Journal #3 Assignment

(:tltl(lt'ct), st'lrrxrl lxrirr.ls rrtrtl st'lrrxrl rrrlrnirristrat<lrs wcr(.ollr.rr rrlrrlrivulcnt irlxrrrt tlrt' cxlx'ns(' ol ir.ltlirrg ir rrew lcvcl ol schooling.ls

Sonrc pr.rlrlic educators were enthusiastic about what kindergartens could tlo for the public schools and for American society. As superinten- dent of the St. Louis public schools in the 1870s, \X/illiam T. Harris persuaded his board to support kindergarens under the leadership of Susan Blow. In 1901, as U.S, Commissioner of Education, he wrote thar *the kindergarten is really essential for the salvation of the children of the slums, that is to say, the children of the three weakling classes of society." The offspring of these "weaklings"-the thrifdess, the immoral, and the unintelligent-can be redeemed by the "powerful system of nurture" of the kindergarten that teaches self-respect, perseverance, moral ideals, and industry. In this version, the kindergarten provided compensatory socialization. le

In 1900 only about 7 percent of five-year-olds were enrolled in kinder- gartens, n 1920,20 percent, in 1910, 38 percent, and by L970, 6A percent. The public "child garden," then, was no modest experiment. Reformers claimed that it could rescue children and their parenrs from poverty and crime, turn immigrants into Americans, solve "the race problem," and tame the unruly cities. But more: some educators alFo believed that the kinderganen, with its aim of adapting education to children rather than children to schooling, would soften, even melt, the hard-edged uniform curriculum and instruction that had become stan- dard in the graded elementary school.20

As kindergartens became incorporated into the system, what hap- pened to their initial goals, what alterations appeared both in the kinder- gartens and the primary grades? \X/hen public sponsorship took the place of private, an early casualty was the outreach program that sent kinder- garten teachers into the homes of the pupils. In the charity schools, teachers typically taught during the morning and had the afrernoons free to visit mothers. In the public schools, they typically had to teach double sessions, one in the morning and one in the aftemoon, mostly because of large enrollrnents and the high cost of half-day, small classes (recall the common complaint of school superintendenrs that kinderganens cost too much). Kindergarten teachers still tried to link home and school for the children, in part by providing a quasi-motherly and homelike atmo- sphere in school, but the new schedule made it virtually impossible to spend much time in the homes of their pupils. Even so, one kindergarren teacher said that "the home and the kindergarten are somerimes felt to be more closely united than the kinderganen and the next grade of the school. "21

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As Mrrrvirr l,:rz('r's()rr lr,r. tl,,,rr,,r, tlrt'ir.lrrp-rtation ol tlrc kin.lcrgartcrr t<t tlrc lrrituary graclcs [>ecunrt'rl (()nlr'()vc1'sial issuc: was it to lctrrain ,.listinc- tivc in plrikrsophy and pcdagogy, a world unto itself, or was it to have as its nrain task the preparation of five-year-olds for the first gradeT Once the kindergarten had been folded into the public school system, educa- tors had a range of options in the mutual adjustment of the newcomer and the existing system: to preserve the kindergarten as a somewhat exotic niche; to remake the primary grades to resemble the kindergarten; to pattern the kindergarten more on the tasks and phiiosophy of the grades and to merge the supervision and standards of training of the teachers in kinderganens and grades 74; to create a connecting class between kindergarten and first gtade-a boot camp of sorts-to prepare children for the rigors of first grade; or some combination of these. In fact, all these adaptations occurred in practice as kindergartens became assimiiated into the institutional structure of public education.22

In a number of cities, public schools took over the old charity kinder- gartens and retained their supervisors and teachers, providing some continuity with previous practice, at least in the early years of public control and suppon. The supervisors reasured the special character of the kindergarten. In hiring teachers, they said, they sought "sympathy, understanding, seeing from the child's standpoint," and "play spirit," whereas they wanted elementary teachers who were "ffained to consider and deal with the child as a learningbeing, and not primarily as a feeling, doing individual." To some degree the "child gardeners" stressed intrin- sic more than instrumental values, play more than drill, individual crea- tivity more than group socialization. But they were also concerned with shaping regular habits, sharpening skills, and reforming society by im- proving the character of the young-goals that were also prominent in primary school education.2l

What did first-grade teachers think about the effects of the kindergar- ten on their pupils? Surveys reported mixed opinions. Some respondents said that kindergarten graduates were "more alert and observant" than those who did not attend kindergarten, and found that they "have learned to be punctual and regular in attendance, to follow directions, to wait on themselves in the dressing rooms and lavatories," and that they "have been taught to play fairly and to be conscientious and helpful in the schoolroom." Others complained that the kindergarten gave chil- dren wrong ideas about what school was all about: pupils didn't know how to pay attention, to be silent, and to work steadily. They were too dependerit and expected more help than primary school teachers could provide in their crowded classrooms. One summed up the problem as

61

t

I

"tlrc'llrrbby kirr,k'r'grrrt.'rr itrtcllt'ct <tl tlrc kirrtlt'r'Bllrt('rr tlril.l."'l'lris rrrix oll lrririst' :rrrtl lrlrrrrrt' ;rlrout kirrdcrgartcn-trainccl chiltlrcrr cnt(:rilrg clcnren- trry schtxrl lcvcalcd tlccp dilterences in teachers'belicti about how to edr-rcate children.2a

