Annotate this passage please

4 At-Risk Students or At-Risk Schools?

My goal in this chapter is to provide a comprehensive coverage of the social construction of the “at-risk” term,1 a deficit thinking notion. I do so by organizing this discussion around four sections.

Historical Origins of the At-Risk Notion

Laosa (1984) notes that in every epoch over the past four centuries, specific populations of children have been determined to be “at-risk” for having prob- lems. These groups comprised children, for example, who had severe diseases, physical handicaps, mental retardation, and emotional disturbances. Such groups also included children deemed delinquent, antisocial, indigent, neglected, illegitimate, abused, and destitute.2 As Laosa comments, such children identified at risk (then and now) “thus become a major focus of social concern and public responsibility” (p. 1). A good historical example of this concern for children at risk is what transpired during the U.S. colonial period with the Puritans. A major societal task involved the insurance of children’s salvation, typically via the acts of “baptism or conversion” (Wollons, 1993, p. x). Indeed, adults considered children’s salvation to be a high priority. Wollons comments:

Puritans considered children to be depraved from birth, and the child at risk was one who might not ultimately find a home with God. While risks to children’s health were high, control over a child’s health was minimal, making salvation an even greater imperative. Insuring salvation was the responsibility of the parents; fathers, as a matter of law and custom, had absolute authority over the child and were responsible for instilling discipline, obedience, and self-denial in the child, all essential to a child’s ultimate salvation.

(p. x)

Another useful framework for understanding the historical contexts or fore- runners of the modern at-risk construct is offered by Swadener (1990) who identifies the etiological frames for the term in a number of disciplines. These include: special education, child welfare, sociology, social work, medicine and public health, early childhood education, developmental psychology, de- mography, and economics. In her article, Swadener (1990) focuses on three of

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these disciplines. Next, I provide a synopsis of each of these three disciplines’ contributions in shaping the construct of at risk.

Medical and Public Health

As Swadener (1990) notes, it appears that this model—sometimes referred to as the “epidemiological model”—is the most conspicuous and straightforward (also, see Richardson, Casanova, Placier, & Guilfoyle, 1989). This framework involves themes, for example, as: kindergarten screenings; epidemiology of dis- orders during childhood; health and nutrition programs for the poor; medical intervention for hyperactivity; immunizations against specific contagious dis- eases. Swadener (1990) remarks that the anchoring of the at-risk notion in a medical model focuses on “prevention, early intervention, and developmental screenings” (p. 22). A medical example she provides regarding the intervention for academically at-risk students is Operation Head Start, an early childhood education program established for low-SES children (particularly of color) in the 1960s War on Poverty. Deficit thinking helped drive these initial early education programs, also viewed as the compensatory education strategy. Pearl (1991, p. 285) notes:

The dominant theoretical explanation for disproportionate school fail- ure of the poor and the minority was “accumulated environmental deficit”—that is, students entered school with a build-up of handicaps incurred in early formative years that would be irreversible unless sig- nificant action was taken when children were very young. . . . If, however, intervention begins early enough the child can recover from the lack of intellectual stimulation at home and the dearth of language. . . . The compensation for the deficits that are hypothesized to have occurred before a child enters school results in the leveling of the playing field giving everyone an equal chance at a desirable future.

Swadener (1990) comments that Head Start and similar early intervention strategies sought to prevent “later school failure (anticipated ‘disease’) through an early ‘shot in the arm,’ academically and socially speaking” (p. 22).

Child Psychology and Early Education

This theme is somewhat related to the medical and public health model in that young children at risk remain a focus. Yet, the child psychology and early education model tends to focus on intervention, whereas the medical model places greater emphasis on prevention. Swadener (1990) comments that the former discipline’s historical etiological bases of at risk are, for example: the 1860s German-style kindergartens,3 compulsory schooling, and compensatory education. Swadener (1990) remarks that a number of scholars who have writ- ten on early childhood education and these historical developments frequently focus on the powerful role of the incipient reformers (“social ameliorists”)

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in regard to the establishment of infant schools, early public schools, and kindergartens for low-SES and immigrant children. These social ameliorists centered on “child saving” and, as such, formed the basis of the “at-risk” construction.

Child Welfare and Social Policy

It is this category of historical contributions of the construction of the at-risk notion that has the closest connection to the deficit thinking theme of the pres- ent book. Swadener (1990) mentions that it is in this discipline, which is shaped by sociopolitical forces (e.g., social work; economics; political science; demography), that “the deficit model, [italics added] child-saving slogans, recurrent references or insinuations of cultural deprivation, and labeling and analysis of a growing number of family and community risk variables have been most thoroughly articulated, analyzed, and promoted” (pp. 24–25). Some of the historical roots of the at-risk notion Swadener lists are: forced school segregation of Black and Mexican American students (Klarman, 2004; Kluger, 2004; Ogletree, 2004; Valencia, 2008, chapter 1); language suppression of Mexican American students (Valencia, 2008, chapter 4); culture of poverty influences on the War on Poverty (chapter 3, present book); the “culturally deprived” and dysfunctional families of the 1960s (Pearl, 1997b); emphasis on child abuse and neglect; welfare reform; focus on teenage pregnancy and drug abuse. Swadener (1990) also notes that an anti-deficit thinking paradigm became a part of the at-risk discourse of the child welfare and social policy discussions. The “institutional deficiency model” articulated via the work of heterodox scholars provided forums challenging the deficit thinking nature of the at-risk construct. Such scholars have called for comprehensive, systemic schooling transformations.4

The 1980s Excellence Movement: Framers and Critics

Although the “excellence movement” for U.S. school reform can be traced to the 1980s, one has to go back a decade to understand that some reform con- tinuity flowed from the 1970s to the 1980s. Falling standardized test scores characterized a number of students’ (particularly low-SES pupils of color) academic performance throughout the 1970s (Airasian, 1988; Pipho, 1986). Beginning in the late 1970s, reformers advanced a wide range of improvements as responses to the perceived need to improve educational quality in the coun- try. The strategies that surfaced as the winners can be characterized best as “new forms of standardized testing and accountability programs” (Airasian, p. 305). Given that a growing number of assessment programs at the state level, coupled with additional state laws that focused on minimal student and teacher competency, led to no perceptible upward trend in achievement patterns in the 1970s, the seed of the modern epoch of the excellence movement began to germinate—eventually maturing in the early 1980s (Pipho).

