CLASSISM AND EDUCATION: NCLB, REGULATED KNOWLEDGE, AND RESISTANCE

Adam Renner

Bellarmine University

 

Intro

 

            This paper is written in an effort to join the conversation with other K-12 teachers, students, professors, and community workers at the 2007 Rouge Forum Conference in Detroit, MI.  Given three major issues impinging on all our lives: seeming endless war, ecological recklessness, and the regulation of knowledge through hyper-standardizing policies such as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB)Act, I offer the following arguments, suggestions, and questions as a (hopefully) fresh and novel way to connect the dots toward innovative strategies to resist these terrorizing trends.

To this end, examining class as it relates to education, my paper begins with a snapshot of classrooms today, looking specifically at behaviorist classroom management strategies, corporate-driven curricula, and tracking policies.  Taking a more general look at the issues, I pull back from the particular and explore five colliding economic and political factors that currently articulate to complicate the lives of the poor here and abroad. Next, I highlight a current research study I have undertaken related to the achievement gap and illuminate some of the literature associated with NCLB.  Following this examination, I reveal current trends related to NCLB and offer two voices of dissent from FairTest and the National Council of Churches.  To conclude, I offer a hopeful lens through which to view these issues, which focuses on community, praxis, and courage, and proffers examples of resistance taking place at my university and in the city of Louisville.

 These possibilities are offered, humbly, in order to join this larger conversation on and movement toward resistance of classist policies in the capitalistic machine, educational subterfuge like NCLB, and mind-numbing regulation of knowledge that menaces critical thinking (while we export democracy abroad and threaten ecological sustainability).

State of Classrooms Today: “Totalitarian” classroom management and corporate curricula

 

To begin this investigation of class as it relates to education, a brief snapshot of the state of classrooms today is taken, highlighting two trends in particular: more behavioristic models of classroom management and market-driven curricula.  This section attempts to encapsulate much of Kozol’s (2005) sentiment/lament in Shame of the Nation and blend it with my experience in teacher education in order to provide a backdrop, a contextualization, and a compass to help explore classist policies in education.

Totalitarian classroom management—“The ordering regime”

 

Long used as a tool to stratify a future workforce, the education system takes on an even more deterministic tenor in light of more overtly repressive classroom management practices and corporate curricula designed to limit human potential while increasing consumptive desire.  Kozol likens the recent trends in classroom discipline to “totalitarianism,”

Although generically described as ‘school reform,’ most of these practices and policies are targeted primarily at poor children of color; and although most educators speak of agendas in broad language that sounds applicable to all, it is understood that they are valued chiefly as responses to perceived catastrophe in deeply segregated and unequal schools. . . .The introduction of Skinnerian approaches, which are commonly employed in penal institutions and drug rehabilitation programs, as a way of altering attitudes and learning styles of black and Hispanic children is provocative… (Kozol, 2005, pp. 64-65).

 

One teacher interviewed in Shame of a Nation referred to his approach in the classroom (and how he was trained to teach) as “primitive utilitarianism.” In many districts, CHAMPS, a behaviorist management system developed by Randall Sprick, is the classroom management system of choice.[i] It not only embodies Kozol’s sentiment above, but also portends this same sort of primitive utilitarianism, in which students are controlled, managed, and modified rather than challenged, developed, and encouraged to explore the world around them. 

In the more controlled and predictable environs of the totalitarian classroom, opportunities for exploration are limited, information is meted out worksheet by worksheet, and the hidden curricula promotes unquestioning obedience to authority, punctuality, tolerance for boredom, and delayed gratification—suitable for a future hourly-wage employee or soldier. Whereas, in more humanistic and relational approaches to the classroom, opportunities for exploration are enhanced through a problem-posing pedagogy in which information is discovered and redefined, and the hidden curricula promotes a more critical agenda, preparing future leaders.

Particularly problematic is that these behaviorist approaches are applied more often in poorer urban and rural schools than wealthier suburban schools (which is certainly true in my district).  Wealthier parents would be loathe to have their children treated as robots, being prepared for work on the assembly line, or worse, for a life in prison and/or drug rehabilitation (as Kozol suggests). Rather than attempting to address the structural “savage inequalities” that exist in our community (racism, poverty, etc.), schools have taken to more individualistic, control strategies that treat (and aggravate) the symptoms while almost totally ignoring the disease(s).

Corporate curricula—“Preparing minds for markets”

 

Fascination and delight, no matter what lip service we may pay to them, become irrelevant distractions.  Finding ‘where it goes’ and what it ‘demonstrates’ and how it can be ‘utilized’ become the teachers’ desolate obsession (Kozol, 2005, p. 77).

If the trend of more behavioristic models of classroom management weren’t repressive enough, the system also, more and more, regulates the information we teach in schools.  On one hand, through a rabid focus on and morbid fascination with standardized tests, we’ve streamlined and ‘white-washed’ available knowledge to our students. In fact, the Florida Congress, under Governor Jeb Bush’s reign, pushed through legislation to make history a ‘testable’ fact, rather than an issue of interpretation (Rethinking Schools, 2006).  On the other hand, schools have also grown more entrepreneurial in their approach to curricula, attracting capital investments for their knowledge bases. For example, New Mexico schools recently accepted $500,000 to teach a science curriculum on energy conservation, sponsored by BP Oil (PRNewswire, 1/10/07).  Interestingly, the same week that this news emerged on the Rethinking Schools listserv, word surfaced that Seattle schools denied teachers the ability to show Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, because it offered only one side of the global warming issue (AP Wire, 1/13/07).  My own district has also entered the entrepreneurial spirit, recently receiving a $25 million grant from GE to enhance math and science curricula.  To date, our district has spent the money on purchasing scripted science curricula for middle-schoolers and signing a contract with Pearson Publishing to produce a scripted math curriculum for our district, for which Pearson will provide the professional development of the teachers.  (One wonders if the development will include enhanced reading skills and a focus on voice inflection as devalued teachers deliver the script.)

In the midst of these stultifying trends, we still hear talk of advancing critical thinking among our students. One need only step into classrooms across this country, especially during spring (the testing season), and it would not take long to see how far education has strayed from that concept. Instead what Kozol reveals so provocatively and lamentably is dogma, doublespeak (“no child left behind,” “success for all,” etc.), and desperation.

Certainly this critique could be spread across multiple culprits, not the least of which are teacher educators, such as myself.  One could also suggest that the critique only adds to the current fad of bashing teachers.  However, this is not the intent. Instead, I submit they are educated in the same system, socialized and trained to believe (1) what they do is in the best interest of the students, not recognizing the palpable contrast between their own educational experience and that which they unconsciously impose on poor students, usually of color; (2) there is nothing they can do about the problem if they do recognize it; and/or (3) their job will be threatened if they present options to the status quo. 

