacher preparation since the early part of the century. However the disagreement heightens as teacher candidates' intended work settings contrast more dramatically with the college or university ambience in which they are trained. To some extent, geography has complicated the institutional relationships between schools of education and urban school systems.
In most states,
teacher education
occurs in college campuses located in small towns where teachers complete their practice-teaching,
so they have no
experience teaching in urban school conditions.15 This was not always the case, however. A report issued by the federal
203 government in 1914 described h o w all but on e city w i t h a popul a t i o n of 300,000 m a i n t a i n e d a normal o r training school for teachers, as part of the public school system.
Mos t n e w
u r b a n teachers came from the grad u a t i n g clas s e s of t hese city training schools. A l t h o u g h these t r a i n i n g schools w ere run by the school systems themselves,
u r b a n educators still
deba t e d whether p r a ctice t e a c h i n g should be done w i t h i n the training school or the regular school setting. the student practice,
St. L o u i s had
then r e t u r n to the training school
to
"reorganize her w o r k on the b a s i s of the p r o blems t e a ching has o p e n e d . " 16 Trenton,
on the other hand,
h a d students w h o
had completed their course w o r k practice t each in regular schools,
w i t h classes for troublesome students,
as well as
"foreign p u p i l s . " 17 The b e ginnings of the institutional strug g l e to control teacher p r e p a r a t i o n is evident the state normal schools, colleges,
in the disa g r e e m e n t b e t w e e n
later to expand into state
and the cit y training schools a b o u t whether the
state normal scho o l s could a d e q u a t e l y p r e p a r e city teachers. O nly eight cities relied on s t a t e normal s c h o o l s and ha d n ' t established their o w n training schools;
but
in these eight
cities the school districts ha d "no r e l a t i o n to the s t a t e school" except to employ its graduates as teachers. exception was Providence,
The one
w h i c h had an a r g r e e m e n t wit h the
Rhode Island Normal School to select c o o p e r a t i n g teachers, called
"critic" t e a c h e r s . 18 The P rovidence schools paid the
204 teachers'
entire sal a r y and the n wer e p a r t i a l l y reim b u r s e d
by the Rhode Island Normal S c h o o l . In comparing adva n t a g e s a n d disad v a n t a g e s of cit y and state training schools,
the S u p erintendent of Newark a r g u e d
that the state normal schools ne e d e d to a d a p t their t r a ining meth o d s w h e n e d ucating city teachers.
He observed that
u s u a l l y a state g r a d u a t e required a longer time to 'find' hers e l f in a city school s y s tem-or for that matter, in a rural school district; her k n o w l e d g e is too general; it is not specific en o u g h to meet special cases. The corre c t i o n to this is m u c h pr a ctice w o r k be f o r e being g r a d u a t e d . 19 Na t h a n Glazer argues that in the scho o l s of the m i n o r pr o f e s s i o n s like edu c a t i o n and social work,
tension b e t w e e n
the ideals of the a c a d e m y and the pr o f e s s i o n s as they ar e p r acticed is eradicable.
His w o r k suggests that Martin
Haberman's a r g ument for differe n t i a t e d roles for schools of ed ucation and schools In u r b a n teacher pr e p a r a t i o n is correct,
and that neither a lone can p r r ovide optimal
preparation.
However,
defin i n g these d i f ferentiated roles
depends first on c l a r i f y i n g the relationship between theoretical training an d practical work,
a task complicated
by conditions in u rban schools serving a t - r i s k s t u d e n t s . 20 Though he did not e x p l i c i t l y refer to u r b a n teacher preparation,
John D ewey add r e s s e d the s p e c i f i c problem of
ap p r e n t i c e s h i p in his e s s a y "The Relation of Theory to Practice in Education."
D ewey inveighed agai n s t training
teachers in "practice schools," which,
he argued,
in th e o r y
205 approximate o r d i n a r y conditions but in reality d e n y the student teacher r e s p o n s i b i l i t y of class m a n a g e m e n t and intellectual responsibility.
O n the o t h e r hand,
the
apprenticeship m o d e l makes the student respon s i b l e to the supervisor,
not th e material,
he warned,
s u b s t ituting
m a s t e r y of t e c h n i q u e for u n d e r s t a n d i n g of educational theory.
Both t y p e s of programs err in a t t e m p t i n g to have
prospective t e a c h e r s master tw o areas simultaneously: techniques of c l a s s management and the m a s t e r y of subject m a t t e r as it r e l a t e s to educational principles. Th e apprent i c e s h i p model makes the teacher technically adept,
at the cost
insight,
of a c q u i r i n g habits of observation,
and r e f l e c t i o n w h i c h m ake the student of education
a thoughtful and a l e r t teacher who can e x t r a polate from a n a lysis of his o r her own learning to under s t a n d h o w others m ay learn. Further,
Dewey warned,
it encou r a g e s a lack of
Intellectual independence w h i c h allows teachers to be led, sheep-like,
from o n e "education gospel"
be c o m e submerged in rules, percentages,
regulations,
to another, reports,
a n d to
and
e s p e c i a l l y w hen the y become a d m i n i s t r a t o r s . 21
The education s t u d e n t must l e a r n to o b s e r v e classes from a psychological stand p o i n t to b e c o m e an individual
judge and
critic of practical devices u s e d by other teachers an d to a void mere imitation, Dewey concluded. D e w e y argued that all teachers need a n ability to "carry back subject - m a t t e r to its common psychical
roots."
206 A m i n d that is habit u a t e d to viewing subject m a t t e r from the standpoint of the f u n ction of that subject m a t t e r in c o nnection w i t h mental responses, attitudes, an d methods will be sen s i t i v e to signs of intellectual a c t i v i t y ...[and able to] call out an d direct mental a c t i v i t y ...[based on] a spontaneous and u nconscious a p p r e c i a t i o n of the subj e c t m a t t e r . 22 D e w e y e x p lained that a f t e r p r o s p e c t i v e teachers a p p r o p r i a t e n e w subject mattter (thereby improving their, own sc h o l a r s h i p a n d realizing mor e consci o u s l y the nature of the m e t h o d ) , they sho u l d finally p r o c e e d to o r g a n i z e this s a m e s u b j ect-matter w i t h reference to its u s e in t e a ching o t h e r s . 23 Lawrence C r e m i n s u g g e s t e d a similar forumulation about subject matter p r e p a r a t i o n in
The E d u c a t i o n of the
E du c a t i n g P r o f e s s i o n s .24 In addit i o n to ha v i n g had the e x perience of thinking " seriously about the s u b stance of a liberal
e d u c a t i o n . ..about the relat i o n s h i p s among the
several
fields of knowledge,"
the p r o s p e c t i v e teacher
sho u l d idea l l y have m a s t e r e d some field of k n o w l e d g e of art suff i c i e n t l y well to have b e e n able to reflect s y s t e m a t i c a l l y on the v a r i o u s ways in which it might b e taught to clients at different stages of development a n d in different t e a ching s i t u a t i o n s . 25 Using Dewey's terms then,
all
teachers should h a v e the
abil i t y to u n d e r s t a n d the "psychical roots" of their subject matter,
the que s t i o n s which u n d e r l y their disciplines,
effective;
but again,
to be
this is a critical a b i l i t y for
teachers of students who n e i t h e r a u t o m a t i c a l l y acc e p t the cultural a ssumptions of traditional cur r i c u l a and d o not see much reason to beli e v e that m a s t e r y of the material will be useful
to them. Put another way,
If s t u d e n t s can s u c c e e d in
207 school without true Intellectual enga g e m e n t w i t h the su b s t a n c e of instruction, it,
and their teachers do not provide
the students are cheated of one of sc h o o l i n g ' s dearest
functions,
but they will still s u c c e e d a c a d e m i c a l l y because
intellectual engagement
is not essential,
unfortunately,
for
successful c ompletion of hig h s c h o o l . 26 W h e n s t u d e n t s need to connect wit h a d i s c i pline's "psychical roots"
to master
m a t e r i a l , then the teacher cheats the student b o t h of intellectual e n gagement and the o p p o r t u n i t y for school success w h e n he or she is not able to reflect on h o w the subject matter can best be p r esented so that s t u d e n t s can e ngage w i t h it. Furthermore,
just as the urban teac h e r of
a t - r i s k students must attempt
to c o m p e n s a t e in his or her
c la s s r o o m m a nagement techniques for the i n f l e x i b i l i t y of the school system, same,
in curri c u l a r matters he or she m ust do the
combatting the "aggregate p i c t u r e of school learning"
w h i c h is "fragmented" an d " s u p e r f i c i a l . " 27 The need for subject matter m a s t e r y w h i c h perm i t s an urban teacher to counteract curricular restraints is illustrated in the task c onfronting N e w Y o r k Cit y hig h school teachers, wh o must prepare s t u d e n t s for at least one c o m p e t e n c y tests in e very subject area.