City superintendents and school boards, eager to create more system- atic bureaucracies, sought ways to align the kindergarten with the pri mary grades. One strategy was to integrate the supervision of the kinderganens and the primary grades by placing both under the direc- tion of elementary principals and a general supervisor of primary grades. This move eliminated the practice, common in the first generation when private schools were folded into the public system, of retaining the former private directors as supervisors who reported directly to the superintendent. Second, school districts began to construct written cur- ricula that tied together kinderganen and flrst grade by providing for more silent, independent work and reading readiness in the kindergarten. Panly as a result, observers found that teacher-centered instruction was the dominant pattem in both kindergartens and primary grades. Third, school districts began to require kindergarten teachers ro obtain training and certification comparable to that of elementary school teachers. Ac- cordingly, many kindergarten and primary teachers were exposed to similar ideas in their education classes, and some taught alternately in the primary grades and kindergarten,25

Influenced by the newly emerging science of psychology, kindergarten leaders began to encourage teachers to treat the grades K-J as a continu- ous developmentd sequence. This approach downplayed the symbolism and specific pedagogical techniques of the German philosopher Froebel. From the psychologist G. Stanley Hall kindergarten leaders borrowed methods of systematic observation of children, and they heeded John Dewey's advice to stress active learning in social groups, They used the terminology and concepts of behavioral psychology in constructing a "conduct curriculum" (they talked of good "habits" rather than "char- acteq" but the resemblance to nineteenth-century moral training was still suong). They gave IQ and readiness tests to kindergarten children to sort them into ability groups and to determine if they were prepared to enter the first grade. Studies showed that kindergarten graduates progressed faster in the grades and won higher scores on standardized mental and achievement tests than nonkindergarten children, and this seemed clear proof of the success of the reform. The National Society for the Study of Education devoted two yearbooks to the correlation of the kindergar- ten and the elementary school, showing that the issue was of general interest among scholars in education.26

68

Itt ttrlttty rvltys, llt,'tr, l"'llt ttt lltr''rt1' rrtrtl itt 1rt'ltctitt" l'trl'ltt'stltool kin.l"rgarterls lx'(:llll( ;ts:'tttttl:tlt'tl l, llrt'pt'itrrrrry gt''ttlt't' 't tlt'l"tt'l

ttt-t'

fronr thc carlicr pt'itisc ol tlrc'kirrtlcrgartcn as an antid()tr: to thc trirtli'

tional school. When the kindergarten became institutionalizecl' the t'r'igi'

nal claim of r.form.rs-thu1 it would redeem society through .o*p"nru,ory socialization of the misfits-was diluted if nclt forgottetr'

A much *oi" -od.st bureaucratic rationale became central: that thc lirJ.tg."., would prepare five-year-olds for first grade in a scienti{ically deter#ned derrelopmental way. Some of the features that had made the

kindergarten exotic were slowly trimmed avray- or changed to fit the institulional character of the elementary school'27

But as progressive education spread to more and more public elemen-

tu.y ,.hool, i-, th. t*..,tieth ceniury the primary grades came more and

-*. ,o resemble kindergartens. Observers found many elernentary

schools where bolted-down desks were being replaced by small movable

tables and chairs, teachers were using group games and play as an adjunct

to learning, children were building with blocks or hammering or sewing'

art and *Iri. -"r. becoming more central in the curriculum' instruction was relying more on concret; objects and less on abstractions' and

pupils

were freer to move about the classroom and to talk to each other'

Institutional hybrids, kindergartens preserved much that had once made

rhem distinctive and in addition heiped to reshape the primary grades'

Th. child's garden influenced the environment in which it grew'2S

1

The Junior High School

Like the kindergarten pioneers, the founders of junior high schools were

pr"i""taf, critical of ihe public school system' The advocates of junior

tigt t.froots considered ,o"tg adolescents to be a group at risk' So deictioe rvas education in th. upper grades of the urban elementary

schools that a new institution must be created for that age group'

In 1900 most large school disticts had eight elementary grades and

four high school grJ.r. The atrition of pupils was horrendous' In 1909

, ,"r.rLh", ,"port"d that "the general tendency of American cities is to ."t.r^U of their children through the fifth grade, to take one-half of them

to t(. eighth grade and one in ten through high school'"-something must be terrif,ly ;rong, thought reformers, if half the students don't even reach the'eighth lrade and if the high school remains an elitist institu-

tion.29

The rigidity and narrow academic emphasis of the educational struc-

,,rr" *r, u major cause of this problem, reformers asserted' All children (r9

w('r(. cxlx..('tctl t. rrst.t.trtl tlrr. lrrtklt.l.()l fltc gr.atlc.rl r.lilssro.lrrs, stuclyillg 1tlrt' s:rrrrt. srrlrjt.t.ts irr tlrt. srrrrrr. wllys ancl taking exams for promotion from r.uog to rrrng. Many rvcre lefi behind each year. ,,Retarded,, pupils aged ten ro lifteen years, nrany of them poor and from immigrant'famil]es, crowded the upper grades of elementary schools, shameJand bored as i individuals and collectively producing what educators ."ll"d ,,*rrt.,'-*, I social sin in an age that glorified "social efficiency.', V/hen young p.opl"