Related to both of these trends, tracking, then, can be used to (pre-)stratify and rigidify the future workforce.  By tracking students into the lower levels of their respective grades, we can be assured of a future labor force that is unprepared for managerial and/or professional work.  Not surprisingly, the bulk of the lower tracks are comprised of Black, Brown, and poor children.  Already handcuffed by a form of social difference for which they can expect discrimination (racism, classism), they are also hampered by academic tracking in school.  Without the benefit of honors/AP/college-prep coursework, they cannot compete equitably for positions in universities or in the business world.  Study after study (Allison, 1995; Nieto, 2004) reveals the reality of social tracking (tracking not based on intelligence, but on social factors like the way a child looks or dresses) and the fact that family income is highly correlated with standardized test performance.  If one knows the demographics of the school, one can predict rather confidently their standardized test scores and their future earning capability.

Colliding political and economic forces that contribute to poverty (and classism)

In an effort to better understand the structure, which, in part, creates and socially reproduces poverty, the following issues and realities continue to be examined toward a deeper understanding of how we might critically act for a more just society. Now that we have taken a snapshot of life inside the classroom, I expand the lens a bit here to bring into focus the larger picture related to political and economic trends that perpetuate a classist agenda. 

In my view, several oppressive forces currently articulate, which complicate the lives of the poor.  In my research, local service work, and international service work in the Caribbean, I have realized the collision of five issues/realities that impinge on the economically disenfranchised and contribute to inequality. While I have been working on these ideas for some time, Hurricane Katrina helped pull the covers back for all America, and the world, to better see the prevalence and the perpetuation of social difference and social injustice. The following issues and their explanation/contribution reflect an evolving notion of how social inequality can be reproduced so easily at this historical moment.

Tax cuts

Perhaps one of the most insidious and ideologically-skewed economic policies of the Bush administration has been the implementation, protection, and promotion of tax cuts. This in the face of  one million people falling below the poverty line in 2002 for the second year in a row—the first time that had happened in a decade (USA Today, 9/26/03).  Thomas Friedman (New York Times, 6/11/03) argues when you hear tax cuts, you should think benefit cuts as $69 billion in tax relief went to people earning $1 million or more (Rethinking Schools, 2003).  The administration continued to defend these tax cuts, even in the face of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, citing a low unemployment rate.  Unfortunately, more and more, the jobs people can obtain remain at the bottom rung—with low pay and few, if any, benefits (Krugman, NY Times, 8/26/05).  To corroborate this claim over the long term, Yvonne Vissing (1999) demonstrated that between 1973 and 1996 the poorest one-fifth of all families made 9% less in earnings (adjusted for inflation), while the wealthiest one-fifth made 35% more. Tax cuts, of course, only go to protect the bottom line of those who need it least.

To further illustrate the trickle down backlash of such uncompassionate policies Levin-Epstein & Lyons (2006) claim that the total population now living in poverty stands at 37 million (13 million of whom are children).  This figure represents an increase in recent years and suggests that America is failing its children.  Close to home, these issues of economic distress emerge in pockets of concentrated poverty.[ii]  According to a Brookings Institute report (2005) researched shortly after Hurricane Katrina, the city in which I live, Louisville, ranks third in the nation relative to concentrated poverty.

Welfare reform         

The tax/benefit cuts have been particularly hard to take for the poor as they came on the coattails of welfare reform, foisted upon us by the Clinton administration.  The National Coalition of the Homeless laments,

Until its repeal in August 1996, the largest cash assistance program for poor families with children was the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (the federal welfare reform law) repealed the AFDC program and replaced it with a block grant program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Current TANF benefits and Food Stamps combined are below the poverty level in every state; in fact, the current maximum TANF benefit for a single mother of two children is 29% of the federal poverty level (Nickelson, 2004). Thus, contrary to popular opinion, welfare does not provide relief from poverty.

 

Short limits are placed on eligibility for welfare benefits and few educational incentives are offered.  Once the dole runs out for individuals, they are forced into low paying, sometimes multiple low-paying, jobs with no benefits and hardly any opportunity for advancement. As a result of work they can find, many families leaving welfare struggle to get medical care, food, and housing. In particular, many lose health insurance. One study found that 675,000 people lost health insurance in 1997 as a result of the federal welfare reform legislation, including 400,000 children (Families USA, 1999). Lyman, reporting for the NY Times (August 30, 2006), on the release of recent Census Bureau data puts the number of total uninsured at 46.6 million (roughly 1/6 of the total US population). According to the Children’s Defense Fund, over 9 million children in America have no health insurance, and over 90 percent of them live in working families.

 

Privatization/Corporatization

While welfare reform and tax cuts are negatively impacting the bottom-of-the-line employee, those at the top are doing quite well.  In 1960, for instance, CEO salaries’ averaged 11 times that of their average worker.  In 1999, that gap widened to 458 times (Cavanagh and Mander, 2004). Additionally, in 1970 the average worker made, adjusted for inflation, $32,500.  In 1999 this salary yawned to $35,864.  Further, the real value of the minimum wage in 2004, according to the Economic Policy Institute (2005), was 26% less than in 1979. CEOs over this same period sprinted from 1.3 million to 37.5 million (Krugman, NY Times, 10/20/02). According to Greenhouse and Leonhardt, reporting for the NY Times (August, 28, 2006), “Wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nations gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest since the 1960s,” ringing in what they call the “golden era of profitability.”

As corporations gain more and more power, the federal government reduces more and more oversight (think Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, etc.), seeks to fund private enterprises (faith-based organizations, vouchers for private schools), and heavily scrutinizes unions; therefore, the average worker stands much less chance to obtain or maintain the mythical American Dream of middle-classness than just thirty years ago. “Thus, for many Americans, work provides no escape from poverty. The benefits of economic growth have not been equally distributed; instead, they have been concentrated at the top of income and wealth distributions. A rising tide does not lift all boats, and in the United States today, many boats are struggling to stay afloat” (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2006). 

Globalization

            In addition to our corporate evolution, we cannot also ignore the neoliberalism of corporate globalization, which structures not only the lives of workers here in the US, but people worldwide. This corporate globalization is an economic approach/outlook that views the entire world as a marketplace of buyers and sellers, workers and owners.  National boundaries have little meaning in this economic marketplace as participants seek the greatest profits anywhere they can find them: cheapest labor and highest selling price.  This can often be best accomplished by shopping around for cheaper labor in other countries.  According to Alternatives to Economic Globalization (Cavanagh and Mander, 2004), the globalized economy based on this neoliberal model depends on three things: never ending supply of resources, ever-expanding supply of accessible new markets, and steady supply of cheap labor to exploit.  None of this, of course, is sustainable.