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Ground zero for the 1980s excellence movement can be traced to August 26, 1981, when Terrell E. Bell, Secretary of Education (1981–1984) during the middle period of President Ronald W. Reagan’s administra- tion, created the National Commission on Excellence in Education. David P. Gardner, University of Utah President and University of California President-Elect, served as Chair of the 18-member Commission. Six particular charges comprised the Commission’s charter, calling for:

• Assessing the quality of teaching and learning in our Nation’s public and private schools, colleges, and universities;

• comparing American schools and colleges with those of other advanced nations;

• studying the relationship between college admissions requirements and student achievement in high school;

• identifying educational programs which result in notable student suc- cess in college;

• assessing the degree to which major social and education changes in the last quarter century have affected student achievement; and

• defining problems which must be faced and overcome if we are suc- cessfully to pursue the course of excellence in education.

(National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, pp. 1–2)

The Commission’s charter instructed it to pay specific attention to teenagers in high school.

On April 26, 1983, the Commission released its brief, but powerful report, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). The authors of the report intended it to serve “as much as an open letter to the American people as it is a report to the Secretary of Education” (p. 6). Briefly into its text, the widely circulated report uses a war metaphor in a scathing attack on contemporary U.S. education:

Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. . . . We report to the American people that while we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the well-being of its people, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur—others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war [italics added]. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even

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squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

(National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, p. 5)

In doing its work, the Commission relied, for the most part, on informa- tion from five sources: (a) 40 commissioned papers from experts with diverse educational expertise (pp. 44–48); (b) testimony, for example, by students, teachers, parents, administrators, scholars, and public officials given at a number of meetings with the full Commission present—that is, panel discus- sions, public hearings, and a symposium; (c) current analyses of problems in education; (d) letters from concerned administrators, teachers, and citizens; (e) scrutiny of noteworthy educational programs and promising educational approaches.

In A Nation at Risk, the commissioners’ conception of “risk” has a strong global economic theme, underscoring that risk is not only due to Japanese technology in making more efficient automobiles than U.S. manufacturers, and not only because the South Koreans have built the most proficient steel mill, and not only due to the development of superior German machine tools. In addition, these technological developments signal a redistribution of educated capability throughout the world. The report explains: “Knowledge, learning, information, and skilled intelligence are the new raw materials of international commerce and are today spreading throughout the world as vigorously as mir- acle drugs, synthetic fertilizers, as blue jeans did earlier” (p. 7). As such, the commissioners note that if the U.S. is to maintain and improve its slight com- petitive edge in global markets, the nation must make a commitment to invest- ing in and reforming its educational system for the type of learning that is a requirement for success in the “information age” the country is entering (p. 7). The report states that the time has come for producing extremely skilled work- ers in recently developed fields, such as computer knowledge, laser technology, robotics, and radical technological transformations in many occupations (e.g., medical science; food processing; health care; energy production).

In order to attain the above technological advances, A Nation at Risk calls for “excellence” in the educational system, which the report defines to mean sev- eral interrelated aspects. First, at the individual learner level, one must perform at the upper boundary of personal limits—not only in school, but in the work- place. Second, at the school or college level, goals must be set at high expec- tations for success. Third, at the society level, policies must be adopted to help prepare its citizens for skill development that will be utilized to respond to the challenges of a world that is rapidly changing. In addition to the goal of excel- lence, the report does devote some discussion to the “twin goal” of “equity” (i.e., equitable educational treatment of all, regardless of race or class). Such

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discourse, however, amounts to lip service. The major goal of A Nation at Risk is to develop a “Learning Society” in which minimum standards are no longer tolerable, and schools and colleges must strive to become of exceedingly great merit to reverse the current decline in technological supremacy. This failure by the Commission to discuss equity issues in greater detail will be covered later.

In light of the commissioners’ conclusion that educational performance was on the decline due to “disturbing inadequacies in the way the educational process itself is often conducted” (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, p. 18), the report proposed five recommendations for reform. A common theme that runs through the proposals is an emphasis on quantity—more is better. In brief, the recommendations call for changes in:

Content

A Nation at Risk comments that high school curricula have been transformed to a “homogenized, diluted, and diffused” program of study that no longer maintains a principal purpose. The report asserts that students in large num- bers have drifted “from vocational and college preparatory programs to ‘gen- eral track’ courses” (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, p. 18). As such, the report recommends that high school requirements for graduation include the “Five New Basics” (i.e., specified number of years in English, mathematics, science, social studies, and computer science; p. 24).

Standards and Expectations

The report notes, for example, that homework has decreased, the time in class spent on various classes (i.e., chemistry; biology) is less than that in other industrialized countries, “minimum competency” examinations have become the “maximum” in expectations, and publishers have “written down” text- books to continually lower reading levels (pp. 20–21). To counter these con- cerns, A Nation at Risk recommends that the educational pipeline adopt more demanding and measurable standards and increased standards for student academic performance and conduct. Furthermore, institutions of higher education need to raise their admission requirements.

Time

Somewhat related to the above concern involving declines in time spent on learning, the report points out that U.S. schools, in comparison to schools in other industrialized countries (e.g., England), provide considerably less time on school work, homework, and development of study skills. To correct these deficiencies, the report recommends that substantially more time be allocated to learning the New Basics. Thus, this means that more effective utilization is needed for the school day, and a longer school day or school year should be implemented.

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Teaching

A Nation at Risk claims that teachers in U.S. schools are drawn from the bottom ranks of graduating students (both in high school and college), teachers are underpaid, and they are poorly prepared in substantive courses (at the expense of “methods” courses), and severe shortages exist in fields such as science and mathematics. In light of these problems, the report recommends a number of proposals—such as: higher standards for admission to teacher preparation programs; the development of career ladders; involvement of master teachers in designing teacher education programs and in supervising beginning teachers in the classroom, and the implementation of merit-based salary increases.