I

dropped our or were pushed out, rhose who did find *ork ururil"u'.nj.j i up in repetitive, mind-numbing, dead-end jobs. Academically irl.nt.d

I

students experienced another kind of ,,waste,, as rhey *u.k.d ,i*. i academically in the standard pace of the grades unril they qualified for entrance to high school.lo

Educational reformers-supported by social investigators, develop_ menta-I psychologists, and foes of child labor-designeJthe junior high school as a srructural and pedagogical solution io th" pioblems of attrition and "waste." There should be only six elementary grades, they

I

believed, and a new kind of school, the junior high school],fr"Ja U. I inserted in place of grades seven ro eight or nine. Iniome cases the junior I high school was housed in a separate building; in others ir was adjed to I a reorganized secondary school comprising grades seven to twelve. Such I an institution would give new hope and appropriate curricular choices Tr

a new setting to discouraged young people. It would prevenr rhem from dropping out and offer them chances to explore their vocarional opponunities in a setting adapted to the particular needs of adolescents, In addition, it would challenge academically capable students. Advocates claimed that the junior high school *igirt b..ome a model for the regeneration of the whole school system, a lever for broad cumicular reform.]l

The junior high school appealed to people who analyzed educational i

problems from three different angles of vision. One set of reformers was primarily concemed about drop-outs and preparing rhe young fo. *o.k. Some of rhese wanted to train potential Jrop-orti directly iorcp.cifil

1

jobs, but most wanred the junior high schooi to provide students with attractive opportunities to discover their vocational apdtudes and inter- ests. A second group were interested in transforming the curriculum of the entire educational sysrem, beginning in the junior high school. These reformers wanted to chip away at the rigidities of the g-raded classroom and to introduce new subjecrs and forms of pedagogy.

"Chmles H. Judd,

a leader among the adminisrative progressives, asserted that ,,reorgani- zation of the three intermediate grades . . . in reality means reorganiza- tion of the entire public school system.,, A third g.orp, influen-ced by

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tltc "tliscovery ol :rtl.,l,':,( ('n( ( lry 1,sycl-rologisrs likc (i. Strrrrlt'v I lull, walttccl to tailor thc rvotli ,,1 tlr.'sehool to thc particrrlar strrgc o['clevel- opment ol'young tcerrrgcrs. Students of that age were distinct lrom grade school youngsters and high school students, these reformers argued. Intellectual, emotional, and physical spurts made these years unpre- dictable; individual differences multiplied as physical growth accelerated; tensions between youth and adults increased; and interest in adult life and work expanded. A scientifically valid plan for schooling must take note of these psychological changes.r2

The very ambiguity of purpose and comprehensiveness of these aims made the junior high school a reform to conjure with during the second decade of the rwentieth century. Each organizatron, group, and individ- ual reformer could see in the junior high school a reflection of different worries and hopes. A speaker at the National Education Association declared in 1916 that "the junior high school movement is sweeping the country." People everywhere, he said, are climbing aboard the band- wagon: the Department of Superintendence of the NEA, the U.S. Bureau of Education, state departments of education, large cities, and experts in university schools of education. "Textbook houses, with expected enter- prise, are announcing a new junior high school series of textbooks. . . . There is a literature, a terminology, a lingo, a cult,"ll

By the end of the second decade of the fwentieth century educators were talking a lot about junior high schools, but the actual number of junior high schools in operation was quite small. In 1920,94 percent of secondary schools still followed the traditional pattern of four years on top of eight years of elementary school, oniy 0.4 percent were free-stand- ing junior high schools, and the rest were combined junior-senior high schools. Almost two decades later about two-thirds of secondary schools were still traditional four-year institutions, a quarter were combined junior-senior high schools, and less than one in ten were separate junior high schools. Only after World \X/ar II-a time of rapid expansion of secondary enrollment and construction of new schools, including junior highs-did raditional four-year high schools become a minority of sec- ondary schools. By then about 80 percent of pupils who entered fifth grade continued on to tenth grade in high school, making drop-outs primarily a problem in senior high schools rather than in elementary or iunior high schools.'a

The most rapid increases in school retention rates and declines in child labor occurred in the 1920s and 1910s, decades when the junior high school was taking root only slowly and when the dominant form of secondary school organization was the still thc traditional 8-4 pattern.