And, the cheap labor comes at a high human cost.  Often the labor is sought from countries who have looser environmental restrictions (consequently polluting communities), laws against unionization (assuring cheaper wages and a more docile work force), and poor records regarding human rights abuses.  Some will argue that these workers are just lucky enough to have a job.  However, given the circumstances, how lucky are they? My experience in the Global South, working in Jamaica the last nine summers, dictates that they are by no means fortunate.

Neoliberalism is spread through a number of mechanisms:

• Outsourcing—when a corporation farms out a particular element/step of its manufacturing process.  For example, Hanes outsourcing the sewing of their garments to the free trade zones of the Caribbean.  Only the sewing takes place there (under sweat-shop conditions).  All other parts of the manufacturing occur in the US. [See Life and Debt by Stephanie Black (2001) for more information];
• Offshoring—when a corporation moves its full operation out of the US to another country.  For example, car plants moving to Mexico;
• Technological advances—now with fiber-optics and broadband capability, information flows much more easily and speedily across national boundaries.  [Thomas Friedman’s (2005) The World is Flat provides a comprehensive look at technological advances and shows how quickly countries like India and China have come online in order to gain a competitive advantage];
• Free Trade agreements, which ease restrictions on trade between partners.  The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement allowed a freer flow of trade between Canada, the US, and Mexico.  More recently, attempts have been made to pass other trade agreements: the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and the Central American Free Trade Agreement;
• International Financial Institutions, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, who set up development programs/loans with developing countries—Unfortunately, like the trade agreements, the borrowing countries rarely benefit from the loans and find themselves in even worse circumstances given the austere structural adjustment policies the loan agreements demand: cutting social spending, weakening the currency, opening markets to foreign investment, etc. [For example, $0.52 of every dollar collected in taxes in Jamaica goes to pay interest on the IMF debt. (Black, 2001)]; and
• War—from the Cold War (particularly the US’ insurgency into Central America, South America, and the Caribbean—sometimes overthrowing democratically elected leaders) to the current War on Terror, the US has sought ways to force their market brand of capitalism into many places around the globe, assuring open markets abroad and cheap prices at home.

 

These policies and insurgencies have helped force 4 billion people to survive on less than $4/day; 1 billion on less than $1/day.  Additionally, this has helped 458 people to own as much wealth as 50% of the world’s population (Bigelow & Peterson, 2002).

Repeal of Rights and Threats to Democracy

            Along with these factors, as we attempt to export democracy to the Middle East, various rights and long fought-for gains in freedom and democracy are under assault in the US.  Title IX, for instance, withstood a recent challenge.  Also, a twenty-five year limit was placed on Affirmative Action. And, prisons are populated at an alarming rate (while the crime rate continues to stagnate or decline), filling them with Black and Brown and/or poor folks and creating the “prison industrial complex.” 

Perhaps most insidiously, though, and the potential for the longest term effects, the regulation of knowledge has seeped into our public education system through rabid standardization and an anesthetizing focus on high stakes tests.  This control of information curtails the possibility of teaching critical thinking and more easily leads to the social reproduction discussed earlier.

NCLB and the Achievement Gap

 

            Launching from this fifth factor, I now move into an investigation of the driving force behind much of the recent austere educational trends: The No Child Left Behind Act. Particularly in this section, I will illuminate a recent study I have undertaken with a former graduate student, Andrew Gray, investigating the achievement gap, and reveal a segment of the research literature related to NCLB.

Overview of the Study

            Our study emerged from Andrew’s work as a high school Mathematics teacher for ninth grade students in Louisville, Kentucky.  While our study focuses more specifically on the Black-White achievement gap, the overlap with issues related to class are notable, given that a disproportionate number of Black families live in poverty—especially in the neighborhoods of concentrated poverty in Louisville.

            A few stunning statistics from our study so far:

• In 2004 the high school where Andrew teaches reported an academic index of 32.6 for Black students in Mathematics, while their White counterparts scored a 54.2 index rating.[iii]  Five percent of White juniors scored “distinguished” (the highest rating) in Mathematics.  No Black student achieved a “distinguished” in Mathematics.  In 2006 the results are not much better for Black students. They scored an index of 35.89 in Math while White students scored an index of 70.46.   
• In our county, taking a look at the larger picture, Black students scored an index of 47.2 in Mathematics.  White (Non-Hispanic) students scored a 79.0 index on the same test.  In 2006 the Jefferson County scores were also not much better.  Black students scored on average an index of 50.31 while White students scored an 84.15. 
• Statewide, as one might guess from the above statistics, the academic index gap holds true: 46.0 for Black students compared to 68.5 for White students in Mathematics (Kentucky Department of Education performance report, 2005). 
• The National statistics illustrate the same problem.  In Mathematics, for grade eight, according to the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (2003)—the ‘nation’s report card’—Black students recorded an average score of 252 compared with a score of 287 for White students in the United States.[iv]

 

            Many solutions are posed and typically the strategies mentioned to alleviate the achievement gap involve: holding high expectations for students, implementing best practices, and including all students in the learning process.  While certainly these are all great ideas that teachers should uphold, we believe these are just that, good strategies for all students that, when applied to any group of students, will result in better performance.  Our study argues that to truly address the achievement gap we need to not only implement the before mentioned strategies but we also need to look deeper into more critical strategies and structural issues of injustice.  Our Grounded Theory Study, which incorporates interviews with eight African-American students and focuses on three main issues: assessments, issues of motivation, and success, seeks to hear the voice of the students at the lower end of the gap in order to devise these more critical strategies.

The Literature

            In the process of our investigation, we have uncovered important information in the literature related to class and education. 

I begin this exploration by reviewing the government bulletins related to the achievement gap, found on the No Child Left Behind website (http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml) specifically under one of four major headings: “Stronger Accountability.”[v] These bulletins are crucial to an understanding of the government’s position, as these provide the context and the rationale for the latest update to the more historical Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Next, pulling from some relatively mixed and limited research that is available, I examine recent studies related to the achievement gap.  I conclude by digging into two grinding issues that seem to be contributing to the achievement gap: lack of funding and structural inequality.

Government Bulletins

            Two compelling bulletins headline the government’s website related to the achievement gap, which boast of how NCLB will benefit African-Americans and Hispanics, as well as, by default, poor children.