Leadership and Fiscal Support

The report recommends that local principals and superintendents play critical roles in garnering community support for the Commission’s proposals. Fur- thermore, the primary responsibility for school financing and governance should lie in the hands of school board members and local and state officials. Also, the federal government’s task is to take on the primary responsibility to pin down the national interest in education and provide the ultimate leadership to address the concerns raised in A Nation at Risk.

In sum, A Nation at Risk constitutes the beginning of the modern era of the excellence movement, with its strong message for reform along the lines of schooling increases (e.g., more: course requirements; homework; time for learning; qualified teachers), and higher standards. The 1983 release of A Nation at Risk triggered a rash of concurring national reports on school reform by, for example, the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, the Committee for Economic Development, the Twentieth Century Fund, and the National Governors’ Association. By year’s end in 1984, 30 national reports had been produced (Cross, 1984). Lytle (1990, p. 199) comments that:

All of these reports began with the premise that the continuing health of our economy and the preservation of the American way of life were contingent on more effective schooling and a development of our human resources. All used Japan and Western Europe as contrasts to illustrate the shortcomings of American education.

Very soon after the framers released the national reports on school reform, a number of states (e.g., Arkansas; California; Georgia; Texas) joined the excel- lence movement with comprehensive legislative mandates, with barely any facet of schooling untouched (Pipho, 1986). Furthermore, over 300 task forces in a number of states had been organized in order to study public education concerns (Cross, 1984). These state reform pursuits had at least two principal themes: more rigorous standards for student academic performance and greater recognition and increased standards for teachers. By 1986, 45 states and the District of Columbia had implemented higher standards for students

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(e.g., for high school graduation), and 35 states had required testing for the initial certification of teachers (Pipho). These numerous reports of the 1980s excellence movement did not go uncontested. Advocacy groups for poor stu- dents and students of color, in particular, quickly followed with a number of reports criticizing the “mainstream” reports. I turn next to these critiques.

Barriers to Excellence: Our Children at Risk (National Coalition of Advocates for Students, 1985) surfaced as the earliest of the advocacy documents.5

Co-chairs Harold Howe II (Commissioner of Education in the 1960s in Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration) and Marion Wright Edelman (President of the Children’s Defense Fund) presided over public hearings for 15 days in 10 cities during 1983–1984. In its first page of text, Barriers to Excellence chal- lenges the positioning of the at-risk notion—locating it from a modifier identi- fying a nation that has lost its technological dominance and superiority, to a modifier of failing schools.

Our study began with a different perspective from other recent efforts to understand and improve public education in the United States. Our approach was to determine the changes needed in the schools by examining the problems of young people whose learning is hampered by schools that do not serve them adequately; by expectations on the part of educators that they will not or cannot succeed; by denial of access to special needs programs; by fiscal policies that limit educational services; and by inattention to the difficulties young people face in moving from school to work. Students in schools where these conditions exist are clearly “at risk” in our social and economic system [italics added].

(National Coalition of Advocates for Students, 1985, p. iv)

The language of Barriers to Excellence is unswervingly direct in its criticism of the educational system, asserting that discrimination and differential treat- ment vis-à-vis students abound in public schools—along the lines of class, race, culture, gender, and special education. The report also discusses various bar- riers to excellence, for example: inflexibility of school structure, abuses of abil- ity grouping and tracking, misuses of testing, narrowness of curriculum and teaching practices, lack of democratic governance, and lack of early childhood education programs.

In regard to recommendations for school reform, Barriers to Excellence strongly disagrees with the more the better theme of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). The former report asserts that the latter document’s reform proposals fail to address adequately the basic pedagogical and curriculum problems of the nation’s schools. Barriers to Excellence remarks that A Nation at Risk’s reform suggestions are misdirected:

For the most part, they are quantitative solutions that focus on the numbers of minutes of instructional time allowed and the numbers of

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credits for graduation required. But, in fact, the problems are qualitative. They have to do with the content being taught, as well as the process of teaching and learning that is going on during that “instructional time” or “credit hour.” Until the qualitative issues become central to the debate such reforms will be misdirected [italics added].

(National Coalition of Advocates for Students, 1985, p. 52)

As such, Barriers to Excellence focuses on systemic reform recommendations, including, for example, such aspects as follows among the report’s 14 goals: ample federal, state, and local funding of programs for low-SES children in order to minimize class discrimination; eliminating racially identifiable classes, programs, and schools; minimizing discrimination against language minorities (i.e., need to implement bilingual education programs and foster the value and importance of bilingualism); ending of rigid curriculum differentiation; implementing early childhood education programs.

A number of scholars have also critiqued the excellence movement of the 1980s. For example, Apple (1986) states that reports such as A Nation at Risk “are as much political as they are educational documents” (p. 175), with the intent of reconstructing a consensus over a partly broken educational system during the 1970s. This call, notes Apple, involved the using of language couched in the “common good” that seeks to provide something for everybody, but with particular emphasis on mobilizing the powerful to attain specified goals (as seen in A Nation at Risk). Apple remarks that the language of the excellence reports necessitates an analysis not particularly for their veracity, but in their “rhetorical use” (p. 175). In a similar vein, Stedman and Smith (1983) charac- terize the excellence reports as political documents in which polemics take the place of reason and empirical substantiation. The authors assert that “Rather than carefully marshalling facts to prove their case, they [the reports] present a litany of charges without examining the veracity of their evidence or its uses” (p. 176).6 Other critics of the excellence movement—Gitlin, Margonis, and Brunjes (1993)—comment that the blatantly top-down nature of the excellence reports focuses on raising standards so that those students who are already achieving success might perform even better. Another critique of A Nation at Risk and concurring reports is offered by Reyes and Valencia (1993).7 The authors assert that these reports make a number of questionable assumptions. For example, schools are marketplaces. That is, schools are conceptualized as markets where competition and choice would somehow take care of the problems experienced in schools. Another assumption is that schools are homogenous. The excellence movement assumes that all schools are alike, driven by the same structures and technology, and have few or no ties to the local communities that support them. Of course, this assumption flies in the face of the U.S. school reality. Schools are similar at the macrolevel but different within. These differences are determined by the community’s ability to provide

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the structural and technological means for their operation. Some schools have inadequate facilities, lower quality of laboratories, fewer incentives to motivate teachers to perform at higher levels, and fewer human resources to enhance the quality of curriculum and instruction than other schools.