1t

r rurs lt rs (lrr(.sti()nrrlrlt'u,lrt't lrt.r tlrt. jrrrrior high school rvas itsell a rnajor lirt'lor irr krrvt.r'irr11 llrc tlnrlr-out ratc, cspccially given the strong influence ol trnrlrtrlst)ry arr(ndance laws, child labor legislation, technology that erocled the need for youthful labor, and the scarcity of jobs during the Great Depression. In addition, in the lare 1920s and 1910s more and more districts shifted to a policy of "social promotion" of students by age rather than promotion through examinations or assessments by teachers, funher lowering the percentage of pupils who were overaged for their grades. As teenagers increasingly entered senior high school, the focus on drop-outs and vocarional training shifted to rhar level (all along, federal funds for vocational education under the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 went only to senior high schools).i,

Reflecting these developmenrs, policy talk about rhe junior high school shifted away from the early emphasis on retention of students and vocational exploration to the other two maior arguments: that the school should meet the special psychological needs of the early adolescent age group; and that it should be a seed ground for developing new forms of curriculum and instruction that one day might transform the entire educational system,

Amid rhe chorus of praise for junior high schools in the early years, some educators voiced the fear that the new institution could be a curricular and psychological Potemkin village, a frne fagade with little inside. In 1922 Thomas Briggs, a professor at Teachers College, Colum- bia, said that "unfomunately, it must be recorded, there are some who , . . loudly proclaim the establishmenr of junior high schools when, in truth, they have changed but little the tradition al organization and work of the school." He warned: "The junior high school is an opportunity, not a speci-fic lremedy]; and unless you have a definite program for the reform of the curicula, of the courses of study, of the methods of teaching, and of the social adminismation of your intermediate grades, I strongly urge you to defer the organization of the junior high schools to youf successors."16

Briggs's warnings were prophetic. The junior high school did not prove to be a panacea. In fact, repeated studies, decade after decade, detaiied similar criticisms. Aubrey Douglass, an early advocate of the innovation, wrote in 1945 that the "persistent problems" were excessive departmentalization into an academic curuiculum modeled on the high school; teachers who were inadequately trained ro understand or guide young adolescents; and tracking of students by abtlity.3T

In other words, junior high schools mirrored what progressives con- sidered to be the defects of senior high schools .In L977 a comprehensive

72

strrrly lry Kcnrtctlr'lyt',,1 trvclvr';rrrr,,r'lriglr schtrols in qrritc rlil'lcrcnt comntunitics clisclrst',1 l)irtt('lns tlritt'sinrilar to those clcscrilrctl l>y l)ouglass. ln l9B9 a task lorcc ol thc Carnegie Council on Adolescent I)evelopment warned that

a volatile mismatch exists between the organization and curriculum of middle grade schools and the intellectual, emotional, and inter- personal needs of young adolescents. For most young adolescents, the shift from elementary to junior high or middle school means moving from a small, neighborhood school and the stability of one primary classroom to a much larger, more impersonal institution, typically at a greater distance from home. In this new setting, teachers and classmates will change as many as six or seven times a day. This constant shifting creates formidable barriers to the forma- tion of stable peer groups and close, supportive relationships with caring adults. The chances that young people will feel lost are enormous. Today, as young adolescents move from elementary to middle or junior high schools, their involvement with learning di- minishes and their rates of alienation, drug abuse, absenteeism, and dropping out begin to rise. The warning signals are there to see.rS

Despite the advice of pioneers like Briggs that educators should com- prehensively plan junior high schools as unique institutions before they built them, few did. Instead of providing a new model for the rest of the system, junior high schools appear to have been patterned on high schools. Why?

It is easier to copy another institution than to invent one from the ground up. Would-be innovative schools often come to resemble tradi- tional ones. The initial goals of the junior high school were ambiguous and the means of achieving them uncertain. Since the public provided tax dollars and children, educators were understandably concemed that the public-parents, school boards, students, as well as educators-per- ceive junior high schools as legitimate institutions. And what was the model of legitimacy, the jewel in the crown of American public educa- tion? The high school.re

Given their pedagogical goals, junior high educators might have pat- terned reforms on progressively-minded elementary school teachers, urho prided themselves on correlating different subjects, guiding individuals sensitively, and adapting instruction to stages of psychological develop- ment. It is rare, however, for policymakers to emulate less prestigious models, and elementary school teachers typically had less education and

71

rl lowcr sor'irrl stiur(lirUl tlrrrrr higlr sclrtxrl tt,irclrcr.s. (icnclt.r. lri;rs nr,r_y also Iurvc ;,1;ryt'..1 l l)1rrl . 'l'lrr,. rrt'lrrrrr t:lcnrcrrtary school was a wonran's world* too rluclr so, llrought mirny ntitlc educators, who argued that a feminized cr.rrriculr-rnr alienared the boys. To the men who dominated school district administration, the high school, with its male principal and mixed staff of men and women teachers, was a more authoritative model for the junior high school than was the grade school.ao

Practical organizational considerations also help explain why junior high schools came to resemble high schools. Until 1970 most junior high schools shared a building and teachers with the senior high school. To provide sharply different schedules, curriculum and teaching methods, programs of guidance, and exrracurricular activities for the junior and senior high students would have been cosrly and impractical. Most of these junior-senior high schools were small, even after students from the upper elementary grades flowed into the lower division of the junior-sen- ior high school.