            Related to African-Americans, Secretary Spellings claims, “For the first time ever, we are looking ourselves in the mirror and holding ourselves accountable for educating every child. That means all children, no matter their race or income level or zip code. The following illuminates their recognition and just how they plan to do this: (1)  In the past, too many African American students have been shortchanged by our nation's schools; (2) The bipartisan No Child Left Behind law ensures that schools are held accountable for the academic progress of every child, regardless of race, ethnicity, income level or zip code; (3)  Parents now receive important information about the academic performance of their child and his/her school; (4)  When schools don't make the grade, families are given new options; (5)  No Child Left Behind encourages parents to get involved; (6) No Child Left Behind is working for African American students; and (7) President Bush and Congress continue to demonstrate their commitment to education (Bush’s 2006 budget would, they claim, increase funding for NCLB by $8 billion and Title I funding for low-income students will increase $4.6 billion.)

Further, Secretary Spellings notes that “One in every five children under 18 is of Hispanic origin.” With such a high percentage, their goal is to ensure that these children complete school and reach their potential. This particular bulletin acknowledges the difficulties Hispanic students have faced in the schools in the past and recognizes the language barriers and growing achievement gap. According to Secretary Spellings, with NCLB, this separation will close and Hispanic students will have access to a “fair and balanced” education.

Some benefits of NCLB (similar to that above for African-American students) include the following: schools are held accountable for the annual progress of Hispanic students, parents receive important information regarding academic performance, families are given choices, and NCLB is working for these students in terms of increasing their reading and math scores. With such benefits, this bulletin ensures the public that NCLB is working for all students.
            One of the (main) ways the government suggests we might close this gap is through an intensified focus on testing, particularly for “results.” The bulletin entitled, “Testing for Results,” examines NCLB and the federal government’s role in K-12 education to help close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers. The federal government plans to measure student progress, teacher progress, and school progress through accountability testing. This single test will measure the success and/or failure of students/teachers/schools. Interestingly, though, the federal government has given each state the responsibility to decide what their students should learn in each grade. The bulletin continues, “Teachers and principals can look at performance data to see which schools have the highest scores in math and reading and encourage other schools to replicate the successful teaching practices from those schools.” Further, “A teacher is effective when a student learns. It is impossible to determine teaching effectiveness without determining learning results. A teacher can present a great lesson, but if the students do not understand, then the lesson has no value. . . .[Accountability] testing helps teachers understand what their students need, helps students understand what they need to learn, and helps parents understand how they might help their children.” To undergird their claim, the government touts the 2004 National Assessment for Educational Pogress, which apparently demonstrates the achievement gap among younger children is at its smallest size in history.  [Much of the literature, however, nuances these claims and suggests that the gap is worsening.]

This maniaical focus on testing, though, has created several challenges/problematics/disconnections in the teaching/learning process. With this big stick, little carrot approach to educational funding and excellence, schools/teachers are forced into a “teach to the test” mentality for which the students are the ultimate losers.  Of course, instruction should be driven by assessment.  Teaching and learning are a loop between objectives and assessment, and a relationship among curriculum, students, teachers, and the world outside the classroom.  However, suggesting that one assessment—arbitrarily implemented at a particular point of a child’s education and used to compare one year’s students against the previous year’s students—can measure a student’s/school’s/teacher’s ability is simply proposterous.[vi]  No sensible educator seeks to erase accountability in the system.  Instead, what critical educators seek is a system of curriculum and assessment that is contextual, authentic, and rigorous, and contains wider goals and standards toward which success is measured by growth, not an arbitrary cut-off score.  In the conclusion, I will say more about curriculum and assessment, as these are crucial areas to understanding more critical ways forward from here.

Research Studies on the Achievement Gap

 

            At best, the evidence is mixed on whether or not the achievement gap is closing. The government bulletins allege the gold standard of research is “scientifically-based” research, foundationalized in experimental design studies.  Curiously, few, if any, of the bulletins derive from “scientifically-based” research.  Instead, they tend to be ideologically (phonics vs. whole language) and/or corporately driven (i.e., who sponsors the research often predicts the results of the research). The following studies represent a sampling of the multiple findings and conclusions drawn. 

Dobbs (2005) writing on the release of NAEP data, noted that the recent scores indicated that Black and Hispanic students were catching up in reading and math at the elementary-school level. However, in the higher grades, there has been little closing of the achievement gap. The high school level seems to have many gaps in achievement. The reading skills of black and Hispanic 17-year-olds were "nearly identical" to those of white 13-year-olds. But, he also noted that this wasn’t surprising given NCLB’s intitial focus on elementary grades. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings hailed the report as evidence that No Child Left Behind is working, and that the achievement gap "that persisted for decades in the younger years between minorities and whites has shrunk to its smallest size in history." One analyst in Dobb’s report, by contrast, urged caution about attributing progress to No Child Left Behind and said the narrowing of the achievement gap can be traced back to at least 1999, before President Bush took office. Other analysts noted that the NAEP study was conducted during the 2003-2004 school year, in the early stages of the implementation of No Child Left Behind.

McDonald (2006), representing the American Educational Corporation, the “leading provider of research-based core curriculum instructional software for kindergarten through adult learners,” according to their website, studied Algebra 1 performance in a North Carolina public high school. McDonald asked two key questions regarding end of course tests: (1) Are the students of the ethnic minorities improving academically over time? And, (2) Is the minority/non-minority achievement gap was closing over time? Major findings included (1) The significant difference between the performance of the non-minority and minority student groupings tended to vanish over time; (2) Statistical analysis shows that this improvement is real and important; (3) One way that an achievement gap can be artificially closed is by reducing the level of the high performing group. This is not the case here; (4) The higher performing Caucasian group is not decreasing over time. Rather, the minority students test performance is increasing over time to approach the already satisfactory test performance frequencies of the Caucasian group; (5) These results imply that the reforms at this high school are being successful; and (6) While the conclusions from this study are not from a controlled experimental design, the results are strongly suggestive that this high school is well on its way to Leave No Child Left Behind.

Interestingly, finding 5 (connected with finding 6 as this is not truly scientifically-based research as defined by NCLB) is provocative since the American Educational Corporation was in a business relationship with this high school and intimated that it was their software programs that were the reason for the closing gap. [vii]

Taking a little more historical approach, Snipes and Waters (2005) focused on North Carolina's students' progress in math beginning with Brown Vs. Board of Education to NCLB. The questions they investigated were (1) What was the mathematics education experience of African Americans in public high schools in North Carolina from 1950-1980? And, (2) From the Brown v. Board of Education decision to the No Child Left Behind Act, what progress have North Carolina African American students' made in Mathematics? The authors used a case study of a mathematics consultant for North Carolina. They also used a document analysis and interview as a form of research. The study concluded that Brown v. Board of Education was the push that caused the achievement gap between the minorities and the white students in the schools. It also established the fact that the minority students were being tracked into lower level courses instead of taking the higher level courses. The authors stated that they would like to see NCLB be the factor that improves the achievement gap, but that if there are not changes made to the policy, then students may not be successful.