One of the most interesting treatises on the excellence movement—and one that is particularly germane to the focus of the present book (i.e., deficit thinking)—is proffered by Frank Margonis in his article “The Cooptation of ‘At-Risk’: Paradoxes of Policy Criticism” (1992). Margonis explains that the term at-risk was first used by critics of the excellence movement.8 These critics sought to move educators and policymakers away from “the belief that edu- cational success and failure hinge primarily on individual effort” (Margonis, 1992, p. 343), a view popularized by excellence reforms. Critics contended that school failure was largely systemically based. Margonis further argues that the term was co-opted by the proponents of the excellence movement that it was first used to challenge. He claims that the co-optation of the at-risk notion has done the reverse of what critics of the excellence movement intended. That is, critics sought to use the term at-risk to demonstrate the short sightedness of the movement, arguing that standardization in curricula (tracking) and testing— coupled with large workloads of teachers—created insensitive and impersonal school environments and thus placed students in jeopardy for school failure. Nevertheless, excellence proponents won the semantic war over the termi- nology. As Margonis notes, “The educational goals embodied in the ideas of excellence became the standard, and students who could not reach these goals came to be at risk” (p. 344). Margonis further notes that the co-optation of the at-risk notion constitutes deficit thinking. He states:

The transformation of the concept at risk into a deficit notion has been accomplished as policymakers have conveniently neglected the account of institutional injustice that previously accompanied the term. What was an alternative to deficit thought—a way of blaming institutions rather than victims—has become a new and potentially more resilient version of deficit thinking [italics added]. The redefinition of at risk has occurred as the concept was appropriated by national reformers who have subordinated its meaning to an administrative agenda. Concerned with preparing a work force and preventing the enlargement of welfare rolls, national leaders have aggressively adopted the concept at risk as a means of identifying failure before it occurs and shaping students likely to fail into productive and dependable citizens.

(Margonis, 1992, p. 344)

Early At-Risk Discourse

In this and the following section (“Contemporary At-Risk Discourse”), I attempt to capture a scholarly sense of discussions about the at-risk discourse.

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My intent is not to provide a comprehensive review of this corpus of publica- tions. The literature base on at-risk students is immense, thus I seek to get a sense of how scholars, from 1983 to 2008, communicate their perspectives about the at-risk notion. My focus is to obtain an understanding of how scholars view academic risk—predominantly from a student-centered or a sys- temic perspective.

In early 2009, I undertook a search of the Education Resource Information Center (ERIC) database, the most extensive digital library of educational litera- ture in the world.9 I delimited the search to “at-risk students” and “academic achievement” keywords in order to focus on academic performance of at-risk students, and to avoid literature that centered on, for example, social com- petence of students (Luthar, 1991), newborns and older children at risk for later special education placement (Goldberg, McLaughlin, Grossi, Tytun, & Blum, 1992; Campbell, Goldstein, Schaefer, & Ramey, 1991), and risk factors for drug use among students (Vega, Zimmerman, Warheit, Apospori, & Gil, 1993). Furthermore, I delimited the search to school-age children and youths by using not “higher education or two year college students or college freshmen or college” keywords. The search results are presented in Figure 4.1.

From 1983 to 2008, the search produced 1,255 hits. The number of citations that appear during the first several years after the 1983 release of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) is scant. Figure 4.1 also shows that the number of at-risk student citations peaks between 1990 and 1993 (n = 341; 27% of total 1,255). From 1994 to 2008, the number of citations reaches a relative plateau, with a yearly average of close to 50. In regard to the “early” and “contemporary” periods of at-risk student citations, I arbitrarily make the break at the year 1999 for the trend analysis.

In the following discussion of the “Early At-Risk Discourse” period, I first focus on representative literature that views the at-risk notion from a

Figure 4.1 Number of At-Risk Student Citations (1983–2008).

Source: ERIC database.

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student-centered perspective. Then, I briefly cover examples of scholarly work of this period that offers a systemic point of view of school failure. In the 1989 edited book, Effective Programs for Students at Risk, Robert E. Slavin and con- tributors offer a number of discussions about programs the authors state, based on empirical evidence, are effective in improving academic achievement for students deemed at risk for school failure. These programs include, for example, effective preschool (Karweit, 1989a), kindergarten (Karweit, 1989b), and pullout programs (Madden & Slavin, 1989) for students at risk. At risk, by the way, is defined in one possible manner by Slavin (1989) as: “Students who are at risk are those who, on the basis of several risk factors, are unlikely to graduate from high school” (p. 5). Slavin (1989) also notes that included among these student risk factors are grade retention, low achievement, poor attendance, low SES, and attendance at schools with a substantial number of poor pupils. During the early at-risk discourse period, researchers frequently identified at-risk students via an inventory of factors believed to predispose some students for school failure. For example, Frymier and Gansneder (1989) report the results of the collaborative Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) Study of Stu- dents at Risk.10 The major assumption grounding the investigation was that students are at risk if they have the probability to fail—“either in school or life” (p. 142). In the PDK study, researchers collected data from participating stu- dents, teachers, and counselors, in which questions regarding 45 risk factors (suggested by previous studies) framed the interviews. Frymier and Gansneder report that of 22,018 students attending 276 schools, between 25% and 35% had a serious at-risk status—that is, “over the line” on 6 of the 45 factors, for example, having experienced grade retention, course failure, school suspen- sion, and having a language other than English as the primary spoken home language (other non-academic factors include drug abuse, sexual abuse, and pregnancy).