The state-m a n d a t e d
tests control the s p e cific subject m a t t e r in e very discipline,
except English.
The teacher must prepare
students to succeed on tests which call
for m a s t e r y of
d e c o n t e x t u a l i z e d pieces of information,
w h i l e simulta n e o u s l y
208 presenting the questions and methods of problem-solving which underlie each of the disciplines and give them meaning. One experienced social studies teacher recounted an experience w h i c h captured the dilemma. She had participated in the state-wide committee selecting the pool of questions to be used for the competency test in social studies. The questions were,
she observed,
"fair" but "antiseptic" and
"sterile." The next term she taught a remedial class to coach seniors w h o had failed the test and needed to pass in order to graduate. They were "slow" she noted in mastering the test questions but insightful w hen discussing racial and ethnic divisions in American society,
in particular a recent
conflict between Koreans and blacks in a Brooklyn neighborhood.
At first students decided racial tensions w ere
inevitable, but when given the assignment to generate a list of measures to defuse the confrontation that had occurred, the class produced a plan which was identical to the compromise devised weeks later by representatives of city government. Their work was greatly facilitated by the contribution of two students, one Cambodian,
the other Thai,
who described cultural norms and behaviors which were frequently misinterpreted by Americans.28 The teacher noted, proudly, how the students .demonstrated the cognitive and affective skills needed to assess and mediate racial conflicts;
but she ruefully
209 acknowledged that the c o m p e t e n c y test in A m e r i c a n g o vernment w o u l d probably not measure m a s t e r y of t hese a b i lities or the s p e cific k n o w l e d g e that ha d b e e n learned about K o r e a n and Tha i culture.
Still,
she h o p e d that this h i g h l y successful
proj e c t w ould nurt u r e their interest in g o vernment a n d m o t i v a t e them to master information a b o u t topics she had no time to deve l o p fully but anticipated m i g h t be tested. PREPARING TEACHERS FO R ETHNIC AND R A C I A L DIV E R S I T Y Nowhere in his essay d o e s Dewey d i r e c t l y address the p r o b l e m of t e a c h i n g students w h o differ s o c i a l l y or culturally from the teacher,
an d thus it might be argued
that his ideas ar e impractical preparation,
for u r b a n teacher
or at least m u s t be s u p p l emented by course work
in "multicultural education." The o p p o s i t e is p r o b a b l y true. N e w u r b a n teachers who ar e white or m i d d l e class w i l l probably not teach students like themselves,
as Carl G r a n t observed,
a n d they wil l work
w i t h students f r o m a wide v a r i e t y of cultures, immigrant and n a t i v e . 29 In fact,
both
they w i l l confront s u c h a
cultural potpourri that no p r o g r a m of t e a c h e r edu c a t i o n can p r e p a r e them w i t h information about all
the cultures they
m a y see in the course of e v e n a relatively brief career in an u r b a n school.
"Multicultural education," w h e n p r e s e n t e d
as a body of sociological or historical data, as it wa s in its fusion to c o m p e t e n c y - b a s e d teacher education,
is little
help
changing
to an u r b a n teacher wh o confronts a diverse,
210 student population. No u r b a n teacher can be educated to be a n expert about every ethnic g roup he or she will encounter.
Moreover,
differences in culture are m i t i g a t e d by class and gender, and for immigrants, example,
dist i n c t i o n s in their legal status.
For
to s peak of Hispanic culture m a s k s the tremendous
differences betw e e n Cuban an d Puerto R i c a n immigrants,
or
between those immigrant families who h ave sett l e d in this country a n d those w h o commute betw e e n their native c o u ntries a n d their r e s idence in the U n i t e d S t a t e s . 30 Teachers n e e d the k n owledge that culture,
class,
and g e n d e r
influence ho w
children learn and ho w families v i e w education, vital
but e q u a l l y
is the u n d e r s t a n d i n g that students w h o are
d e m o g r a p h i e s l l y identical m a y b e p s y c h o l o g i c a l l y quite different, are. student,
as for instance,
sist e r s and b r o t h e r s f r equently
Teach e r s w h o are p r e p a r e d to t e a c h one kind of rather than learning h o w to learn from their
teaching to adapt to individual differences, their p r e p a ration irrelevant. about cultural differences,
ma y well find
For the u r b a n teacher,
data
like other "risk" factors,
are
important in the same way that e p i d e m i ological evidence is valuable to a doctor.
Epi d e m i o l o g y p r o v i d e s Information
that can n a r r o w the range of diagnoses, not, by Itself,
but the data d o e s
dictate one parti c u l a r d i a g n o s i s or
treatment.31 Just as doctors s h o u l d know h o w to apply epidemiological findings to clinical practice,
to u n d e r s t a n d
211 its usefulness an d limitations, that cultural, gender,
teachers s h o u l d be taught
and class d i f f e rences pose
"risks"
to students and u n d e r s t a n d h o w u s i n g a range of teaching strategies can impr o v e their chances of a c a d e m i c success.
In
summary then, w hile all teachers will be m o r e effective if they k n o w ho w to t e a c h students of vary i n g abilities and sensibilities,
it is critical
for a c h i e v e m e n t of at-risk
students that their teachers hav e this c a p a c i t y to reflect on and adapt their practice. classrooms,
the n e e d
W h e n teaching occurs in u r b a n
for p r e p a r a t i o n w h i c h develops this
capab i l i t y increases e x p o n e n t i a l l y because school policies a n d structures, at best, do n o t h i n g to e n c o u r a g e it, and at worst,
discourage its application. DI F F E R E N C E S AMONG T E A C H E R C A N D I D A T E S
The two domains into w h i c h D e w e y d i v i d e d teacher preparation,
a c q u i s i t i o n of class m anagement skills and
m a s t e r y of subject m a t t e r as it relates to educational principles,
parallel a persistent dic h o t o m y in programs of
teacher preparation. this separation,
a r g u i n g for a "distinct d i v i s i o n of labor"
in teacher training: other,
D e w e y himself at one time agreed wit h
educational
one to train the mass of teachers,
leaders.
the
The first tier w o u l d master
technique while a m u c h smaller g r o u p w ould focus on "pedagogical d i s c u s s i o n and e x p e r i mentation."
Between 1894
a n d 1904 Dewey's t h i n k i n g about teacher p r e p a r a t i o n changed dramatically,
and by the end of hi s time at the U niversity
212 of Chicago he was con v i n c e d that educational experime n t a t i o n and teacher education had an o r g a n i c Interdependence a n d were the Siamese t w i n s of educational i m p r o v e m e n t . 32 Historically,
t e a chers h a v e bee n d r a w n from three
groups, M a u r i c e S e d l a k and Ste v e n S chlossman argue.
Teachers
from farms and rural areas p r o v i d e d the b u l k of the t e a c h i n g force u n t i l recently,
w h e n teachers from w o r k i n g class
families b o r n and r a i s e d In u r b a n commun i t i e s replaced the rural teachers. However,
teaching has also attracted
"high-
status females" d i s p r o p o r t i o n a t e l y because t h e y "lacked a wide range of suitable a l t e rnatives and/or w e r e c o mmitted to teaching a s a m i s s i o n a r y v e n t u r e . " 33 In on e sense,
p r o g r a m s of teacher p r e p a r a t i o n have
always b e e n shaped b y these differences,
although discourse
about teacher p r e p a r a t i o n has s e l d o m a c k n o w l e d g e d or identified h o w the class,
gender,
have d e t e r m i n e d who receives w h a t
and race of candidates type of training.
example. H a r v a r d G r a d u a t e School of Education, inception,
For
from its
targeted a n elite corps of a p p l i c a n t s in d e v i s i n g
its offerings.