Cronin, Kingsbury, McCall and Bowe (2005), researching for the Northwest Evaluation Association, performed a scientifically-based study which (1) compared student achievement and student growth in achievement PRIOR to implementation of NCLB and (2) looked at the impact of NCLB on the performance & growth of students in various ethnic groups toward the promise ‘equity implicit in NCLB’. The authors used the Growth Research Database to provide achievement information about hundreds of thousands of students in different school districts across the US. The dataset included reading assessment data from more than 320,000 3rd-8th graders in more than 200 school districts in more than 23 states. The dataset also included similar numbers for math assessments. Student achievement & growth scores were used from the 2001-2002 school year and the 2003-2004 school year. They found (1) Math & reading scores have improved over the past 2 years under NCLB; (2) Student growth scores have decreased since NCLB; (3) Students in grades with state tests have higher achievement and growth than students who are not; (4) Changes in performance in math are greater than those in reading since NCLB; (5) Studies in this area that use lower-stakes assessments to measure improvements in learning may have a greater % of unmotivated students; and (6) Student growth in every ethnic group has decreased slightly since NCLB.

While, clearly, more research exists on the issue of the achievement gap, the research reviewed here at least demonstrates that the results are, at best, mixed regarding the success of NCLB to date.  That said, there are several more issues that deserve deconstruction if we are to understand the structural/systemic nature of the achievement gap.  Two grinding issues that deserve attention are funding and issues of structural inequality.        

Funding

            Funding, for instance, is often offered as a contributing factor.  A Rethinking Schools report in 2001 states “Race is at the core of education issues in urban areas such as Milwaukee” (Barndt & McNally, pg. 1).   The study argues there is unequal funding between schools in the city and the suburban areas.  In addition, the study makes the case that there is a clear pattern of the under-funded schools becoming increasingly populated with students of color.  The report makes the case that it is a matter of “civil rights and racial justice.”  As the urban schools have increased dramatically the number of minority students, the average per pupil spending has decreased in comparison to the predominately White suburban schools.  The pattern has been repeated in our nation again and again.  The pattern looks like this:   

  

(Non-profit Center of Milwaukee, 2001)

The study found that the minority population has grown overwhelmingly in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) while the Caucasian population has dropped overwhelmingly. In 1980 the minority and white populations in the MPS system was basically even. At this time the amount of money per pupil spent was $265 above state average and $127 below suburban average. In 1999 the population of minority students in MPS has jumped to 80% and the average money per pupil is $506 below state average and $1254 below suburban average. The article continues on to discuss how poverty effects the education of these students and effects the funding in the school. It also suggests ways that the state can equal out these inequalities by changing how the citizens of Milwaukee are taxed and how the educational money is distributed.

Jonathan Kozol (2005), in his lamenting follow-up to Savage Inequalities, describes our current state of education in stark terms: “America’s Educational Apartheid.”  This title puts the segregation of school districts across our country in a new light.  In the urban schools today there is an alarming rate of “White flight” to the suburbs and a lack of funding for urban schools on an unequal footing compared to the suburban schools.  This discussion leads us to the question whether unequally funded, segregated schools in conjunction with poverty would uncover the solution and cause of the achievement gap—getting to the heart of this ‘gap’, understanding it more critically as a “resource gap” (Macedo, 2006). 

Lyons (2005) endeavored to describe the state of equity in Kentucky schools. His study used the 2001 results of Kentucky’s accountability tests (CTBS & KCCT) to describe the degree to which ethnic and socioeconomic equity existed in Kentucky elementary, middle, and high schools in 2001, and to assess whether a trend exists between equitable student outcomes and overall school socioeconomic level and school size. Lyons research sample consisted of 729 of 782 elementary schools, 164 of 213 middle schools, and 220 of 245 high schools from the state of Kentucky. He found that socioeconomic and ethnic equity analyses relative to student performance on the reading and math subtests of the CTBS and KCCT for Kentucky’s schools indicate that in no case were a majority of schools shown to be equitable. In general, elementary schools faired better than middle and high schools in terms of equity. Overall, schools displayed less inequity on the KCCT than the CTBS in terms of achievement in the areas of math and reading.

Tangentially connected to funding and linking to structural inequities, Mayers (2006) discusses funding as a motivation to succeed under this new law. Claiming that motivation is not, in and of itself, a good or bad thing, Mayers argues that it is the scope of conditions that tend to have the strongest impacts on positive or negative determination. She adds, “If all schools had fully certified and experienced teachers, current textbooks for each child, up to date computers for every student, decent facilities, students who are well fed, students and teachers who are fluent in English, effective administrators, adequate counselor to student ratios, active PTA’s, and the necessary fiduciary capital to achieve its goals, then it would make sense to apply uniform standards.” Of course, as Mayers points out, schools are not uniform in this way, but the law is constructed such that it presumes they are. Mayers continues by noting that the more a family makes, the higher the likelihood they attend a school which has the above characteristics. Reciprocally, she also notes that the less a family makes, the less likely their school possesses these characteristics.

Getting into some of the literature and research on standardized tests, Mayers cites eight factors that identify the strongest positive or negative correlates with success on standardized tests: (1) Many books in home, (2) Adopted child, (3) Parents speak English in home, (4) Mother 30+ at child’s birth, (5)Highly educated parents, (6) High socio-economic class, (7) Parental PTA involvement, and (8) Low birth weight.

Regarding the achievement gap, Mayers suggests it has nothing to do with inherent ‘racial’ characteristics, stating, “It does not appear that the gap in performance has anything to do with inherent racial characteristics. If it did, the gap would be evident at the outset of schooling in similar demographic black/white comparison.” Rather, she points to socio-economic status as determinant: “If you are poor, your chance of attending a poor school is elevated and the odds of matriculating through college and into the middle to upper class, diminished. With your diminished prospects come the diminished prospects of your progeny.”

Also related to highly qualified teachers, Mayers rejects any inherent correlation with student learning and performance on standardized tests. Rather, she indicates the strongest correlates with success are where students come from, who the students are, and where they go to school.

Structural Factors

            Mayer’s study provides a perfect segue into the many interlocking structural factors that can affect school performance and which inform the widening achievement gap between Black and White, poor and wealthy, students.  Issues of tracking, stereotype threat, totalitarian classroom management, standardized curricula, and, more generally, social reproduction are particularly informative to understanding how children who are poor or children of color end up on the low end of the gap.