In sum, although the use of an inventory of indicators to identify at-risk students may have some utility in flagging pupils who have a probability of serious schooling problems, such a procedure is misdirected because it masks the presence of systemic bases of academic failure such as schools with inferior resources and unqualified teachers. Furthermore, given that at-risk students are concentrated among pupils of color, from poverty households, single- parent families, and immigrant populations, the at-risk inventory approach has the strong tendency to stereotype. As Levin (1992) notes, we must be cognizant that at-risk factors “are only indicators of at-risk populations rather than def- initions.” He continues by remarking that many students from these groups are not at risk for school failure, “and we must take care not to stereotype children from these populations in a mindless way that precludes their educational success” (p. 285).

Baker and Sansone (1990) conducted a dropout prevention program at an urban high school (N = 1,632 students; 75% White, 25% Black). The authors,

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with the assistance of school staff, identified 70 at-risk students via a number of typical indicators: cutting classes, failing grades, having drug or alcohol prob- lems, and exhibiting noncompliant behavior. Baker and Sansone developed and implemented four highly student-centered, authoritarian interventions, to wit: (a) individual accommodations (e.g., student contracts; sign-in system); (b) available school-level structures (e.g., a segregated homeroom for at-risk ninth graders; school-wide “sweeps” to investigate students’ location); (c) district-level structures (e.g., transfer to alternative schools); (d) community- level structures (e.g., liaison outreach with community groups, such as juvenile court, group homes, and drug and alcohol treatment). Baker and Sansone’s draconian interventions did not prove very successful, as 45% of the students prematurely left school (10 students dropped out at 17 years of age; records of 21 students could not be found).

Another example of scholars from the early at-risk discourse period who utilize inventories of at-risk indicators, as well as advocating student-centered interventions, is seen in Louis J. Kruger’s 1990 edited book, Promoting Success with At-Risk Students: Emerging Perspectives and Practical Approaches (Kruger, 1990a). In this volume, the contributors center on fixing at-risk students by proposing student-focused interventions, for example: behavioral self- management (Mace & Shea, 1990), contingency contracts (Kruger, 1990b), applied behavior analysis (Piersel & Lee, 1990), and reduction of academic related anxiety (Huberty, 1990). Still another example of student-centered construction of academic risk during the early at-risk discourse time frame is presented in Swanson (1991). She is rather explicit in her deficit thinking, remarking that the academic achievement problems of at-risk students are rooted in the cyclical nature of the life of low-SES families (reminiscent of the culture of poverty concept). That is, low-SES parents produce children who fail in school, and who in turn, beget children who also fail. Furthermore, Swanson asserts that a large number of Hispanic English-limited students have dis- abilities (she does not mention which type), and for such students, English has little usefulness in their everyday lives. Swanson also delves deeply into the deficit thinking claim that low-SES parents do not value education:

Many at-risk students today come from homes that do not have the same reverence for our institutions and desire for an education. Their parents do not have the same respect for teachers, and they don’t demand excellence in the schools or from their children. They don’t place work ahead of television, telephone, and hanging out. They don’t communi- cate to their children that educational achievement will pay big dividends in their lives. They don’t want to hassle their children about schoolwork and leave motivation to the schools. You bet it’s tough to teach under such conditions.

(Swanson, 1991, p. 74)

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At this juncture, I shift to representative coverage of scholars during the early at-risk discourse period who viewed academic risk from a systemic or structural analysis. This perspective is presented by a number of contributors in Barbara Z. Presseisen’s book, At-Risk Students and Thinking: Perspectives from Research (Presseisen, 1988a). For example, Presseisen (1988b) offers a cogent argument that students identified as at-risk certainly can improve and attain success. She maintains that the problems faced by such students are exogenous to the learner, rooted in the schools that are supposed to assist him or her to acquire knowledge and become competent. In rejecting genetic pathology and cultural deprivation models of deficit thinking, Presseisen (1988b) asserts that academic risk can be mitigated if interventions are based on research-based knowledge, and a shift by educators from a focus on the circumstances of students’ daily lives to a centering of what students can achieve. Mirman, Swartz, and Barell (1988)—authors of a chapter in Presseisen (1988a)—assert that schools must provide equal educational opportunity, teachers need to share control of power with their students, and schools must be restructured to allow teachers to become change agents in collaboration with their students.

Toward the end of the early at-risk discourse period, Beth B. Swadener and Sally Lubeck’s edited book appeared, Children and Families “at Promise”: Deconstructing the Discourse of Risk (1995a).11 At the time, the volume repre- sented the most comprehensive analysis and critique of the at-risk notion. Swadener and Lubeck (1995b) note that the at-risk concept is based on a deficit model, frequently taking the embodiment of blaming the victim in which the systemic societal practices of exclusion and oppression are ignored. That is, the use of the “at-risk” label is very troublesome because it is a classist, racist, ableist, and sexist term—a 1990s rendering of the 1960s cultural deficit frame- work that locates pathologies in the individual, family, and community, rather than focusing on institutional arrangements (e.g., White privilege; political conservatism; class stratification) that generate and perpetuate inequality. As is the case of deficit thinking in general, the notion of at risk fails to acknowledge the strengths, competencies, and promise of low-SES children and parents. The contributors in Swadener and Lubeck’s volume speak forcefully to this point of “at promise” regarding African American, Latino, Asian American, and American Indian children and their families.12

Contemporary At-Risk Discourse

Based on the data presented in Figure 4.1 (present chapter), mean calculations of the number of at-risk citations per year for the early at-risk discourse period (1983–1999) and for the contemporary at-risk time frame (2000–2008) are 50 and 46, respectively. As such, this is evidence that scholarly discourse concern- ing the at-risk notion had been fairly steady over the past 2½ decades. In this section, I cover representative contemporary scholarly at-risk discourse that

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proffers student-centered and systemically-based perspectives on the at-risk concept.

An example of a student-centered investigation of the contemporary at-risk discourse period is by Solberg, Carlstrom, Howard, and Jones (2007). The authors, in this non-intervention study, used a cluster analysis design to iden- tify at-risk youth in a predominantly low-income high school, the majority of students being of color (67% of the participants identified as Latino/Latina). Solberg et al. used five self-report measures (e.g., high school intrinsic moti- vation; exposure to violence; high school self efficacy) to classify five at-risk profiles (ranging from most vulnerable [high] to not-at-risk [low]). Sub- sequently, the authors used several measures (i.e., health status; high school stress; academic outcomes [GPA]; retention status) to examine differences between the cluster groups. Solberg et al. report that exposure to violence con- stituted the distinguishing feature in three of the five at-risk profiles. As is the case of other student-centered studies of academic risk, Solberg et al. did not include any systemic factors for study (e.g., teacher quality; school funding) in their investigation.