Similarly,
in l o o k i n g to r e c r u i t graduates
from liberal arts c o l l e g e s whose academic a b i l i t y and leadership potential w e r e above average for th e profession, M.A.T.
p r o grams impl i c i t l y moved to recruit
middle and u pper m i d d l e class students, Schlossman's terms,
to teaching m o r e
or in Sedlak and
" high status" males and females d r a w n to
teaching fo r idealistic reasons rather than a s a means of
213 mov i n g out of the w o r k i n g cl a s s . 34 Peter Helmut Kelman's d i s s e r t a t i o n for H a r v a r d Graduate School of E d u c a t i o n d e s c r i b e d a rare a t t e m p t to shape teacher training to candidates' d emands of the u r b a n school
needs,
as well as the
. Kelman con d u c t e d a n eeds
a s sessment of the students enrolled in W e s l e y a n ' s Urban M a s t e r of Arts
in T e a ching prog r a m an d concluded that the
"teacher-scholar" o r i e n t a t i o n of most M.A.T. not onl y Irrelevant to the M.A.T. u r b a n teacher,
programs was
s t udent's needs as an
it was a c t u a l l y harmful.
In reviewing the
literature on dif f i c u l t i e s of b e g inning a n d experi e n c e d u rban teachers, approach" paid [school]
he c o n cluded that the "socio-cultural "scant a t t e n t i o n to d i f f i c u l t i e s w i t h the
a d m i n i s t r a t i o n or...
M a n y of the M.A.T.
the s e l f . " 35
students'
f r u s trations in the school
setting r e s ulted from their y o u t h and idealism: resented not b e i n g treated as professionals;
The y
they ch a f e d at
a d m i n i s t r a t i v e d i rectives and a u t h o r i t a r i a n supervisors; their ambitions and idealism made them u n s y m p a t h e t i c to colleagues w h o seemed to s h a r e neither characteristic,
and
wh o wer e hostile that y o u n g newcomers w e r e b eing trained to be educational
leaders,
these problems was
that is, their leaders.
the burden,
for many,
of m e e t i n g the
adult responsibilities a c q u i r e d in a first their am b i v a l e n c e about exerc i s i n g
Co m p o u n d i n g
job.36 Finally,
a u t h o r i t y made
d i s c i plining their classes a m ajor problem,
one w h i c h wa s
214 not a d d r e s s e d by a n M.A.T.
pro g r a m ' s heavy e m p h a s i s on
sc h o l a r s h i p and s u b j e c t matter. G w y n e t h Dow r e a c h e d the same conclusions a s Kelman w h e n she o r g a n i z e d a n e w c o u r s e of i n s t r uction for student teachers at the U n i v e r s i t y of Melbourne. teachers, program,
The stud e n t
w h o resembled those in Wesl e y a n ' s U r b a n M.A.T. had great d i f f i c u l t y d e t e r m i n g who t h e y wanted to
be as t e a chers because questions a b o u t who t h e y wer e as adults f u s e d with ideological c o n c e r n s about establishing their cla s s r o o m authority.
"In t r y i n g to a c q u i r e a teaching
style that fits them well,
they h a v e to face u p
to defining,
living w i t h and l e a r n i n g to act a c c o r d i n g to v a l u e s that deeply s a t i s f y them," D o w o b s e r v e d . 37 Like Kelman,
Do w a r g u e d agai n s t the "teacher-scholar"
approach w h i c h the M.A.T. Instead,
programs g e n erally favored.
students w e r e taught h o w to ask q u e s t i o n s about
their subj e c t areas s i n c e "even t h e i r whole c o n c e p t of the subjects t h e y had s t u d i e d were q u i t e often u n s u i t e d to school
learn i n g . " 38 Furthermore,
offered a t
the school site,
h a l f of the c o u r s e s were
taught
jointly by f a c u l t y of the
school of education a n d teachers in the s c h o o l , a strategy not unique to Dow's program, teacher candidates.
However,
nor to training "high-status" D o w pinpo i n t e d a s o l ution to
the social an d cultural conflicts the young, white M.A.T.
m i d d l e class,
students encountered w h i c h Kelman Ignored:
closeness w i t h one s t u d e n t was u s u a l l y the key to a student
215 t e a c h e r ’s unl o c k i n g some doubt or trouble. Differ e n c e s a m o n g teacher cand i d a t e s ma y e x p l a i n In part w h y research on field experiences In u r b a n schools has been inconclusive.
D i fferent kinds of teacher candidates
probably n e e d to have e a r l y field e x p e r i e n c e s adap t e d to their strengths and w e a k n e s s e s w i t h i n the u r b a n school context,
ye t s cholarship o n teacher p r e p a r a t i o n usua l l y
treats teac h e r c a ndidates as a h o m o g e n e o u s group, sociological, historical,
Ignoring
and demograj>hic data a bout who
chooses t e a ching as a c a r e e r . 39 The m a j o r e x c e p t i o n to this occurred in the 1960's w i t h educators w h o identified the cultural c l a s h betw e e n teachers an d "disadvantaged" students as causing low student achievement. The n a t u r e of the field expe r i e n c e is as critical as its s e q uence in the p r o g r a m of preparation,
but little
research has been c o n d u c t e d about w h i c h kind of field experience best suits s p e cific groups of pr o s p e c t i v e teachers.
F o r example,
u n l i k e the y o u n g M.A.T.
types, not
all teacher candidates a r e afraid or u n f a m i l i a r w i t h students in u r b a n schools. parents,
Some,
like t hose w h o are older
m a y already feel comfortable w i t h the c h i ldren they
will teach. What they m a y find more d i fficult is a c quiring the confidence and a b i l i t y to mani p u l a t e subject matter,
and
they m a y benefit from field experiences w h i c h p e r m i t them to observe a v a r i e t y of c l a s s e s and t e a c h i n g t e chniques early in their preparation.
Indeed,
if J e a n n i e Oakes is correct that classroom
processes in schools w h i c h s e p a r a t e students b y ability r eproduce social an d class differences,
then this
consideration must s h a p e much of u rban t e a c h e r preparation, for two reasons.40 First, d o m inated schooling,
Insofar as abil i t y tracking has
teacher c a n d i d a t e s are products of
these tracks. As G w y n e t h Dow observed,
s u p e r i o r academic
a chievement does not guarantee the kind of m a s t e r y of subject ma t t e r w h i c h is n e cessary for eff e c t i v e teaching; however,
teacher cand i d a t e s who a r e g r a duates of high tracks
and elite u n d e r g r a d u a t e colleges ar e more l i k e l y to have been expo s e d to Instructional
techniques w h i c h encouraged
them to reflect on the subject matter.
On th e other hand,
teacher candidates d r a w n from p o o r and w o r k i n g class families ar e less l i k e l y to have b e e n expo s e d to learning situations
in which their opinions and ideas w e r e v a l u e d . 41
One of the most c r i t i c a l objec t i v e s of a p r o g r a m p r e paring these s t u dents to t e a c h in urban schools w i t h at-risk students must be to e x p o s e them to a lternative models of teaching and learning. A g l a r i n g irony of the s t r a t e g y to mak e teachers a g e n t s of social change an d political
l i beration is that while
it
purports to use teac h e r education to emancipate poor a n d w orking class students,
it c o n tains a bias towa r d s middle
class teacher cand i d a t e s by i n s isting that e f fective teachers a gree with a w o r l d vie w m o r e f requently held by
liberal,
middle class g r a duates of e l i t e colleges than by
the w o r k i n g class graduates of public colleges.
L i k e some
a d v o c a t e s of "multicultural e d u c a t i o n , 11 man y teacher ed u c a t o r s who b a s e their p e d a g o g y on P a o l o F r e l r e ' s work argue that p rospective teachers must accept a p o l itical Ideology w hich calls for s c h o o l i n g w h i c h cultivates ethnic and cultural, differ e n c e s of m i n o r i t y groups. Yet, possible,
it is very
even lik e l y for p r o s p e c t i v e teachers to h a v e a
pedago g i c a l p h i l o s o p h y that teachers m u s t assist all s t u dents to fulfill their potential a n d a political opinion that al l ethnic g r o u p s should assimilate.
To t each well,
edu c a t o r s need not have u n i f o r m political beliefs a b o u t the extent to which m i n o r i t y g r o u p members ar e o p p ressed or should determine for themselves to w hat extent t h e y will assimilate.