Tracking

The achievement gap between Black and White students has been effectively reduced in schools where all students are held to high expectations with a consistent focus on academics (Johnston & Viadero, 2000).  This implies that a lack of those attitudes has a negative impact on the achievement of all students.  The achievement gap is even more prevalent in schools where tracking exists because Black students, like poor students, are statistically more likely to be placed in lower tracked classes without opportunity for mobility.  In many schools, Black students are unlikely to be offered advanced placement (AP) or honors level coursework (Viadero, 2000).  Even in schools where those opportunities are available, there are artificial boundaries to participation by all students.  A Black high school student whose words appear in an article in Education Week illustrates this issue, “A lot of times, I think students are discouraged from being in honors or AP classes because they see no one else in their race in those classes.  And sometimes, counselors don’t encourage you to challenge yourself” (Viadero, 2000, p.3). 

Stereotype Threat

          School culture can determine if a student feels they are supported or not.  Claude Steele (2003) claims there are forces on the academic life of Black students that can be defined as “stereotype threat.”  “My colleagues and I have called such features ‘stereotype threat’-the threat of being viewed through the lens of a negative stereotype, or the fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm that stereotype”  (p. 111).  There are many forces of assessment that affect student performance.  Steele further argues,

a) we all experience some type of stereotype threat;

b) if we feel we may be judged it will affect our performance;

c) gender stereotypes exist and affect performance (Math);

d) not an abstract threat, not necessarily a belief or expectation about oneself, but the concrete, real-time threat of being judged and treated poorly in settings where a negative stereotype about one’s group applies; 

e) affects mostly achievement-oriented students the most  (you have to care to be affected); and

f) the success of Black students may depend less on expectations and motivation-things that are thought to drive academic performance-than on trust that stereotypes about their group will not have a limiting effect in their school world”  (p. 122). 

 

Social Reproduction

 

Many critical theorists talk about this reality in terms of social reproduction theory—the way the poor stay poor, the way the rich stay rich, and the way the middle class is constucted as a buffer between the two—being sure that desire is manufactured among the poor to become middle class and among the middle class to become rich. This inequitable system is created, maintained, and negotiated by the vast majority, unconsciously.  But, it is definitely managed by a minority elite in order to assure they remain in the dominant positions in society. In other words, the structure of society is kept intact, not by use of physical force, but through more psychological and ideological coercion that choreographs the structure as ‘common-sense’.  Then, it is easy to justify winners and losers in society (at least in a capitalistic one). By also creating myths in a society—like meritocracy (the more you put in the more you’ll get out) and progress (our society is always getting better and moving forward)—we create narratives by which this desire is manufactured.  That is, if someone is poor, they haven’t tried hard enough.  Or, the economy is on an upsurge because job growth is on the rise (even though the only jobs created are low-wage positions without benefits).  

The middle class who make it in this system or are able to even just sustain their status from the previous generation, are the most helpful perpetrators of these myths.  They’ve ‘made it’.  They’ve achieved the American Dream.  Yet, strangely, they still desire more—constantly urged to look forward and up in order to improve position, rather than paying attention to whom is behind or below and why they haven’t made it out of their circumstances.  In fact, they can unknowingly perform a lot of the drilling and hammering, shoring up this unjust structure, not really knowing what they’re helping to construct. If the myths can be promoted, if the onus can be placed on the individual, then society doesn’t need to shoulder the responsibility. If a person fails, who to blame is apparent. If one succeeds, then they can say to others, “Well, I did it, so…”

In this system, we lack a fundamental connectedness to each other. Our attention is constantly sought for minutiae, things that don’t matter (the wide screen TVs, cars, reality TV, etc.—what Chomsky, in his philosophy of futility, refers to as “fashionable consumption”).  This is part of the cooptation process according to critical theorists and how the middle class is used as the buffer.  Of course, critical theorists would also point out this journey to the top is at best improbable and, more than likely, impossible because in a pyramid shaped society, as capitalism is, only a relative few can really make it.  As well, they would also point out that middle class folks should recognize that they have more in common, really, with the bottom of the line factory worker, the mother on welfare, and the homeless man than, say, Dick Cheney.  That is, they have a much better chance of being homeless than being VP or the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.

Current trends for NCLB: An unstoppable train?

            Instead of taking any serious look at NCLB and the research (or lack there of) related to its ‘success’, the federal government plows forward, accelerating into a seemingly pedagogical abyss.  From a transcript of the 2007 State of the Union Address, President Bush offered:

Spreading opportunity and hope in America also requires public schools that give children the knowledge and character they need in life. Five years ago, we rose above partisan differences to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, preserving local control, raising standards, and holding those schools accountable for results. And because we acted, students are performing better in reading and math, and minority students are closing the achievement gap. Now the task is to build on the success, without watering down standards, without taking control from local communities, and without backsliding and calling it reform. We can lift student achievement even higher by giving local leaders flexibility to turn around failing schools, and by giving families with children stuck in failing schools the right to choose someplace better. (Applause.) We must increase funds for students who struggle -- and make sure these children get the special help they need. (Applause.) And we can make sure our children are prepared for the jobs of the future and our country is more competitive by strengthening math and science skills. The No Child Left Behind Act has worked for America's children -- and I ask Congress to reauthorize this good law. (Applause.) (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/print/20070123-2.html)

 

            Digging further into their future plans, the White House outlines five ways they

 

plan to “strengthen NCLB to increase flexibility and help struggling schools improve:

 

(1)                          Encourage higher academic standards and increase quality of available information on student performance

(2)                          Strengthen public schools with incentives for reform and empower parents with options for children for after school tutoring and attending higher performing schools

(3)                          Provide incentives for teachers for effective teachers and research-based instructional tools

(4)                          Incorporate education components of American Competitiveness Initiative for success in competitive global economy

(5)                          Measure individual student progress and focus interventions on students who have not reached grade level

(http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2007/initiatives/print/education.html)

            In response, Monty Neill of FairTest (www.fairtest.org), an organization critical of NCLB and the out-of-control standardizing and streamlining of education through testing, argued, in a recent edition of the Community Justice Resource Center Quarterly Newsletter (January 12, 2007), that (1) Schools alone cannot overcome the consequences of poverty and racism, rather we also need to deal with issues related to nutrition, housing, health, income, community stability, etc.; (2) Schools must be funded adequately; and (3) Teaching should not be narrowly controlled by state or federally mandated testing programs.