A number of contributors in Mavis G. Sanders’ edited volume, Schooling Students Placed At Risk (2000), offer systemic-based analyses of students put at risk for school failure. A. Wade Boykin (2000), who writes the Foreword, notes that the “at-risk” notion, which has long been used to label low-SES students of color, is undergoing a paradigm shift. He remarks that the label, a deficit conception, is gradually being viewed by advocates as students “placed at risk” for academic failure. Describing characteristics of an anti-deficit thinking perspective, Boykin notes:

Referring to students as at risk effectively locates the problem of schooling “inside” the children or in their putative problematic home and community circumstances. In this manner, students and their families are conceived to have afflictions that must be cured if positive schooling outcomes are to accrue. In defining the problem of schooling this way, the prescription most often is to repair the child or fix the family in some way.

(Boykin, 2000, p. xii)

Franklin (2000), contributor to Sanders’ (2000) volume, maintains that the epidemiological inventory model to discern academic risk—which has some utility in identifying student and familial features that make academic per- formance arduous—still when used alone focuses on individual risk and vul- nerability for school failure. On the other hand, Franklin advocates the use of an ecological framework that has the potential to recognize (a) families that foster at-promise youth (e.g., via inculcating favorable values about education; setting homework routines); (b) schools that foster at-promise youth (e.g., via teachers who are informed about the structures and systemic factors that shape urban communities and schools; a determined principal who helps set a school

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climate of high expectations); (c) communities that foster at-promise youth (e.g., via support systems developed by social service providers, churches, and businesses).

Another example of a publication in which some scholars proffer systemic analyses of the at-risk notion is the edited volume by Sam Stringfield and Deborah Land, Educating At-Risk Students: One Hundred-First Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (2002). Contributing to this volume, Land and Legters (2002, p. 3) assert:

Troubled by the classist and racist implications and potentially stigma- tizing effects of the cultural-deficit risk model implied by targeted compensatory education programs, educators and researchers welcomed the shift in focus away from individual student characteristics toward factors that characterize school systems and the political and economic contexts in which they operate.

In a similar vein, Padrón, Waxman, and Rivera (2002)—contributors to the Stringfield and Land book—comment that deficit frameworks used to examine academic risk focus on individual students and their families, instead of the circumstances that place such pupils at risk. Padrón et al., citing the work of Waxman (1992), note that certain aspects of “at-risk environments” are implicated in shaping school failure, such as: teachers’ low expectations for certain students (e.g., Latinos), student alienation, and unresponsive class- room practices of teachers.

One of the most recent publications on at-risk students is Saving Our Students, Saving Our Schools by Robert D. Barr and William H. Parrett (2008)—which appears to be a textbook for preservice teachers. The book’s subtitle is 50 Proven Strategies for Helping Underachieving Students and Improv- ing Schools, a discussion which takes up 92% of the book’s text pages. Each of the strategies—most of which are about 3–4 pages long and presented in a cookbook-like fashion—consists of a “Research” section (sans citations)13 and a “Take Action” section. It is difficult to understand Barr and Parrett’s perspec- tive on the at-risk notion. On one hand, the authors discuss a number of struc- tural factors implicated in how schools fail students and produce low academic achievement (factors such as: inequalities in school funding, grade retention, unsupportive teachers, and curricular tracking). Yet, at times, Barr and Parrett engage in deficit thinking. A case in point is seen in strategy #6 (“Work With The Externally Centered Student”). Here, the authors discuss how the “culture of poverty” predisposes people to be “externally centered” (see Conrath, 2001). Reminiscent of the pathology, fatalism, and hopelessness attributes ascribed to poor people (see chapter 3, present volume), Barr and Parrett (2008, p. 70) claim:

Children of poverty grow up being externally centered and believing that external events control their lives. They see no relationship between hard

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work, sacrifice, self-reliance, and success. These students often arrive at school with little or no concept of educational success and the reality that this success often depends on their efforts to conform to classroom procedures.

In regard to intervention for the “externally centered student,” Barr and Parrett (in the “Take Action” for strategy #6) provide some advice for preservice teachers. For example, “learn about the culture of poverty” and “help poor stu- dents understand the hidden rules of the middle class.” These two points are similar to the recommendations Ruby Payne gives (see chapter 3, present book), but Payne is not cited at all. In any event, how is a preservice teacher supposed to interpret Barr and Parrett’s book—from a systemic or deficit thinking lens?

At-Risk Schools

This section speaks to a major paradigm shift about the at-risk notion vis-à-vis students who are experiencing academic problems. An anti-deficit perspective asserts that it is morally unacceptable and scientifically indefensible to hold students and their parents accountable for academic success, if schools are structured in such ways that thwart optimal learning. I provide ample, valid data that numerous students are not at-risk for school failure, but they are placed at risk by schools that are organized along lines that make it very dif- ficult for many students to attain school success. The following discussion on “At-Risk Schools” covers three aspects regarding inequities in schools.