As teachers, however,
they mus t resist
the
pre s s u r e s which d i m i n i s h the o p p o r t u n i t i e s for all students to r e a c h their potential and decide h o w best to reconcile c o n flicts between their poltlcal needs,
ideals and their students'
a s students or parents define them. SPECIAL TRAINING F O R URBAN TEACHERS
T h e specific char a c t e r i s t i c s of p r o grams w h i c h can provide a p p r o priate training wil l depend almost e n t i r e l y on the the teacher c andidates enrolled,
but in general,
the
less f a m i l i a r the candidates ar e with a n urban school setting a n d the s t u d e n t s in it,
the more experience
need w o r k i n g with students in that context.
they
This explains
218 why,
as Larry Cuban argued, an effective teaching model for
inner city students also applies to suburban schools, but not vice-versa.42 Teachers who learn to respect students' differences and teach them as individuals under bureaucratic conditions have little problem adjusting to a less pressured context. Similarly, experienced suburban teachers who have internalized the process of reflective teaching can probably adjust to urban schools which discourage its use, but given the choice,
they are unlikely to choose to teach in urban jk
schools with less favorable working conditions. In the past decade's most comprehensive analysis of urban teacher preparation, reforms. Most,
Martin Haberman outlined eight
like the idea of a full year of supervised
internship echo ideas proposed in the 1960's-and earlier. Only one of Haberman's suggestions seems to contradict the ideas explained in this chapter:
In focusing exclusively on
the urban setting rather than incorporating the problem of addressing educational needs of at-risk students, he,
like
the alternative certification programs he criticizes, overemphasizes acquisition of special techniques rather than the mastery of reflective teaching which all teachers require.
Thus,
he proposes a special urban education
curriculum, taught jointly by master teachers and university faculty. On the other hand, Carl Grant does not suggest a special curriculum for urban teacher preparation but only that preparation include teaching an entire class of urban
219 students
for at least several mo n t h s under the guidance of a
senior teacher w h o k nows how to teach u r b a n s t u d e n t s . 43 Most teacher e d ucators w o u l d p r o b a b l y a g r e e that a p a i d internship,
supe r v i s e d by both u n i v e r s i t y and school facu l t y
in an u r b a n school,
w o u l d be the most eff e c t i v e prepar a t i o n
a n u rban teacher could receive.
G i v e n the e n o r m o u s amounts
of ne w funding inter n s h i p programs w o u l d require, implementation is,
for the time b eing at least.
Improbable,
and Grant's s u g g e s t i o n for p r a ctice teaching in a n urban school s eems more practicable. student,
Also,
for the M .A.T.-type
a field exper i e n c e w h i c h allows them to engage on
a n individual level w i t h at-r i s k students, essential
is p r o b a b l y
for them to benefit fully from their urban
practice teaching. SUMMARY W hile all t e a chers face the dile m m a of d e a l i n g with students' setting,
individual differ e n c e s w i t h i n a n institutional those who h a v e the largest number of students,
as
well as the greatest perc e n t a g e in circu m s t a n c e s that require individual attention, satisfy individuals, c o n c e ntrated form.
an d the fewest resources to
confront the tension in its most
Students and parents who are habit u a l l y
denied the special att e n t i o n they require a r e likely to become mor e easily frustrated w h e n they are onc e a gain put off. Thus, urban t e a c h e r s of a t - r i s k students face harder choices m o r e frequently because of the j u x t a p o s i t i o n of
220 c o n s i stently scarce resources,
co n t i n u a l l y p r e s s i n g need,
and institutional pre s s u r e s to Ignore the conflict. The c a p acity to retain one's ideals w h i l e functioning in a s e t t i n g which und e r c u t s them is an a b i l i t y w hich no program of
teacher pr e p a r a t i o n ca n ensure.
In fact,
this
tension is p r o bably w hat makes H a b e r m a n correct w hen he argues that a lifetime of urban t e a ching is a n u nrealistic g oal.44 T h e central p r o b l e m in t e a c h i n g a t - r i s k students in urban s c h o o l s is the friction b e t w e e n u rban teaching's demands a s a calling,
that is the m oral and p o litical v a l u e
of p r o v i d i n g at-risk students w i t h the e d u c a t i o n they need, and its r e s t r ictions as a job,
the systemic l imitations the
teacher d a i l y confronts to fulfill the calling. Comer explained,
As James
this tension e x p l a i n s wh y so m a n y teachers
seem not to care about their students'
success:
in
ac c o m odating to the job's r e s t r ictions they sa c r i f i c e their ideal of teaching as a calling. W i t h o u t u n d e r s t a n d i n g this conflict,
pr o s p e c t i v e u r b a n teachers of a t - r i s k students
will be i l l - e quipped to survive w i t h ideals Intact. Aside from m e e t i n g the r e q u i rements of a n y qual i t y program to educate teachers,
the p r e p a r a t i o n of teachers of
at-risk s t u dents in u r b a n schools n eeds to take into account the social
context of u r b a n s c h o o l i n g and the
characteristics of the prospective teachers t h e y educate. What is critical
in formulating p r o g r a m s to p r e p a r e teachers
of at-risk students in u r b a n schools is m a t c h i n g the p r o g r a m
221 to the teacher candidates'
a b ilities and va l u e s so that they
enter u r b a n schools p r e p a r e d to teach s t u dents wit h an unlimited v a r i e t y of needs,
m a n y of them be y o n d the
teacher's control, u n d e r p r essures for teacher and stud e n t b oth to conf o r m to s t a n d ardized procedures w h i c h are als o impervious to the individual teacher and student's needs.
l.B. Othanel Smith et al., Teachers for the Real W orld (Washington, D.C.: A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1969), 27. 2.One result of this c o l l i s i o n b e t w e e n student needs a n d systemic rigidity is the stag g e r i n g gro w t h of special e ducation programs. N e w s d a v reported that one out of every eight s t u dents in Ne w Y o r k City public scho o l s is e n r o l l e d full- or par t - t i m e in special e d u cation classes. Nick Chiles, "Fernandez Asks Lifting of Mandate for Disabled," 25 M a y 1990, p. 6. 3 . One of m y superv i s o r s ex e m p l i f i e d this dic h o t o m y b e t w e e n what schools of edu c a t i o n consider e x e m p l a r y practice a n d w ha t u r b a n school systems expect from teachers w h e n e v e r he hosted visitors. He a v o i d e d show i n g m y clas s e s to his superiors from the B o a r d of Ed u c a t i o n but an y o n e from a school of edu c a t i o n w a s taken forthwith to observe me. Similarly, as part of a p r a c t i c u m in an E n g l i s h methods course I taught at the College of Staten Island, my students apprec i a t e d o b s erving one teacher w h o u s e d studentcentered or colla b o r a t i v e learning techniques. Subsequently I learned he w a s b eing pr e s s u r e d b y the principal to m a k e his classes m o r e traditional. 4.B. Othanel Smith et al.,
Teachers for the Real World.
5 . Vivian Gu s s l n Paley, W hite Teacher University Press, 1979), XV.
(Cambridge:
Harv a r d
6 . Ibid. 7 . Ibid, XI. 8. Lynne Susan Wat z k e Balman, "A Fol l o w - U p Evaluation of the Nature of Student Teacher T r a n s ference of Special Experiences from a U n i v e r s i t y T e a c h e r - T r a i n i n g Center to the U r b a n Public School Classroom" (Ed.D. Dissertation, W a y n e
222 S t a t e University,
1981).
9.J o a n I. Roberts, Scene of the Bat t l e D o u b l e d a y and C o . , 1970). 10.
Ibid.,
1 1 . Ibid,
(Garden City, NY:
19.
5.