Like FairTest, several other civic, parent, and community groups are presenting opposition to NCLB as Congress gears up for its reauthorization in September, 2007.  Below, I offer some ways forward, particularly for those connected to education as students and/or teachers.  But, before moving on, I want to illuminate one other organization’s ongoing opposition to NCLB.  I think it is informative and telling that the National Council of Churches also offers compelling critique.  They proffer ten moral concerns, claiming NCLB:

(1)   Discredits public education

(2)   Doesn’t acknowledge where students start the year nor celebrate individual achievements

(3)   A failing group of children will know when they are the ones who made their school a failing school

(4)   Requires children in special education to pass tests designed for children without disabilities

(5)   Requires English language learners to take tests in English before they learn English

(6)   Blames teachers and schools for many challenges that are neither of their making nor within their capacity to change

(7)   Focus on testing basic skills obscures role of humanities and arts in child and adolescent development

(8)   Operates through sanctions

(9)   Exacerbates racial and economic segregation in metropolitan areas

(10)           Makes demands on states and districts without fully funding reforms (www.nccusa.org).

Resistance and ways forward: Community, praxis, and courage

 

Leading up to this final section, I began by providing a snapshot of classrooms today, featuring, one, more behavioristic models of classroom management, particularly for poor children and children of color, two, corporate-driven curricula that breeds consumptive desire for all our children, and, three, continued tracking polices that help socially reproduce class divisions.  I next considered the convergence of five political and economic factors that currently articulate which complicate the lives of the economically marginalized/disenfranchised/oppressed.  From there, I highlighted a current research study I have undertaken with a former graduate student related to NCLB, specifically related to the achievement gap.  Here, I was also able to illuminate a smattering of the recent research literature connected to NCLB and the achievement gap.  Last, I underscored President Bush’s current agenda for NCLB and how two organizations have responded in critique.  While not an exhaustive or unabridged account of classism or education, an impressionistic view of educational injustice connected to class is coming into view. These final paragraphs are intended to suggest ways we might resist classism in education and what we might do. Through this discussion, I hope to help answer some of the initial conference themes/questions/strands: How can school workers connect capitalism, imperialism, war, and daily life in school?  How can the hard sciences, like math, be connected to social justice education? And, how can we teach for solidarity and class consciousness against opportunism?

I want to offer these answers/suggestions/possibilities through the filter of what Milton Brown and I (2006a, 2006b) term a “hopeful curriculum,” which offers a dialogical and flexible framework through which to activate more critical action and reflection with the world.  The three main interdependent facets of the framework are community, praxis, and courage.

Community

Recently, Michael Zweig (2006) suggested a reconceptualization of our understanding of class, which included a need to change the understanding of class in the US, going from the division of “rich and poor” to the division of “worker and capitalist.” (i.e., class must be understood in terms of power); noting that class operates on a global scale; and advocating that class is a terrain for the movement of ideas.

Like Zweig, I believe class provides us an opportunity to speak across difference and to develop more solidaristic partnerships that interrupt current power dynamics. To this end educators and cultural workers must work toward the formation of more enriching, dialogical, and diverse communities.  A major focus of schools, then, must turn from the economic purposes currently preferred toward educating for how to live in a democracy.  Our pedagogy must re-focus on relationships, relationships between: teachers and students, students and students, teacher and parents, teachers and teachers, and school and community.[viii]

            Since our democracy is currently under assault from a wealthy elite, a waffling (and waning) middle class, and a made-to-feel-powerless poor, we can take nothing for granted in this community-building work. With our students, we should take our work and the possibilities for more critical opportunities to learn out into our communities. Connecting our curricula to economic issues in the local, national, and global community will help us better see the effects of tax cuts, welfare reform, and globalization.  It will also put a human face on poverty and issues like homelessness.  Several years ago, for instance, my private high school students were better able to see their (unearned) privilege when they tutored in local public elementary schools.  More recently, my graduate education students had a better chance to see the living conditions of 4% of our public school students when we held my research course at Central Safe Haven Family Homeless Shelter[ix] (since 4000 of our 96,000 district children are classified as homeless). Likewise, former graduate students saw immigration and farming issues up close when they joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in their struggle with YUM! Brands through a service learning project.  And, several former students and friends continue to bear witness to the tragedy of economic globalization and the globalization of classism when we visit Jamaica each year to work in schools and children’s homes in this economically devastated Caribbean country.

            Along with connecting to communities, we also need to connect within our schools to begin addressing the educational subterfuge that is NCLB.  While we need to attack it at its source, we must also treat (perhaps easiest in the short run) its derivative policies such as totalitarian brands of classroom management discussed earlier or corporate-driven curricula.   We will have to work together and trust each other as teachers and administrators to dismantle these policies. We will also have to work closely with our students’ parents and allow them to become a part of the solution rather than another scapegoat in the blame game that has become public education.

            Finally, related to community, this work must begin in the universities, particularly schools of education.  Our future teachers need models of resistance—professors who work together as a community (e.g., our school of education has a vibrant culture circle, a la Freire, for which we read a common text and meet regularly to discuss, encourage, and challenge one another), faculty who confront inequitable school policies, and schools that provide opposition for heavy-handed accrediting bodies such as NCATE.  If the academy, with all of its academic freedom and liberal ideas, is not willing to put their own work on the line and rise to their ethical rhetoric, then who should our future teachers and students turn to for guidance and modeling? In an effort toward this modeling, my dean, a few colleagues, and I crafted a statement to the local school board related to their search for a superintendent, using our voice and visibility to urge them to consider the needs of all students in our district, to select someone willing to resist the rigidifying standards movement, and to offer an example to other school districts across the country that social justice is primary in such selection processes.

            So, in terms of community, I argue for a shift in the purpose of education from economic to learning how to live together in a (more global) democracy—finding ways to connect our students’ lives together, connecting our curriculum with the world outside of school (through service learning and more authentic pedagogical practices), and connecting our students with real lives in our local, national, and global communities.  Schools of education and faculties in schools can help model this community experience by focusing on their relationships among one another (e.g., culture circles) and how they might model resistance and opposition to unjust policies for their students.

Praxis

            Along with a focus on community, in our struggle to define more critical understandings of class and injustice, we must also consistently seek to: craft more nuanced lenses, deepen our consciousness, and develop a discourse of social justice. 

            We can certainly craft these more nuanced lenses through community activity that more resembles service learning than mere volunteerism, such that our experiences lead us to ask questions about why such service may even be necessary.  Then, we and our students have an opportunity to connect heretofore unseen dots.  Perhaps these questions might lead us toward noticing the corporatizing trends in education, the privatizing influences in our economy, and threats to our democracy. 