The Relation Between Teacher Quality and Student Academic Performance

A basic question is necessary to ask at the beginning of any discussion of at-risk schools: Is there a positive relation between the quality of teachers and student learning and academic performance? Substantial evidence exists to answer this query in the affirmative.14 Research investigations inform us that a number of teacher attributes have an instrumental role in this effect. The lowest perform- ing schools—compared to the highest performing schools—have considerably greater percentages of teachers: (a) not fully certified, (b) assigned to out-of- field classes, (c) with little experience, (d) with beginning employment status, (e) with higher turnover rates, and (f ) having failed certification examinations (Fuller, Carpenter, & Fuller, 2008). A solid example that demonstrates the posi- tive association between teacher quality and student academic achievement is seen in the recent investigation by Fuller et al., Teacher Quality & School Improvement in Texas Secondary Schools. Table 4.1 shows the results of one aspect of this comprehensive study of teacher quality. Fuller and associates examined the relation between six measures of high school teacher quality (e.g., teaching out-of-field; failure on certification tests) and the percentage of all students passing all Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) subtests, a state-mandated academic achievement battery.15

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Table 4.1 High School Teacher Quality, Turnover, and Certification Tests Performance by Student TAKS Performance

School Performance by Quintilea Difference

Teacher Quality Measure Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (Q5–Q1)

Teaching Out-of-Field Core Courses 26.2 21.4 19.2 15.6 13.4 −12.8**

English 23.2 17.7 16.5 12.1 11.7 −11.5** Mathematics 18.9 15.3 13.0 8.1 7.8 −11.1**

Science 42.2 32.9 29.7 24.8 19.8 −22.4** Social Studies 22.3 21.3 18.8 18.3 14.4 −7.9**

Not Fully Certified Core Courses 16.8 13.8 10.7 9.2 8.8 −8.0**

English 14.1 12.2 8.5 7.8 8.3 −5.8** Mathematics 17.5 14.0 9.9 9.1 9.8 −7.8**

Science 21.5 16.3 12.4 12.3 8.9 −12.7** Social Studies 14.6 12.2 10.9 7.8 7.5 −7.0**

Beginning Teachers Core Courses 10.8 8.9 6.8 5.1 4.3 −6.5**

English 10.4 8.3 6.8 4.5 4.0 −6.4* Mathematics 9.9 8.1 6.8 4.8 4.0 −5.9**

Science 14.1 12.6 8.4 6.7 4.7 −9.4** Social Studies 9.2 6.5 5.2 4.6 4.7 −4.5**

Years of Experience Zero 9.5 10.1 7.2 5.9 5.5 −4.1** 1–5 27.8 25.4 23.2 21.8 20.9 −6.8**

6–10 17.2 17.5 18.6 18.5 20.6 −3.3** 11–20 22.2 25.4 26.7 28.7 28.0 −5.8**

> 20 23.3 21.6 24.3 25.2 25.0 −1.8 Teacher Turnover

2006–2007 23.7 23.4 21.7 20.4 18.0 −5.7** Avg. One-Year 22.1 22.0 20.4 19.6 17.9 −4.2**

Five-Year 60.5 58.2 53.9 52.6 50.3 −10.3** Certification Tests

% Failed Pedagogy 24.7 17.9 14.5 13.0 11.5 −13.2** Q1 Pedagogy 32.3 24.7 21.0 19.1 17.0 −15.3** Q5 Pedagogy 13.0 16.4 17.2 18.5 20.6 −7.6**

% Failed English 24.6 16.7 15.6 15.0 13.4 −11.2** % Failed Mathematics

38.0 32.5 26.7 25.4 21.8 −16.2**

% Failed Science 38.2 36.7 29.9 29.0 24.8 −13.4** % Failed Social Studies

28.5 33.8 30.6 29.1 28.7 −0.2

Source: From Fuller, Carpenter, and Fuller (2008, p. 58, Table A–5A). Adapted with permission of the Association of Texas Professional Educators. a School Performance is based on percent of all students passing all TAKS tests at all grades. * p < .01; **p < .001.

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The data in Table 4.1 show that a consistent relation exists between the indices of high school teacher quality and student TAKS pass rates.16 That is, Fuller et al. found a rather strong and steady positive association between greater aggregate teacher quality and TAKS achievement. The authors also note: “Even when selecting sets of schools with similar student demographics, the lowest performing schools had lower measures of teacher quality than high-performing schools” (p. 4).

Inequities in the Distribution of Teacher Quality Characteristics

Numerous research studies report that teacher quality characteristics are inequitably distributed across race and class in the nation’s schools, meaning that low-SES students and pupils of color (which are frequently collinear) are shortchanged on teacher quality.17 For instance, Barton (2003)—drawing from a study by the National Center for Education Statistics (Mayer, Mullins, & Moore, 2000)—reports that among correlates of student academic achievement (e.g., teacher preparation; rigor of curriculum; teacher experi- ence and attendance [teacher presence or absence]), gaps exist between students of color and White students, as well as between students from low- income and high-income families. In another investigation, Craig D. Jerald (2002) of the Education Trust reports out-of-field teaching (based on a national survey of middle school and high school teachers).18 A major finding shows that in middle schools, teachers lacking at least a college minor taught core academic classes more frequently in high-poverty schools (53%) than low-poverty schools (38%), and in high-minority schools (49%) than low- minority schools (40%).19 Similar patterns exist for high schools, but not as grave. Jerald’s report is quite comprehensive as data across race and case show consistent findings for the vast majority of the 50 states, although the percent- ages of out-of-field teaching vary widely. In yet another study, Darling- Hammond (2004a) reports that in California there is a strong relation between teacher underqualification (i.e., teachers who do not have a prelimin- ary or clear credential in their field of teaching) and achievement perform- ance of low-SES students on the state’s Academic Performance Index (API).20

Students who score in the lowest decile of the API, compared to those scoring in the highest decile, are six times more probable to be taught by unqualified teachers. Darling-Hammond states: “The presence of underqualified teachers is strongly related to student socioeconomic status and to student achieve- ment” (p. 1939).

Inequities in the Distribution of Economic Resources for Schooling

In addition to being shortchanged on teacher quality, considerable evidence exists that many low-SES pupils and students of color also face inequities in basic economic resources in their schools.21 For example, in a report by Carey (2004), he notes that there is a national per-pupil funding gap of $1,099

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between school districts with the fewest students of color ($7,605 per-pupil funding) and the most students of color ($6,506 per-pupil funding) in 48 states in which data are available (2001–2002 school year). In another report, Barton (2003) discusses national differences in technology-assisted instruction across schools with low and high enrollments of students of color. Based on teacher survey data from 1999, 84% of students in schools with a low percentage of students of color (less than 6%)—compared to 77% of students in schools with a high percentage of students of color (50% or more)—have computers avail- able in classrooms. Furthermore, Barton (2003) reports that 61% of students in schools with low enrollments of students of color—compared to 35% of stu- dents in schools with high enrollments of students of color—are given assigned research (by the teachers) using the Internet.