Although junior high schools may have had some distinctive hallmarks, like courses giving vocarional and personal guidance, for the most part they followed the standard procedures of the high schools. The experi- ence of a seventh-grade boy in the Hamilton, Massachusetts, junior-sen- ior high school in L942 illustrates common pracrices at that time. He was required to take a course in "occupations" and dutifully wrote a repofi on making a career in the navy. But the academic courses were simpler versions of what the high school students studied. Since the school was small-about 180 students-all of his teachers also taught senior high courses in the subjects the seventh-graders pursued: English, science, social studies, mathematics, manual training, and gym. Exrracurricular life also mixed the junior and senior high students. He and his seventh- grade classmates went with high school students to varsity baseball and basketball games, attended assemblies and dances, and participated in clubs. After having been the giants of rhe elementary school as sixth- graders, they were downgraded to the status of midgets in the high school, but they were ar last pan of the adolescent cukure in rhe high school. Townspeople agreed that a "real school" for teenagers was one that had the emblems, ceremonies, and patterns of instruction of a high school.al

Most junior high schools did not turn out to be basically different from high schools, as advocates had originally hoped. Reformers did identify, howeveq some problems with which educators are srill contending, One is how to smooth the educational transition for students as they move berween two quite different institutional environmenrs: from the self-

74

contaitrctl lrriutru'y (l:rssr(xlrn rr rr srrr:rll sclrrrol to a multitutlc ol dillerent classcs ancl teaclrcrs irr ;r t'lrrtivt'ly large high school. Another is how to take a developmerrtal approach to teaching and learning academic sub- jects and how to adapt the school to the social, vocational, ethical, and health needs of young adolescents. \XZhile reformers have lamented the gap between the goals and the practices of junior high schools (and their close cousins now cailed middle schools), they have nonetheless focused attention on these problems and encouraged educators to find solu- tions.42

Some of the changes pioneered in progressive junior high schools did spread both to other middle grade schools and upward and do',vnv/ard in the system. One reason for this diffusion was that many teachers began their secondary careers in junior high schools and imported practices such as team teaching and cross-disciplinary curriculum into the high school. The notion that teachers should offer more guidance to help adolescent students through times of turmoil-a key tenet of junior high schools-spread to high schools across the country. Changes moved downward in the system as well; elementary schools came to employ more specialist teachers for students in the upper grades.

Although the junior high school did not become distinctly different from the high school, and although it came to be seen as a particularly troubled part of the American educational system, it did sponsor changes that became hybridized in various ways. Today, junior high and middle schools are the site for numerous reforms that may also become more widely diffused: attempting to create "small communities for learning"; correlating instruction in different subjects; delegating more decision making to teams of teachers; and paying more attention to the emotional and physical health of students.4l

The pioneer kindergarten leaders and the founders of the junior high school shared some common convictions as reformers. They were sharply, even passionately, citical of the rigidity of the existing public school system and claimed that it laid waste young lives. They focused on a specific age group. Th.y believed that the regular schools were so pooq and the rwo age groups so in need of special attention, that it was essential to create new educational institutions, not simply to remodel the old system. At the same time, they were not isolationist; they hoped that their reforms would over time transform the rest of schooling. Through a process of institutional assimilation, the kindergarten and the junior high school ended up resembling the primary and high school grades above them. The advocates of kindergartens and junior high schools did not transform the system, but they did focus attention on

l5

.{

Hou Schools Change Reforns

serious problems and experimented with pracices that rippled through corners of the traditional pattern of schooling.

Interactions of Reforms with Reforms

Educational reformers may have wanted to wipe the institutional slate clean and start again, but that has rarely happened. Instead, reforms have tended to layer, one on top of another. The evolution of schools is in part the story of the interactions between these layers of change, whether they are deposited at lengthy intervals or accumulate in rapid succession. To ask what prior reforms do to reforms suggests another way of thinking about what schools do to reforms. Sometimes new reforms have merged well with past reforms; sometimes they have been incompatible. To explore the interactions befween reforms, we look at two cases: the long history of attempts to transform the govemance of schools in New York City and in the last decade the staccato beat of reforms designed to raise academic achievement.44

Gouerning Neu York Scbools

New Yorkers have a long history of rrying to reform their schools by reshaping the system of governance. Some have been convinced that centralization offered the one best system, others that the path of pro- gress led to decentralization. But each time that they attempted to change governance, they confronted layers of institutional experience and vested interests left by previous reforms.4'

Elite reformers in the 1890s thought governance was enrirely too decentralized. They had a simple formula: centralization and expert management. Impressed by the consolidation of control in business and the increasing influence accorded to experts in most professions, they wanted to rid the city of ward school committees, create a small and businesslike cenral board, and delegate the running of rhe schools to experts. With centralizarion and specialization of functions, in theory would come accountability-one could pin down the responsibility for success or failure. The organizational chan showed who was in charge of what.a6

In 1896 the mayor signed a bill that abolished the decentralized ward school committees. This did not bring about managcrial Nirvana, how- ever. T'he old school politicians on the largc cc:rrtrirl lrr:rlrl lrrovt:rl resil- ient.'I'hcy lcal>poitrtcti as supcrintctrrlt'nl .frrlrtr f,rs1t1'1, r,vlr,, ll:rrl lrt:ltl tl"rc

How Schools Change Reforns

position since 1879 and who was regarded as an incompetent "common man" by the elite reformers. Jasper, in turn, appointed fifteen of his cronies to key positions as assistant superintendents and supervisors; most of them had opposed central:zation. \When the five New York boroughs were united in 1898, the next superintendent, \Tiiliam Max- well, who had cut his teeth on Brooklyn school politics, proved to be an adroit manipulator of the large central board, \X/ith the ward boards out of the way, he managed to concentrate power in alarge central bureauc- racy which he then dominated.aT