            Recently, for example, students at our university launched a homeless awareness activity for which they slept in cardboard boxes in a prominent spot on campus, participated in service activities, and met frequently in groups to discuss their experience.   While the awareness-raising and the service was an important aspect of the experience, the opportunities to reflect on and discuss the experience, related to issues of classism, racism, sexism, that we had been talking about in one of our classes, was the more important part of the event.  Now, as we continue to meet to debrief this experience, connect more dots related to power and privilege, and coordinate an underground university (un)organization (VoICE—Voices of Inquiry, Community, and Equity) to take our actions forward,[x] we consistently challenge ourselves to deepen our consciousness and discursively create new possibilities for social justice on campus and in the local area with our work.[xi]

Similarly, work continues with coordinating the PrESS Network (the Progressives Engaged in Struggle Support Network: http://pressnetwork.blogspot.com), a group of former and current graduate students, social workers, and community activists who are struggling for social justice for children and families.  This group is preparing to take their growing understanding of our research on NCLB out into the community, holding encuentros (days of education, reflection, and strategizing) in order to talk about the law’s negative effects on our district’s children. This type of community building and knowledge production will help democratize relationships between universities, schools, and communities such that we might all view each other through new lenses—not the prejudicial ones through which teachers might make of students, parents might make of teaches, or ‘servers’ might make of the ‘served’ in service learning experiences.  Currently, we plan to hold two encuentros—one at an immigrant community center and one in the West End of Louisville, a more impoverished and less White area of town.  In addition, we plan to hold a series of professional development opportunities over the summer for area teachers related to our research.

Moving beyond these specific instances through which student activist groups grew out of course experiences, teacher educators and teachers need to continually focus our curriculum and assessment strategies on authentic ways to learn about and engage with the world outside of school.

            In critical theoretical terms, NCLB supports a more “banking method” approach to curriculum and assessment, depositing testable facts in preparation for a later withdrawal (with little interest earned).  This approach stands in opposition to what Paulo Freire suggests as a more “problem-posing” approach in which the world, particularly through mathematics, is intended to be explored, understood, and expanded.  We need not look much further than, generally, Ladson-Billings (1994) “culturally relevant teaching” or, more recently and more specifically to mathematics, Holloway’s (2004) “powerful curriculum and sensitive instruction.” Holloway connects this pedagogy to NCTM’s (2000) standards for school mathematics: (1) high expectations for all students, (2) a coherent curriculum of important mathematics across grade levels, (3) teachers who understand what students need to learn and then challenge and support them, (4) instruction that builds new knowledge from experience and prior knowledge, (5) assessment that supports learning and provides useful information to both teachers and students, and (6) technology that influences the mathematics taught and enhances students’ learning.

Also connected to mathematics and related to authenticity, Martin (2000) puts achievement in mathematics in a “broader socio-historical, cultural, and community context.”  Martin wants teachers/researchers to put “the focus on mathematics identity and mathematics socialization.”  Mathematics identity is defined as the participants’ beliefs about: (a) their ability to perform in mathematical contexts, (b) the instrumental importance of mathematical knowledge, (c) constraints and opportunities in mathematical contexts, and (d) the resulting motivations and strategies used to obtain mathematics knowledge. Mathematics socialization is defined by the author in terms of “socio-historical, community, school, and intrapersonal contexts” (p. 19). 

            Finally, considering an even wider ranging curriculum, Doll’s (1995) work on a postmodern curriculum is informative for a broader perspective on possibilities within curriculum and assessment. Doll argues for a “constructive curriculum,” one that emerges through interaction with the students and forms the possibilities for a “curriculum matrix.” This matrix is grounded in theory developed from practice, where goals, plans, and purposes emanate from the community, and depends upon the teacher to consistently perturb the system—i.e., unsettle/deconstruct to resettle/construct.  Assessment, in this paradigm, then, moves from “measuring the deficit” or separating winners from losers, to resembling dialogue and a “negotiary process within a communal setting for the purpose of transformation.” This more postmodern curriculum can be best summarized through Doll’s 4R’s: richness, the curriculum’s depth; recursion, where every beginning emerges from a prior ending; relations, for which connections are sought between curriculum, students’ experience, the world outside of school, etc; and rigor, meaning that new combinations, interpretations, patterns, alternatives, and  connections are encouraged.

            In light of this call for more authenticity in curriculum and assessment, Andrew has taken his evolving understanding of pedagogy and research on the achievement gap to seek out funding (for which he has been granted $5000 to date) to develop a community walking trail, community garden, and ecological curriculum connected to his math classes in order to have his students more authentically engage in the world around them.  Similarly, my own work continues with my teaching partner, Milton Brown, to connect our course assessments with more authentic ways for our undergraduate and graduate students to engage the world.  This semester, as an example, we are working to create an opportunity for our students to take their evolving understanding of globalization, service learning, and social justice and construct a more critical “internationalization” plan for our university which would include study abroad, service learning partnerships, educational exchange, and opening our campus to more global ideas and concerns.

            So, beyond building community and focusing on relationships, we must also consider ways in which we will learn to more critically engage our lives by crafting more nuanced lenses, seeking a deeper and critical consciousness, and continually developing a language of social justice with which to talk and think about our world.  We can do this through liberating pedagogical practices which pose problems for our students, making the world a series of issues to be researched, resolved, and improved, rather than one that is given, static, and unchanging.

Courage

            Finally, this work will take great courage.  Our praxis will require us to leave, as Dennis Carlson (2002) conceptualizes, our “safe harbors,” out into uncharted waters.  We will constantly be drawn from our reflection into activism, making theory real.  This action will call us to move beyond projects and experiences, like service learning, into a new way of being in the world.  In the context of our university, for example, it will compel us to hold our university to account related to its treatment of workers on campus and views toward labor.  For example, as Sodexho’s contract came up for renewal, in secret and without debate, it is once again time for us to challenge the administration to make better decisions related to our food service provider, particularly as a school that maintains (rhetorically) a Catholic social justice tradition.  And, this will be but one portion of a larger struggle to help the university realize its mission of “improving the human condition.” Beyond our university, thinking city-wide, it may be time to more actively resist that standardizing effects of P-12 education, “organizing boycotts,” as Gibson suggests, “of the regimented curricula and high stakes tests that turn teachers into missionaries for capitalism.”

            Indeed, this struggle toward a deeper understanding of classism and structure of inequality is a moral struggle that compels all educators and those who work for the betterment of the lives of others to engage it fully.  In order to avoid the socially reproductive tendencies of injustice, we must recognize the tremendous stakes and the pressing nature of the work.  We can wait no longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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