12.P e g g y G. Elliott and Robert E. Mays, Early F i e l d Experiences in Teacher Education (Bloomngton, IN: Phi D elta K a p p a E d ucation Foundation, 1979), 10,- Robert M a f f e t t Brown, "The Effect of a n U rban School Field E x perience o n the A t t i t u d e s of P r e s e r v i c e E l ementary School T e achers," (Ed.D. dissertation, Pen n s y l v a n i a State University, 1 9 7 8 ) ;Charles C. Needham, "The Effect of I n t ern-Teaching in Schools S e r v i n g D i s a dvantaged Students on Attitudes of InternT e a c h e r s Toward D i s a d v a n t a g e d Students," (Ed.D. dissertation, U n i v e r s i t y of Tulsa, 1973); George Roger Courts, "An I n v e stigation of Student Teachers' A c q u i s i t i o n of Specific T e a c h i n g Behaviors Mode l e d by C o o p e r a t i n g Teachers," (Ed.D. dissertation, U n i v e r s i t y of Cincinnati, 1983). 1 3 .Association of Teacher Educators, G u idelines for Professional E x p e r iences in Teacher E d u cation (Reston, VA: A s s o c i a t i o n of Teac h e r Educators, 1986), V. 14. Dona ld Freeman, a doctoral c a n didate Harv a r d Graduate School of Education, Is c u rrently following seve r a l teachers in a longitudinal s tudy to analyze h o w they use I nformation a b o u t their teaching in changing their c l a ssroom behavior, as well as their attitudes about t e a c h i n g and learning. T h i s kin d of study is almost non-existent in the literature on teacher preparation, as Free m a n notes in his dis s e r t a t i o n proposal, so the blanket confidence in research findings g i v e n by the A s s o c i a t i o n of Teacher Educators n eeds reexamination. (Private conversation w i t h Donald Freeman, 19 April 1990.) 15.Martin Haberman, "Recruiting and Selecting T e a c h e r s for U r b a n Schools," (Washington, D.C.: ERIC Document R e p r oduction Service, No. ED 292 942, Nov. 1987). 16.F r a n k Manny, C i t y Train i n g Schools for T e a c h e r s . (Washington, D . C . : U.S. Bu r e a u of E d u c a t i o n Bulletin, 47, 1915), 63.
No.
17.Ibid. The report does not specify whet h e r c l a s s e s for "foreign pupils" were for students w h o were foreign-born, the children of immigrants, or both. 1 8 . I b i d . , p . 94.
or
223 19.Ibid.,
96.
20.Nathan Glazer, "The Schools of the M i n o r Professions," Mine r v a 12 (July 1974); Martin Haberman in " Recruiting and Selecting Teachers for Urban Schools" a r g u e s that p r o f e s s o r s of education can't teach in u r b a n schools for extended periods on a regular basis, w h i c h means that more respons i b i l i t y must be shifted to urban schools for teaching preparation. This w o u l d provide for di f f e r e n t i a t e d roles he writes, though he d oes not suggest ho w the y should del i n e a t e their roles. 21.John Dewey, "The R e l a t i o n of Theory to Practice in Education," in 1904 Third Y e a r b o o k (Chicago: National Society for the Scien t i f i c Study of Education, 1904), 16. 22.John Dewey, "Relation of Th e o r y to P r a c t i c e in Education," p . 23. 2 3 . Ibid.,
24.
24.Lawrence A. Cremln, The Edu c a t i o n of the Educating Professions (Washington, D . C . : A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1977). 2 5 . Ibid.,
19.
26.Theodore Sizer, H o r ace's Compromise. Th e Dilemma of The A m e r i c a n Hig h School (Boston: H o u g h t o n M i f f l i n Co., 1984); Arthur Powell, Eleanor Farrar, a n d David K. Cohen, S h o pping Mall High School B o s t o n : H o u g h t o n M i f f l i n Co. , 1985^. 27.Fred Newmann, "Desoto High School," in Vito Perr o n e et al.. Portraits of H i g h Schools (Princeton: Princeton Univ e r s i t y Press, 1985), 190. In his "Observations o n the Carnegie Themes," Perr o n e comments that the c u r r i c u l u m in u r b a n high schools t o d a y appears v ery m u c h as it has b een for most of the last fifty years, w i t h textbooks m a i n t a i n i n g a tight grip. 28.Private c o n v e rsation wit h F e r n Lowenfels, N e w York City.
7 June 1990,
29.Carl A. Grant, "Urban Teachers: Their N e w Colle a g u e s and Curriculum," Phi Delta Kappan 70 (June 1989). 30.Appendix B of E d u c a t i o n that Works: A n A c t i o n P l a n for the Education of M i n o r i t i e s brie f l y d e s cribes some of these differences, noting a l s o that low-income w h i t e s face m a n y of the educational b a r riers that confront the m i n ority groups discussed in the report. (Cambridge: Q u a l i t y Edu c a t i o n for Minorities Project, 1990).
224 31.Private conversation, Dr. Charles Sklar, assistant professor of pediatrics at New York University, 14 March 1990, New York City. 32.In "John Dewey's Ideas on Teacher Education: The Chicago Years 1894-1904," George H. Eastman traces this progression, noting that Dewey never explicitly disaavowed his earlier idea. (Ed.D. Qualifying Paper, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1963),10. The quote is taken from Dewey's "Pedagogy as a University Discipline," published in 1896 while Dewey headed the Department of Pedagogy and developed the Lab S c h o o l . 33.Maurice Sedlak and Steven Schlossman, Who Will T e a c h ? . 34. These authors do not pinpoint whe n this transition occurred, nor do they discuss urban teachers specifically. Since Haberman provides no empirical data to support his contention thdt most teacher candidates have no experience in urban schooling, and m y research has not turned up any city-by-city survey that Identifies the geographic and class origins of urban teachers, I cannot determine exactly who teaches now in the nation's urban centers. The proportions may well vary from one urban center to another and may change dramatically in a short time, altered by certification requirements, for instance. The City University has trained over half of New York City's 65,000 te a chers.(Samuel Weiss, "CUNY and School Chancellors to Confer on Goals," The New York T i m e s , 5 June 1990, p. B 3 ) . In 1988-1989, according to a report of a C.U.N.Y. task force on secondary education, only 89 teachers were certified in secondary education in the entire C.U.N.Y. system because of changes in state policies which allow the City to hire uncertified teachers. 34.Arthur G. Powell, The Uncertain Profession (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980); Joan Sered Ellsberg, "A Study of Selected Master of Arts Programs In the United States," (Ph.D. Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1981). 35. Peter Helmut Kelman, "Needs Assessment for the Design of an Urban Master of Arts in Teaching Program," (Ed.D. dissertation. Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1974), p. 69. Kelman's work takes up the Wesleyan program from the standpoint of the students' needs as teachers, whereas Faith Weinstein Dunne's dissertation, also based on her work at Wesleyan, took up the question of preparing students to be "change agents." ("Preparing Liberal Arts Graduates to Work for Change In the Public Schools," Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1973.) Dunne's work also addressed the specific problems of "M.A.T. types" who differed from the average urban teacher in class, ambition, and achievement.
225 3 6 . In his d e s c r i p t i o n of s t a g e s of development, Rob e r t Kegan n o t e s that w h e n a n individual assumes th e "institutional self" of adulthood, an important issue is "assumption of authority" and assuming a " c a r e e r ...rather than h a v i n g a job." (The E v o l v i n g Self (Cambridge: H a r v a r d Univ. Press, 1982), 227. K e g a n ' s theory f i t s p e r f e c t l y w i t h K e l m a n ' s observations a b o u t how the M.A.T. p r o g r a m ' s e x pressed goal of training educational l e a d e r s sab o t a g e d the participants' succ e s s as teachers. Using Kega n ' s f r a m e w o r k to e x p l a i n the problem, the M.A.T. students' need to a d j u s t to the "institutional self" when he or she b e g a n w o r k as a teacher, for Instance by deciding h o w to adust to school policies, w a s undercut by the knowledge that t e a c h i n g was not their real career b u t a p r e l i minary hurdle. 37 . Gwyneth Dow, Learning to Teach. (Boston: R o u t l e d g e and K e g a n Paul, 3 8 . Ibid., p.
T e a c h i n g to Learn 1979), 2.
11.
39.Maur i c e S e d l a k and Steven Schlossman, W h o Will Teach? Historical P e r s p e c t i v e s on th e Changing Ap p e a l of T e a c h i n g as a P r ofession (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1986). Part of the d i f f i c u l t y is that t e a chers and t h e i r hist o r y wer e ignored by h i s t o r i a n s until ra t h e r recently, as I d i s c u s s in an u npublished paper, "Lost at the Crossroads." 40.Jeannie Oakes, "The R e p r o d u c t i o n of Inequity: T h e Content of S e condary Sc h o o l Tracking," The U rban R e v i e w 14 (Summer 1982). 41 . Oakes notes that in lower tracks, clas s r o o m s are m o r e chara c t e r i z e d b y "primitive a n d hostile relat i o n s h i p s b e t w e e n teachers a n d students a n d betw e e n students a n d their peers." Ibid., 118. 4 2 . L a r r y Cuban, Ci t y (New York:
T o Make a Difference: T e a c h i n g in the Inner Th e Pree Press, 1970).