\)[hen a new charter reduced the central board from forty-six to seven members n 1917, the school district was already on the way to being one of the largest centralized public bureaucracies in the world. By the 1960s the district employed more adminisrators than all of France. Few observers of this vast system would argue that centralization really brought, as advertised, accountabfity through specialization. Rather, the very complexity of the bureaucracy frustrated the plans of the elite reformers and provided staff with the famfiar excuse, "It's not my department." In centrally controlled schools, complained one critic, when you have a problem, the local administrator says "'I'm sorry, but that matter is completely out of my hands; you will have to go to headquarters.' But you never can get close enough to the man at head- quarters who makes the decisions, and you give up.D48

In the 1960s came a frontal assault on the centralized management of the New York schools. Angered by the glacial pace of racial integration and convinced that blacks deserved the chance to direct their own education, activists called for community conrol of schools. lX/hat re- sulted was not the local control they wanted but thirty-two "decentral- ized" districts, each as big as a medium-sized city. Community control was a basic challenge to the existing form of governance and was op- posed by the newly powerful teachers' union as well as by incumbents at headquarters. The political compromise of thirty-two enormous dis- tricts satisfied few people. Critics complained that the new district boards and sets of administrators simply added a nev/ layer of bureaucracy to an already top-heavy system. Many advocates of local participatory de- mocracy thought the plan was a fraud. Within a few years, citizens rarely bothered to vote for these new school boards.ae

Alongside the home-grown layers of control and bureaucracy have sprung Lrp ncw positions spawned by dozens of new programs and tnandatcs ct'c'atctl lry the federal governmer]t and New York state. These ploclrrcctl still rrrolt'rrri<l-lcvcl atltnitristrirlot's irl tlrc Il0 Livingston Strcet

I l,,tt, ,\,1,,,,,1t ( .lttrttt.,' lia'forrttt

Ircraclquarters t() sul)ervisc, c()olclinate, ol' obscure ther irrcorrsistcncies in thesc progranrs aiured at dilferent categories of students. Accounting to state and federal officials became a bureaucratic art form.'o

\,Xtren a new chancellor, Joseph A. Fernandez, arrived in New York in 1990 to administer the school district, he found it was not clear who was in charge, if anyone. His office windows were diny, so he called an engineer to clean them. Sorry he learned, by conract the engineers cleaned windows only once a year. When he asked his secretary to order highlighting pens, he was informed that delivery would take four weeks. It was unclear just what u/ere the prerogatives of the thirty-two decen- tralized school boards. Only by negotiating with the principals' union could he change a policy that gave principals, in effect, a tenured fiefdom in a particular building.'l

The interactions of attempted reforms in governance in New York City produced a complexity in decision making that only Rube Goldberg could appreciate. Far from being either an efficiently centralized system or a fully decenralized one, the New York district illustrates how suc- cessive reforms over time have produced the "fragmented centralization" found in many disticts today.52

Rai s i n g Acade rnic Ach ieu em en t

The complexity of govemance in the Ne,ur York City schools is in pan the product of a century of interactions of reforms. In the decade from 1983 to 1993, a much shorter time span, reformers adopted various strategies to increase the academic achievement of students. \When one approach to reform did not appear to work, innovators quickly turned to alternatives but generally left the original reform laws and layers of rules and regulations in place. As a result, exhortations for change and mandated practices often worked at cross-purposes. "!(e are asked to reinvent schools, to break the mold," complained a cenmal office admin- isffator, "and they put a moat of mandates around us. It's like putting on handcuffs and leg irons and saying climb Mt. Everest." Confronted with contrary reform demands, practitioners sought refuge through strategies of accommodation, resistance, and hybridization. [n the proc- ess, schools changed reforms quite as much as reforms changed schools.s]

In the mid-1980s, responding to the "crisis" announced by A Nation at Risk, the states promulgated more educational laws and regulations than they had generated in the previous twenty years. The major goal of the legislation was to promote educational "excellence," and the target waslazy students and incompetent teachers. 'l'hc rcnrc.ly was Mnre.' more

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r.lltys,rtrtl ltottts,,1 ,,,1,,,,,1tt,1,, nrol( ir(,t,lt'tttic c()tll'scs, llt()l('llll('llli()l) t() "lrasics," lrr()l('(li\( rrililr.rlilrli slilrr(liil(ls Ior cvaluittirrg arrrl cottllrcttsrrtitlg, tcachcrs, n)()l'c stlu)(lilr'.lizt'cl tr^sting o1 pupil achievement, rnore elaborate rcporting of test rcsults by local districts to state officials. The state-man- clated model of reform in the 1980s, Richard E Elmore wrote, relied on "standardization, central bureaucratic control, and externally imposed rules as a means of controlling the performance of schools."'4

To the degree that these 1980s state reforms sought an intensif.cation of what already existed, practitioners found compliance relatively straightforward. From the middle 1970s onward, teachers had been under pressure to teach the "basics" and to raise students' scores on standardized tests. They already were familiar with drills and other rote methods of teaching the discrete skills and facts measured by minimum competency examinations. Years of sffess on the so-called basics gave teachers a kit of tools to use to comply with the neu/ state mandates.55

