Government 375: Ideology and Politics in Education Reform

David C. Paris, KJ 216, 4615.

Office hours: R 1:30-4, and by appointment.

Syllabus: http://academics.hamilton.edu/government/dparis/govt375/spring99/syllabus/

Description and Goals
Texts and Requirements
Schedule
Possible Site Topics and Suggested Resources

Possible Site Topic Descriptions:

1. Is there a crisis? The 1983 "at risk" report declared that the schools were failing and predicted dire consequences unless they were reformed. This report started the education reform movement and an ongoing public debate about how to improve the schools. Although most observers, and certainly the popular press, believe that our schools are deficient, there have also been those who believe that the "crisis" in public education is overblown or simply untrue. David Berliner's book, The Manufactured Crisis, takes this position, and a good survey of some of the issues is David Ruenzel's article "Is the Education Crisis a Fraud?" published in Teacher Magazine. The more conventional view, along with a plea for radical changes, is offered by Chester Finn in "Reforming Education" published by the conservative Excellence in Education Network.

Obviously much of the debate revolves around test scores and international comparisons. For example, the international comparisons in science and math have produced mixed results about our comparative achievement in these areas. Recently, figures were published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that showed that the American rate of high school completion was slipping relative to some other nations'. In tracking American students' progress in several subject areas the National Assessments of Educational Progress are the results most commonly cited. Both domestic and international statistics and comparisons can be found at the site The Condition of Education, 1998 published by the National Center for Education Statistics at the Department of Education.

2. Educational standards and assessment. Both the America 2000 and Goals 2000 programs set general goals for educational achievement. This implied that (voluntary) national standards would suggest what students should know and be able to do in different subject areas. A good Internet site on standards is Developing Educational Standards: An Overview.

Two, of many, issues of interest in this area are:

1. The form of assessment: There has been an ongoing debate about whether student performance should be assessed through standardized tests or through performances and exhibitions of "knowledge in use." E.D. Hirsch's book The Schools We Need is a good recent argument in favor of traditional teaching and testing. Hirsch has created the Core Knowledge Foundation to develop curricula that represent his view. The alternative perspective is provided in Theodore Sizer's book Horace's Hope. Sizer is the head of The Coalition of Essential Schools, an association of schools that try to implement new forms of assessment and more flexible forms of organization. Another attempt to develop "authentic assessment" is the New Standards Project of the National Center on Education and the Economy headed by Lauren Resnick and Marc Tucker.

2. The content of standards: Whatever form they take, there are ongoing discussions and controversies about the content of standards. Perhaps the most visible of these has been the debate over standards in history. Draft standards published in 1994 were criticized as being biased, too "politically correct," and the Senate passed a vote of censure in February, 1995. In response to these criticisms a revised set of standards was issued in the spring of 1996 that has been generally accepted. This controversy raises issues of what children ought to learn, for example, about "our" history and how that "story" should be told. One article in favor of national standards but critical of the original history standards is Paul Gagnon's "What Should Children Learn" published in The Atlantic Monthly. The history standards, original and revised, as well as a defense of the development of the original standards, can be found at the National Center for History in the Schools site.

3. Charter schools and choice. Recently, there have been a number of suggestions that the public "monopoly" on education should be loosened. This has led a number of states to introduce forms of school choice within the public system. There have also been proposals for allowing public money to be given to nonpublic schools in the form of vouchers. A good, brief survey of the issues (with other links) is provided in Education Week's topics page on choice and vouchers. A number of choice/voucher programs have been established in cities, and the Supreme Court recently upheld the use of vouchers in the Milwaukee schools, including their use in parochial schools.

Perhaps the most recent variation on the choice theme is the concept of charter schools. Beginning with Minnesota in 1991 more than half the states have passed laws to grant "charters" to groups to form schools that are supported with public funds (based on attendance) but are freed from many state regulations. One of the best sites providing information concerning charter schools is the Charter School Research site at Syracuse University (established by a recent Wesleyan graduate and grad student in education). Two national studies of charter schools, the National Charter School Study and Charter Schools in Action have filed reports that are generally positive about the results of charter schooling. At the same time, researchers at UCLA published a more critical evaluation of charter schools in California.

4. Race, gender, and culture. There have been a number of debates about issues of diversity as part of the discussion of educational reform. Questions of race and gender are two of the key areas of debate concerning diversity.