43.Ma r t i n Haberman, Preparing Teachers for Urban Scho o l s (Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta K a p p a Educational Foundation, 1988); In C ity T r a i n i n g S c h o o l s for T e a c h e r s Frank M a n n y n o t e d that city training s c h o o l s paid t e a chers for a y e a r of pr a c t i c e teach i n g to compensate for time s pent in p r e p a ration w h i c h would o t h e r w i s e have b e e n spent in w o r k i n g an d earning m o n e y in another occupation. T h e sum p a i d was, however, was m o r e "a subsidy t han a salary," (p. 63); Carl A. Grant, "Urban Teachers: T h e i r New C o l l e a g u e s and Curriculum," Phi D elta Kappan 70 (June 1989).
44.M a r t i n Haberman, Ur b a n Schools."
"Recruiting and S e l e c t i n g Teachers for
226 CONCLUSIONS This s tudy began w ith four questions relating to the p r e p a r a t i o n of teachers of at-r i s k students in u rban schools,
questions
I presumed to be answe r a b l e from
r e viewing the s c h o l arship of the last thirty years.
A l t hough
considerable r e s earch has been conducted in a p a r adigm that corresponds .to their p r e s c riptive format,
I determined that
the first two q u e stions could not be a n s w e r e d d e f i n i t i v e l y in the form they w ere posed.
In a ttempting to generate
d e s c r ip tions of skills and attitudes that teachers of atrisk students in u r b a n schools required,
researchers divi d e d
over the d e f i n i t i o n and source of failure. orientations,
not their research,
Their p o litical
dete r m i n e d how they w o u l d
d e s c r i b e the reasons poor, m i n o r i t y children, "deprived,"
"disadvantaged,"
or "at risk"
labeled
fared po o r l y in
u r b a n schools. Neither the third nor the fourth q u e s t i o n could be a n s w e r e d either,
because no bod y of literature exists w hich
connects student and teacher performance to systemic characteristics of urban schools.
A l t hough social scientists
In the late 1960's and early 1 9 7 0 's examined the conditions w h i c h typify the d e l i v e r y of human services in bureaucracies,
their w ork and theories w e r e not applied to
urban schooling in the systematic way to produce g e n e r a l l y accepted conclusions or even shared r e s e a r c h concerns. A l t hough m y study has not a n s wered these four questions
w i t h a definitive list of attributes
for u r b a n teachers of
a t-r i s k students and the programs w h i c h p r e p a r e them to teach,
as I expected,
could not be done.
it has illuminated the reasons this
Foremost among them Is that the questions
combined two concerns w h i c h have been isolated:
the
c h a racteristics of u rban schools and the n eeds of at-risk students.
E m b edded in the q u estions was an e x p e c t a t i o n that
the school setting should be considered. W h i l e this a s sumption se e m e d logical to me, no such presum p t i o n existed In the s c h o l arship I reviewed.
In fact,
quite the opposite
p remise underlies the vast m a j o r i t y of material
I examined:
student and teacher performance a n d hence teacher preparation can be a n a l y z e d without reference to broader political,
social,
and economic d e v e lopments a n d without
taking into account the conditions M y fifth concern,
in schools.
deline a t i n g teacher preparation's
role in improving the education of at-risk students in u rban schools, presu m e d first, role,
and second,
before.
that there might be a significant
that it had not b een clearly delineated
Both assumptions proved accurate,
and I concluded
that to improve the education of a t - r i s k students,
programs
of teacher prepar a t i o n must develop their Institutional relationships w i t h u rban schooling's c o n s tituenies and educate p rospective teachers that their success as urban teachers will be constrained by the extent to w h i c h the sett i n g encourages this "ecological" approach.
The
228 alternative a p p r o a c h e m p l o y e d to improve u rban schooling, the attempt to t rain individual teachers to be c a talysts of school
reform,
is conceptually flawed in inflating the
potenti al of th e individual institutional
teacher and overlo o k i n g the
factors w h i c h pressure teachers, students, and
p a r e n t s to act a s they do. I intended to apply the conclusions of the literature r e v i e w to the final question,
to d e s cribe how teacher
p r e p a r a t i o n s h o u l d educate the teachers w h o will t e a c h atr isk students in u r b a n schools.
A l t hough I was not able to
s u p p o r t my d i s c u s s i o n w ith a body of r e s e a r c h w h i c h detailed how u r b a n school performance,
conditions affected teac h e r and student
e n o u g h sc h o l a r s h i p exists to confirm the
su p p o sition that the urban school sett i n g does requ i r e un i q u e p reparation insofar as teachers of at-risk students in u r b a n schools must deal w i t h an u n u s u a l l y large variety of stud e n t d i f f e r e n c e s in a setting w h i c h d i s c o u r a g e s any a c c o m odation to individual needs, either of teacher or student.
I c o n c l u d e that in preparing teachers for this
conflict, p r o g r a m s of teacher education m u s t t h emselves acco m o d a t e to the marked differ e n c e s b e t w e e n teacher candidates,
a p r e m i s e that h a s rarely b e e n e x p l i c i t l y
accepted. M y study w a s originally motivated by the de s i r e to learn w h y I found myself s t r u g g l i n g in m y first y ear of t e a c h i n g in a d i fficult u r b a n high school but w i t h i n a year
229 adjusted a n d began to enjoy my students and teaching.
I
believe the study s u c c e e d s in e xplaining b o t h my di f f i culties and my subequent adaptation.
Indeed,
m y history
illuminates why the c h aracteristics of the teacher candidate must be a prime consi d e r a t i o n in his or her preparation,
why
the characteristics of at-r i s k s t u dents are best u n d e r s t o o d as differences,
not deficiencies,
and w h y u n d e r s t a n d i n g the
social context of s c h o o l i n g is essential for the u r b a n teacher to maintain his or her pedagogical My successful adaptation,
I believe,
w ith my formal p r e p a r a t i o n to teach,
had little to do
because w i t h the
exception of a course in psychological education,
ideals.
foundations of
I was never re quired to anal y z e h o w I or my
students learned. Instead,
because I p o l i t i c a l l y rejected explanations
w hich traced student failure deficiencies,
to cultural or biological
my political s y mpathies forced me to examine
m y own practice,
rather than blaming students for
lndadequacies in their performance.
In other words,
politics
prompted m e to look at m y teaching methods critically,
a
process a i d e d by my inclin a t i o n to v i e w relationships psychologically. A l t h o u g h my prepar a t i o n did not occur in a research university, candidate,
I was an idealistic, like many M.A.T.
recommendations I suggest
white,
students.
middle class teacher
A c c o r d i n g the
in Chapter Five, m y introduction
to urban teaching should have been to tutor students individually, Instead,
or to w o r k w i t h a small g r o u p on a project.
I was sent to assist a teacher w ith a c l a s s of
black teenagers,
mo s t l y girls,
of w h o m I was afraid.
I had
little expe r i e n c e w o r k i n g or s o c i a lizing with teenagers, even less familiarity w i t h minority teens. to the n e w w h i t e woman,
They w e r e host i l e
o n l y a few y e a r s older t h a n they,
w h o had a u t h o r i t y to di r e c t their actions. was black,
and
had a friendly,
The teacher, who
relaxed rel a t i o n s h i p w i t h her
-l
students,
but either she w a s unable to a r ticulate ho w she
achieved it, or I did not k now how to a s k q u e stions that would have he l p e d me l earn from her. never p e r m i t t e d me to get individually,
Th e field exper i e n c e
to know a n y of the s t u dents
for I wa s g i v e n res p o n s i b i l i t y for w o r k i n g
wit h them as a group to produce a c l a s s newspaper.-1 I had few of the d i scipline p r o b l e m s which pl a g u e m a n y young,
idealistic middle class s t u d e n t s because I had no
deep ideological doubts about e x e r c i s i n g my authority.
When
I began student teaching in a w e l l - i n t e g r a t e d O a k l a n d high school,
I had few p r o blems adjusting to work life and being
responsible for my classes, a few b lack students.
comprised of white,
In fact,
Chinese,
I jo i n e d the t e a chers union
as a student member and enjoyed a t t e n d i n g meetings. m any young M.A.T.'s,
for
and
Unlike
instance t hose who i n i tially
s taffed Come r ' s New H a v e n project,
f r o m the first day of
student teaching I felt that the o ther teachers wer e
231 colleagues, and I became friendly with the school's union activists. I was, however, very conscious about what I felt had been ray inability to become familiar with and like my minority students in my first field experience. One incident illustrates just how anxious I was about learning to teach minority students. At the start of the term,
I found
distinguishing the faces of my Chinese students difficult,
a
problem I shared only with m y closest friends because it embarassed me. By October I had learned to recognize all of them, except for two boys, who like two others in the class had a last name of "Wong." By November I despaired of ever telling the two apart, and told no one of the problem. After Thanksgiving vacation, Andy and Homer,
I commented to both boys,
that they had both written in their journals
about going to Los Angeles,
to visit a relative. Andy gave
me a puzzled, somewhat scornful look and said,
"Of course!