But many teachers were ambivalent or hostile toward required state- wide testing, as the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach- ing found in its survey of tl,'5OO teachers. Indeed, two scholars who investigated the local impact of such programs called their study "State- wide Testing and Local Improvement: An Oxymoron?" The teachers they interviewed generally believed that the tests "offered few benefits for students, particularly in terms of providing additional information . . . to determine which students could be better served." In a state where the tests carried high stakes for students and public opinion, districts showed "a single-minded devotion to specific, almost 'gamelike'ways to increase the test scores." Teachers reported "a decreased reliance on their professional judgment in instructional matters, increased time demands, more staff reassignments, greater pressure, more paperwork, and height- ened concern about liability"-but not better results for students as a result of all the stress.56

\X/hen educators view reform demands as inappropriate, they are skiiled in finding ways to temper or evade their effects. They may exclude low-achieving pupils from the state examination. They may respond to a longer school day by extending the time between ciasses. They may raise grades for students in danger of violating the no-pass, no-play rule in athletics. They may put new labels on old courses to appear to comply rvith new academic requirements. When it becomes apparent that enor- mous numbers of students may be failing promotional or graduation examinations, thus increasing the likelihood of even more drop-outs, cducators may adjust the cut-off points on the tests.57

Alth<rugh rlar.rclating stiffer state stanclarcls to create "excellence" gen-

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rl crillc(l tlclt,rrsivc orgirrriz.irtiorral rnarrcrrvcr.s o[,this sort, stu(lics ol imple- rrrcntirtiorr rlitl slrow rt lcast routine compliance with the strategy of intensifying existing practices in academic instruction. The results of this approach, sometimes called "the first wave of reform,, of the l9g0s, proved generally disappointing, however. The Secretary of Education,s wall charts comparing the performances of the states and the achieve- ments of the United States with those of other nations seemed to show that top-down mandates were not producing the dramatic changes re- formers sought.'8

Could the state mandate educational excellence by top-down regula- tions? In their study of the implemenrarion of state reforms in the 19g0s, Thomas B, Timar and David L. Kirp say no; excellence cannot be coerced. At best, laws and mles might create some necessary but not suf6cient conditions under which competent and caring teaihers and intellectually curious students might flourish. But legal mandates can have negative unintended consequences as well: they compel responses, yet the^result may be compliance of a kind that actually dampens excel- lence.J9

As faith in top-dourn srate mandares to raise academic achievement waned among policy efires, a new catchword became fashionable in educational reform: "restructuring." It is by no means clear what the term means, though its currency among business people active in school reform may reflect their own experience in "restructuring,, corporations. A colleague who discusses education reform with business executives says that when she describes the everyday realities of life in classrooms, their eyes glaze oveq but when she mentions "restructuring," they come alive.60

It is no accident that a uague word has also become a uogue word. Elmore writes that "the theme of restructuring schools can accommodate a variety of conceptions about what is problematical about American education, as well as a variety of solutions," people regard restructuring as a synonym for the market mechanism of choice, or teacher profession- ahzation and empowerment, or decentralization and school siie marrage- ment, or increased involvement of the parents in their children,s education, or national standards in curriculum with tests to match, or deregulation, or new forms of accountability, or basic changes in curricu- lum and instruction, or some or all of these in combination. But under- lying most conceptions of restructuring is the goal of raising academic achievement.6l

Proposals for resrrucuring go every which way. In l9g9 when presi- dent Bush and the fifty governors assembled ar Charlotresville pro-

80

clairrrctl tltt' trr'r'tl lor ", lr',rr, rr,rtrorr;rl 1,t'r'lortrrirtrcc 11oals" rrrrrl "tlctrrilctl stratcgics" lirt' tr':rt lrrtrli llrost' trrlgt'ts, tlrcy wcrc rccomurcrrding a policy that would prcviotrsly lrirvc bccu anathema-a national curriculum (it was not so long ago that over a hundred members of Congress voted to call the U.S. Commissioner of Education the Commissar of Education). One wonders how that ardent states rights advocate Thomas Jefferson might have reacted when they called their statement "A Jeffersonian Compact." With President Bush declaring that "rhe American people are ready for radical reforms," the President and governors also called for "decenralization of authority and decision-making responsibility ro the school site, so that educators are empowered to determine the means for accomplishing the goals and to be held accountable for accomplishing them."62

So national goals and curriculum standards, presumably to be followed by some form of national assessments, are to be coupled with school site management of the learning process. Teachers are to be told what to teach but not how to teach it, and they are responsible for achieving those goals. Under the new conventional wisdom in school governance, school district administrators and school board members, once consid- ered a bastion of local control, have become suspect-to many modern reformers, part of the problem and not pan of the solution. It is not clear what role school districts should play in the combined top-down and bottom-up version of "restructuring" or what has become known, alter- natively, as "systemic reform."6l

As diagnoses of problems and proposed solutions have piled on top of each other during the decade from 1983 to 1991, most of them emanating from policy elites, educators have been caught in the middle of interactions between reforms. Many policymakers have lost faith in the power of state mandates to improve teaching and learning, but the laws and regulations mostly remain on the books and along with them a continuing concern about audits and noncompliance,e