1. Race: In 1954, in Brown vs. Board, the Supreme Court declared legally enforced segregation of the schools unconstitutional. In the 1960s and 70s the courts typically supported busing plans to eliminate segregation that arose from residential patterns as well. It was hoped that school integration would help close the gap between white and minority achievement. Busing plans met with considerable resistance. The courts have been less and less sympathetic to desegregation as the primary response to meeting the educational needs of minority students, and a recent survey of parents by Public Agenda found that it was "time to move on" to other remedies. Affirmative action is one such remedy, and a new book by Derek Bok and Howard Bowen, The Shape of the River, offered data supporting affirmative action at elite colleges and universities.

Much of the recent discussion of race and education has focused the gap between minority and white test scores and graduation rates. Though that gap closed somewhat in the 1980s, "closing the test gap" is still it is still seen by many as the most significant educational problem facing minorities. There has also been continuing discussion of curricular and pedagogical approaches that that claim to be more culturally sensitive and appropriate. For example, an Afrocentric approach is often touted as a way of increasing self-esteem and achievement; some references concerning Afrocentric education K-12 may be found at the Afrocentrism and Schooling site at the University of Wisconsin. An interesting site on multicultural education more generally, Multicultural Paths, can be found at the University of Virginia.

Finally, there have also been a number of less controversial approaches to improving minority education. For example, two widely praised projects are the Comer School Development Program that integrates social and psychological services with the education of minority students and the Algebra Project created by former civil rights leader (and Hamilton alumnus) Robert Parris Moses who visited Hamilton in 1997.

2. Gender: The passage of the Title IX legislation in 1972 outlawed gender discrimination in education. That legislation led to considerable discussion about equality in school athletics programs. For example, Colgate was sued by its women hockey players, and a successful lawsuit against Brown University concerning its compliance with Title IX was upheld, generating continued controversy about gender parity in sports.

For the past few years there has been a more far-reaching discussion of the question of gender equity in the classroom. In their book Failing at Fairness, Myra and David Sadker argued that classroom practices systematically discriminated against girls. A good sampling of some of the research on gender equity, including a recent report on gender gaps in other areas can be found at the AAUW Educational Research Foundation site. More recently, there have also been discussions of the specific problems boys face in school. Finally, gender issues are also part of questions of sexual harassment in workplaces and schools that have received increasing attention, including recent court ruling that have apparently shifted the legal ground for harassment claims.

5. School finance and equity. Schools are financed through a varying mix of tax systems in the fifty states. As a result there often wide disparities in expenditures in different districts. Not surprisingly, wealthier, often suburban districts spend more per pupil while poorer, urban schools spend less. School finance discrepancies have been the focus of a number of policy debates and lawsuits. In a 1991 book, Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol documented some of these disparities and their results for children in some of the poorest districts in the nation. At the same time, some have raised the question, "Does Money Matter?" and questioned whether school finance makes a difference in outcomes. For example, one economist, Eric Hanushek, argues that funding inequities are far less important than patterns of spending and organizational practices of schools.

6. Teacher training and professionalism. Obviously, much of the discussion of school reform revolves around Teaching as a Profession. There have been a number of reports on teacher training, including a widely discussed Carnegie Foundation report in 1986. In 1989 the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was established to develop more meaningful standards for professional practice. Most recently, a report, "What Matters Most...," from the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, suggested that teacher preparation programs are still not nearly rigorous enough.

Certainly teachers themselves have opinions about their profession, and these are often expressed through the two major teachers' unions the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA). They have spent a great deal of time and energy in recent years defending themselves against the charge, as one headline phrased it, "teachers don't teach." Finally, there are a number of sites such as "Teachers Net" that provide materials about K-12 education for teachers.

Please do not feel constrained by this list or these topics. There are many other issues, and ways of framing issues, that can contribute to our site. You might want to compare the American system with schools in other countries. for example, through the OECD and other sites. Or you might want to explore some topic, such as moral or character education, not specifically mentioned above. There are also some issues such as bilingual education that cut across these topics. I want you to pose and address a question that interests you--as soon as possible.

The web is an incredible source of information and topics. Here are some sites that you might find interesting:

Obviously, these sites barely scratch the surface of the online resources available. One bumps into new sites all the time. For example, recent reports in local papers of New York's new testing requirements included a web site address that describes the program. The sites contained in this syllabus are provided merely to get you started in using the web as a research tool as you do your project.

Comments or suggestions about this syllabus are welcome and can be sent to dparis@hamilton.edu.