What do you think?" I said,
"What do you mean?"
Homer said,
"We're brothers!"
"Brothers!" "Yeah,
twins!
Didn't you know that! Don't you think we
look the same?" I asked,
"Do your other teachers have trouble telling
you apart?" Andy answered that even his mother did sometimes.
232 B eca u s e m y student teaching o c c urred in a n Integrated setting w h i c h contained some students w h o w e r e familiar to me beca u s e of their race and class,
I gained enough
c onfidence as a teacher to work through m a n y of my fears about teaching poor, m i n o r i t y students, the W o n g twins illustrates. Yet,
as the incident w i t h
despite the o v e r w h e l m i n g l y
positive experience of student teaching,
that first field
expe r i e n c e with m i n o r i t y students wa s so u n s a t i s f y i n g I decided not to teach in a n urban school w h e n I completed my training. In the next five years of t e a ching in an integrated school w i t h relatively few pressures to s tandardize c urric ulum or make students conform to i nflexible rules,
I
learned to enjoy work i n g w i t h m i n o r i t y s t u d e n t s and began to welc o m e the chance to learn about different cultures and sensibilities through m y students.
M y acade m i c training,
most n o t a b l y work wit h the Ba y Are a Writ i n g Project, provided the techniques w h i c h allo w e d me to a dapt ray teaching to student differences,
focusing on their unique
contributions. Thus, School
when I began to teach at Julia R i c h m a n High
in New York City,
I had a basis of c o m p a r i s o n and
could see how school p r essures to s t a n d a r d i z e I nstruction and treat students impersonally mad e teaching m o r e difficult.
Though I was unfa m i l i a r w i t h urban students,
of whom expressed their h o stility m o r e openly and
freely
m any
233 than had the students was fairly confident their differences.
I worked wit h in suburban schools,
I
that I onl y needed time to adjust to
T h e close relationships
I had a c h i e v e d in
other teaching s i tuations w ith at-risk students r e m inded me that
I had the a b i l i t y to adapt to them, a n d clarified for
m e that the setting, problem.
not the students,
was the critical
So,, in the course of my first year as a N e w York
Cit y teacher I could focus on becoming a c q u a i n t e d w i t h the school and Its byz a n t i n e procedures.
Learning ho w to remain
calm w h i l e taking a t tendance in four minutes,
r e cording it
m a n u a l l y and with c o m puter cards for a h o m e r o o m of 42 freshmen,
most of them truant except on days t r a nsportation
passes w ere distributed,
was far more difficult than
de v i s i n g curriculum for my remedial w r i t i n g students and learning to enjoy them as human b e i n g s . 2 .Indeed, believe,
the most e nervating experiences I, or I
a n y u rban teacher has,
are those that preclude
en gagement wit h s t u d e n t s as human beings. pre s s u r e d to Ignore students' must
W h e n teachers are
needs, as they are w h e n they
follow rules e x a c t l y or deal with students anonymously,
they must suppress their pedagogical ideals or viol a t e school procedures. For example,
w h e n a student needs a few minutes to
expl a i n w h y work is b e i n g handed in late, time m eans starting the next class late,
but gi v i n g the teachers
freequently choose the welfare of the greater number and
234 reject or d e l a y addressing the individual's needs. M y e xperience as a s u p e r v i s o r of H a r v a r d student teachers similar to Kelman's g r o u p at W e s l e y a n confirms D ow's conclusion about w h y e a r l y field e x p e r i e n c e s per se are not n e c e s sarily helpful te a c h e r s . 3
to all p r o s p ective urban
The greater the social and c u l tural gulf between
the prospective teacher and the p r o s p ective student,
the
greater the n e e d for the p r o s p e c t i v e stud e n t to have field e xperiences w h i c h encourage the t eacher-candidate to become familiar and c o m f o rtable w i t h individual students, t hey become real people rather than categories. female,
middle class student
so that A young,
teacher, w h o m I supervised at
Harv a r d needed suc h a field e x perience b e f o r e student teaching in a B o s t o n high s c h o o l . serious problems with discipline,
A l t h o u g h she had no her stud e n t teaching was
s u f f i ciently stressful that s h e had decided not to teach in an u r b a n high school. she observed,
Not u ntil
the very e n d of the term,
d i d she become comfortable w i t h the students,
e specially the boys.
For most of the term s h e wa s secretly
a fraid of the students because, k n o w n anyone w h o looked,
she observed,
she had never
talked or acted lik e they did.
She
was s u f f iciently mature and u n a m b ivalent a b o u t exercising her authority that her fear di d not prevent her from functioning well,
but she had felt so a l i e n a t e d from most of
the minority students that sh e had not e n j o y e d her teaching as m u c h as she wa n t e d to . 4
235 My own e x perience in the N e w Yor k C i t y schools illustrates w h y it is futile to instruct p r o s p e c t i v e teachers about specific cultural traits s t u dents m a y bring to their learning,
rather than a s s i s t i n g them to u n d e r s t a n d
that differ e n c e s of m a n y sorts, personal,
affect
allocations,
learning.
some cultural,
T o comply w i t h funding
Ne w Y o r k City schools f r equently transfer
teachers I n v o luntarily between schools, " e x c e s s i n g . " Since "excessing" seniority,
some
a p o l i c y called
is done on the basis of
teachers face the greatest nu m b e r of transfers
early in their careers.
Hence,
the teachers w i t h the least
experience need the greatest skill
in a d a p t i n g to different
student populations. My first job in the N e w Y ork City schools w a s in a high school w h i c h d r e w students from East Harlem, them native speakers of Spanish,
a m a j o r i t y of
m a n y of them Pu e r t o Rican.
The school also contained a s ignificant p r o p o r t i o n of American blacks, boroughs,
as well as s t u dents d r a w n from other
at t e n d i n g the school because of two magnet
programs in the creative arts and nursing. first year,
At the end of my
I was transferred to Ma r t i n Luther King,
across
Manhattan. In my first three years Kin g drew s t u dents fro m Harlem, as well as other boroughs, p r i m a r i l y A m e r i c a n blacks, native N e w Yorkers.
The unif o r m i t y of their s k i n color be l l e d the
d i v ersity of their backgrounds:
some were straight from
236 small southern communities,
still o v e r w h e l m e d by l i v i n g in
N e w Y o r k and a t t e n d i n g a school which w a s
larger t h a n their
e n t i r e town; m a n y others had strong f a m i l y and religious ties, wit h w o r k i n g parents w h o m o nitored their acti v i t i e s closely; families,
some w e r e responsible for caring for their with p a r e n t s who w e r e drug addicts;
others wer e
d r u g dealers, themselves. In my fourth yea r at King,
zoning c h a n g e s for N e w York
C i t y high schools prompted significant s h i f t s in the s c h o o l ' s demographics.
Some students from Engli s h - s p e a k i n g
i slands in the Caribbean, example, local
the Virgin I s l a n d s and G r e n a d a for
chose to attend King,
school
in Brooklyn;
which wa s s afer than their
s t u d e n t s from S o u t h America
e x c l u d e d from a n ove r - c r o w d e d neighb o r i n g h i g h school, to King.
In addition,
C a m b o d i a n immigrants,
came
previously
e n r o l l e d in an E n g l i s h as a S e c o n d L a n g u a g e program w i t h i n the school, b e g a n attending regular c l a s s e s as their English improved.
Thus, w i t h i n two y e a r s
of students with expectations, needs different
fro m those of
I had significant n u m b e r s
problems,
abilities,
the diverse population
an d I
a l r e a d y taught. Finally,
b e c a u s e Issues of class h a v e rarely bee n
p o i n t e d l y discussed in p r o posals to reform teacher preparation,
other than Kelman,
Dow, and Dunn e ' s work,
no
body of literature exists to e x p l a i n h o w th e class o r i g i n s of prospective t e a chers can be taken into account in
237 assisting them to deal with the institutional pressures to deal with students according to standardized procedures. However,
just as experiences working with M.A.T. students
illuminates how class and social differences affect the prospective teacher's needs,
my experience in teaching an
education course at the Staten Island campus of the City University of N e w York confirms how critical the need is for programs of teacher preparation to understand these class differences w hen working class students study to become urban teachers. In the spring of 1990 I instructed 20 undergraduates in methods of teaching English in secondary schools. All were juniors or seniors,
residents of Staten Island, and white.