Elmore sees a fundamental inconsistency in the notion that "system- wide change will occur by lodging greater responsibility with people who work in schools. " It appears contradictory he observes, "to argue that all schools will or should change in the same way as a resuh of school restructuring, since to do so, schools would all have to arrive spontane- ously at more or less the same solutions to highly complex problems of content, pedagogy, technology, organization, and governance. " 65

Some educators worry about keeping their jobs when they hear the word "restructuring," an understandable concern to anyone familiar with layoffs reported in the business pages of newspapers. But some reform-

nl

1!r.\rrct's ul)(lcl'sllut(l tlrt'wortl "r(.slnlcrut.iilll l() nt(.:Ut llr(itt(]r ilut()n()tlty iln(l lt(.w wrtys l() lcrrclr lor.rlccl>cr.urrtlcrstanclirrg.'l'lrat tr ter- lrrctatiorr ol tlrc conccl)t contains tlrc scecls of a social movement among scholars and teachers to spread ,,vhat many call ,,constructivist,' (oi neo-progressive) pedagogy. This straregy to improve academic achieve- ment has the potential of actually changing insrruction in ways that teachers themselves can adapt to rheir own pedagogical histories and ro theit own circumstances.6

The implementation of a constructivist program of ,,teaching for un- derstanding" in marhematics in Califomia illustrares that reachers do not start from scratch in putting pedagogical reforms into practice. Such efforts, David K. Cohen and Deborah Loewenberg Ball poinr out, always take piace within a contexr framed by previous reformi: ,,the new Cali- fornia math framework is part of an infatuation with higher order think- ing and teaching for understanding that began to grip Americans in the late 1980s. But between the mid-1970s and the mid-19g0s Americans had been flailing schools for flabby reaching and sagging Standardized Apti- tude Test (SAT) scores." For a time, policy and practic. focused on direct teaching methods designed to raise studentsi scores on standardized tests; they stressed "accuracy and convergent thinking,, that would lead to the right answer. The new framework, by contrast, encouraged diver- gent thinking and understanding "big marhematical icleas.,, \)7as rhe stage set for confusion and conflict for the teachers expected to carry out the new math?57

Although Cohen and Ball "rhought that there was a real conflicr here,, between the didactic and constructivist approaches, they discovered that in practice teachers found ways ro blend the new and the old, perceiving the demand for understanding and cooperative work ,,through the lens of older policies thar srressed leaming skills and facts.,, tnitially it seemed odd," they comment, "but upon reflection it made sense teachers are busy and engaged actors, who must make their classrooms work: To do so, they must balance all sorts of contrary tendencies.,, Policymakers may "ignore the pedagogical past,,, but teachers and stu- dents cannot.68

Reflections

Reformers who adopt a rarional planning mode of educational reform sometimes expect that they will improve schools if they design their policies correctly. They may measure success by fidelity to plan, by

I

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rvltt'llrt't lrlt'rh'tt'nrrr('(l ;i,,.r1., ,u( nr( r, ,rr,,l Iry lotrgcvity. Srrclr rr lt.t'lrtrtr ct'ittic lttrtl lolr tlorvtr ;rl)lrlo r( lr, lr,,rr'. r.,,'t, sliglrts tltc ttratty rvays irt wlriclr schools shapt: tclolrrrs :rrrtl tt':rt lrr.'rs t'rrrlrloy thcir "wisdonr ol lrrircticc" to produce 1>cdagogical hybrids. Innovations never enter e<lucational institutions with the previous slate wiped clean. The business leaders who today advocate restructuring and decentralization are trying to undo the defects of the centralized systems endorsed by business leaders almost a century ago. Rational planners may have plans for schools, and may blame practitioners if they think that the plans are not properly imple- mented, but schools are not wax to be imprinted.

For the most part, reforms have become assimilated to previous pat- terns of schooling, even though they may, like the kindergarten and junior high school, have inserted alternative practices into the work of schools. Reforms have rarely replaced what is there; more commonly, they have added complexity. \Mhen reforms have come in staccato suc- cession, they often have brought incoherence or uncomfortable tensions. They have unsettled the balance between different forms of decision making. They have introduced progressive notions of meeting the devel- opmental needs of each individual student in a sysrem geared to batch- processing. They have made new demands of dme and effon on heavily burdened teachers.

Since schools do change reforms, often in unforeseen ways, what might be a sensible strategy for people who want to improve education where it counts the most, in classroom instruction? \We have suggested fieating policies as hypotheses and encouraging practitioners to create hybrids suited to their context. Instead of being ready-made plans, reform poli- cies could be stated as principles, general aims, to be modified in the light of experience, and embodied in practices that vary by school or even by classroom.

There are potential problems here. Is accountability lessened if policies are hypothesesT Is there a danger of producing eclectic, almost random hybrids? If reform were an atomistic process occurring in solitary class- rooms, the answer could be yes in both cases. But if teachers work collaboratively with each other and with policy advocates, sharing goals and tactics, supporting each other in assessing progress and surmounting obstacles, then such an approach to school improvement could work better than mandates from above. It could produce what Milbrey V. Mclaughlin andJoan E. Talbert call an "integrated reform strategy [ofl seeking policy coherence at the classroom core, in the everyday interac- tions of students and teachers around content."('e