The objective of the course,
as I explained to them in our
first session, was to assist them to acquire a personal philosophy of teaching English and an understanding of the techniques which would help them to carry out their philosophy. Since the dominant mode of instruction in city schools was a teacher-centered approach, primarily using lecture and a 40 minute self-contained lesson, w ould model another type of instruction, approach,
I explained I
a student-centered
identified as the open-classroom model in our
textbook. As several students commented in their final examination,
they were puzzled,
confused,
and frustrated for
m uch of the course because I refused to lecture about how to
238 t each English.
Instead,
our course w o r k paralleled the kinds
of activities w h i c h c h a r a cterize a s t u d e n t - c e n t e r e d language arts classroom:
s mall group activities;
class discussions; free-writing;
brainstorming;
panels;
speci f i c technique,
d o u b l e - e n t r y notebooks;
active l i s t e n i n g . 5 W h e n we d i s c u s s e d a
for example,
non - s t a n d a r d English,
open-ended w h o l e
corr e c t i n g students'
use of
I w o u l d a s k the students to i d e ntify
a d v a n t a g e s and disadvantages,
as well a s the values implicit
in the decision to use the technique. Wh a t was mos t surprising for me wa s their reluctance to pres e n t
their own opinions.
W h e n I a s s i g n e d them the task of
r e s p o n d i n g to a r e a d i n g a s signment by descr i b i n g a personal reaction,
any reaction,
summaries.
In class,
all but two s t u d e n t s handed in pure
we d i scussed the reasons they had
Interpreted the assig n m e n t as they had.
I explained that in
g i v i n g them instructions I ha d not s t r e s s e d the importance of e xplaining their reactions because in m y experience as a high school teacher,
students ar e more likely to err by
d e s c r i b i n g their responses f u l l y while ignoring all refe r e n c e s to the text.
They h a d done the opposite.
"Why?"
I
asked. In essence, cultural
they repeated Jeannie Oakes'
reproduction in schooling.
argument about
To s u c c e e d in school
they ha d accepted that their opinions w e r e not as v a l u a b l e as those of the "experts," and the teacher was an expert, They had never q u e s t i o n e d this premise,
no r had a teacher,
239 sugges ting another v i e w of education.
For the field
experience component of the course they had observed E n g l i s h classes in local h igh schools and noticed that students
in
honors clas s e s were f requently a s k e d their opinions and encouraged to question material
t hey read,
w h e r e a s the
students in remedial classes w ere expected to absorb information.. Their o w n experiences in school had, most part,
been som e w h e r e in
for the
b e t w e e n these two extremes,
and
most were d e e p l y a f f e c t e d by the contrast. Their
intellectual s e lf-confidence Influenced their
ability to question traditional
teaching methods.
student m a d e this c o n n e c t i o n explicit, explanation about why,
after
One
s t a rting with an
much thought, he had decided
that he wa s opposed to abil i t y groupilngs:
It s e e m s like a c o m m o n sense idea, take all the smart kids, pu t them together, and t hey will l earn faster. The less fortunate ones, the s l o w ones, w h e n placed in the s a m e class ca n learn at a slower pace. What this does is send out distu r b i n g signals to children. The slow o n e s may b e c o m e bored b y the slow p a c e of teaching they receive. C l a s s e s set u p for slow s t u d e n t s often use u n i m a g i n a t i v e reading m a t e r i a l s w h e n t h e s e are the students who a r e m o s t in need of having imagination stirred. It is d i s t u r b i n g for students to realize at such a n early age that they hav e been stigmatized w i t h the label 'slow,' a n d it can ea s i l y turn into a selffulfilling prophesy. This also discounts the value that so-called 'slow* students can bring to a classroom. Reading levels m e a s u r e one facet of a child; it doesn't measure artistic ability, s t o r y telling, or necessarily i n t e l l i g e n c e . .. I wa s taught all through school that one person's opinion counted, the instructor's. This is Ingrained in me and I found it hard to rebel against this notion throughout the term. What m y fellow s t u dents wrote on my p a p e r s didn't conc e r n me, t hey weren't grading me, and I di d n ' t learn that way. I think that's wrong. I
240 don't act that wa y outs i d e of the cla s s r o o m so I shouldn't I n . . .so now I think that s t u dents in English should learn h o w to learn from their peers. I think e ac h of us d o e s it instinctively outside of a classroom setting, an d it is o nly w h e n we sit in a d e s k and listen to an instructor lecture that w e forget about the teacher s i t t i n g beside u s . 6 Another student commented, I have finally realized w h y school has n e v e r been muc h fun. I was treated like a machine. I w a s the can recycler. K n o w l e d g e was put into me like the can is put into the machine; I then spit out the information condensed just as the ca n is spit out of the machine condensed. Do you think I was having any fun? Well, neither was I. Because of this m y report c ards c onsistently read 'N. is very bright, but she is not work i n g to h e r p o t e n t i a l .' That is because I was trained to w o r k to their p o t e n t i a l . 7 The literature on teacher p reparation c o n t a i n s little by or about w o r k i n g class s t u d e n t s who aspire to teach, yet these are the s t u dents who p r o v i d e the bulk of the teaching force. Their e x c l u s i o n is a n o t h e r indication of b o t h the failure and critical
Importance of teacher p r e p a r a t i o n
taking into account all of the factors w hich c o m p r i s e the social context of schooling.
T h e u n d e rstanding that
preparation of teachers of a t - r i s k students in u r b a n schools must be based on a fundamentally different paradigm,
one
w h i c h examines stude n t s and t h e i r prospective teachers in light of the school setting an d social conditions,
is this
s t u d y ’s importance for educators. Finally,
the personal
understanding of w hat
import of m y study has been the
I needed w h e n I began t e a c h i n g in
order to succeed in an urban school and the ex p l a n a t i o n of w h y 1 ulti m a t e l y adapted.
241
l.One incident w h i c h illust r a t e s h o w m u c h I ne e d e d to become f a m iliar w i t h the s t u d e n t s o c c u r r e d w h e n w e w e r e d i s c u s s i n g a n ame for our paper. "What it is!" s h o u t e d a student. I replied, "That's what w e're try i n g to discuss: what the name is." "No, no!" a n o t h e r student shouted, "What it is!" And I r e p e a t e d my answer. T h e e x c h a n g e continued, w i t h the s t u d e n t s and I g r o w i n g more frustrated, angrier, an d more hostile. Finally, it d a w n e d o n m e that the s t u d e n t s w e r e s u g g e s t i n g "What it is!" for the name of our paper. T h e p h r a s e w a s a p o p u l a r s l a n g e x p r e s s i o n u s e d in a d d r e s s i n g friends, which, of course, I h a d no w a y of knowing, s i n c e at the time onl y inner cit y tee n a g e r s use d it. 2 . It is illegal to a l l o w a s t u d e n t to a s s i s t in the process s i n c e school a t t e n d a n c e and r e c o r d s are s t a t e matters. While the city and s tate e m p l o y pe r s o n n e l to a u d i t a t t e n d a n c e b i n d e r s for i n f r a c t i o n s of regulations, s c h o o l s g e n e r a l l y do not have per s o n n e l wh o can c h e c k u p s t u d e n t s who h a v e been ab s e n t for long p e r i o d s of time. 3 . Lois Weiner, "Why H i g h - A c h i e v i n g S t u d e n t s Choose to Teach: P o l i c y Ma k e r s Take Note," T h e H i g h Sch o ol J o u rnal (O c t o b e r / N o v e m b e r 1989). 4 . Lois Weiner, "Who is the 'Me' W h e n the 'Me' is a Teacher?: H o w Harv a r d Stud e n t T e a c h e r s See T heir Experience," (Unpublished paper, M a y 1989). 5 . Loi s Weiner, s y l l a b u s for EDS 302, M e t h o d s of T e a c h i n g E n g l i s h in S e c o n d a r y Schools, C o l l e g e of S t a t e n Island, City U n i v e r s i t y of N e w York, spring ter m 1990. 6.B.M., Island,
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