A related economic resource issue has to do with teacher salary. The Educa- tion Trust (2008), using Texas as a case in point, reports average teacher salary gaps among the highest- and lowest-enrollments of schools with students of color (across the 25 largest districts in Texas). These data (for the 2005–2006 school year) are shown in Table 4.2 opposite.22 Although there are a very small number of exceptions to the pattern, elementary, middle, and high school teachers in districts with the lowest enrollments of students of color, compared to their teacher peers in districts with the highest enrollments of students of color, earn larger salaries. For example, in the Austin Independent School Dis- trict, Table 4.2 shows salary gaps of $3,010, $2,862, and $2,413 for teachers in the elementary, middle, and high schools—respectively. Such teacher salary gaps are no trivial issue. These discrepancies are likely related, in part, to the high teacher turnover rate in U.S. public schools—which is associated with the achievement gap among low-SES and high-SES schools. Furthermore, there is a collateral effect of the high turnover rate. It is estimated that the national cost of teacher turnover is 7.3 billion dollars per year due to the expenditures related to the recruiting, hiring, and training of replacement teachers (National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 2007).

One of the most demonstrative sources of evidence pertaining to inequities in the distribution of economic resources for schooling originates from the Williams v. State of California (2000) lawsuit.23 Attorneys for Williams filed the case on May 17, 2000—46 years to date that Chief Justice Earl Warren penned the historic opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954). The Williams complaint is based on two foundational principles (Oakes, 2004). First, the State has the responsibility to make certain that each public school student (elementary through high school) has the essential resources of education (e.g., qualified teachers; ample supply of instructional materials, such as textbooks; decent, satisfactory school buildings). Second, based on the California Constitution, education is a fundamental right that has to be made available to all students on equal conditions. The Williams com- plaint involved both issues of inequities in the distribution of teacher quality

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characteristics and inequities in the distribution of educational resources. Here, I primarily focus on the latter.

The Williams case is both similar and different to lawsuits in the past that dealt with inequities in interdistrict school financing (e.g., California’s Serrano v. Priest [1969] and Texas’s Rodriguez v. San Antonio Independent School District [1971]).24 Oakes (2004, p. 1891) comments:

Rather than focusing directly on money, Williams seeks to make real the state’s constitutional responsibility by attending to what is provided to individual students in classrooms. It seeks a system of accountability that ensures that basic tools are provided on an adequate, continuing,

Table 4.2 Average Teacher Salary Gaps Among the Highest and Lowest Enrollments in Schools with Students of Color in the 25 Largest Districts in Texas (2005–2006 School Year)

District Name Elementary School Middle School High School

1. Houston ISD −$1,074 $425 $1,080 2. Dallas ISD −$424 $1,522 −$1,088 3. Cypress-Fairbanks ISD −$2,066 −$1,535 −$2,367 4. Austin ISD −$3,010 −$2,862 −$2,413 5. Fort Worth ISD −$1,666 −$2,492 −$1,413 6. Northside ISD −$521 −$3,014 −$972 7. Fort Bend ISD −$418 −$513 −$1,411 8. El Paso ISD $1,077 −$1,156 −$309 9. Arlington ISD −$3,070 −$4,750 −$3,194

10. North East ISD −$1,338 −$5 −$398 11. Garland ISD $482 $725 $836 12. Aldine ISD −$1,798 −$520 $805 13. San Antonio ISD $109 $843 $590 14. Plano ISD −$525 −$666 −$699 15. Pasadena ISD −$1,166 −$2,678 −$308 16. Brownsville ISD −$1,547 −$2,780 −$621 17. Katy ISD −$2,036 −$328 −$24 18. Alief ISD $431 −$1,107 −$1,296 19. Lewisville ISD $107 −$696 $2,002 20. Ysleta ISD −$597 $1,967 −$796 21. Conroe ISD $234 $1,019 −$719 22. Klein ISD −$1,616 −$2,358 −$2,208 23. Corpus Christi ISD $1,510 −$1,086 −$686 24. Round Rock ISD −$2,493 −$1,076 −$5,048 25. Socorro ISD −$1,113 −$695 −$2,731

Source: Adapted from The Education Trust (2008, p. 12, Table 2).

Note: ISD = Independent School District. Negative numbers indicate that the average teacher salary in schools with the highest enrollments of students of color was less than the average teacher salary in schools with the lowest enrollments of students of color.

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and equal basis. Importantly, the case does not presume to guarantee a high-quality education to all the state’s children. It merely seeks a minimum threshold for educational provisions, below which no child must be made to suffer.25

Plaintiffs in Williams, a class action lawsuit, number 106,338 elementary, middle, and high school students (the main and subclass groups of plaintiffs).26

Practically all the plaintiffs are low-SES students of color (Black; Latino/Latina; Asian/Pacific Islander), and in 42 (91%) of the 46 affected schools, students of color constitute far greater than 50% of the student body. In 30 (65%) of the 46 schools, English learners account for more than 30% of the student enrollment (p. 7). Plaintiffs’ legal claims rest largely in Williams on state constitutional violations of principles of equality. For example: Plaintiffs cite the Equal Pro- tection Clauses of the California Constitution (Constitutional Article I, §7[a]; Article IV, §16[a]) and the California Constitution principle that states access to public schooling is a right to be enjoyed by all, not a privilege procurable for purchase (Article IX, §5) (p. 11).

The Williams complaint begins with a statement that tens of thousands of schoolchildren and youngsters attending schools from Southern to Northern California are being deprived of fundamental educational opportunities avail- able to their more advantaged peers. Although compulsory education is state law, far too many children and youngsters attend “schools that shock the con- science” [italics added] (p. 6). Shortly following this opening statement, there is page after page of accounts of the appalling substandard conditions of many of the plaintiffs’ elementary, middle, and high schools (pp. 26–58). Here are a few examples of descriptions of elementary, middle, and high “schools that shock the conscience”:

• Frank D. Parent Elementary School in Inglewood (located in the Ingle- wood Unified School District in Los Angeles County).

At Parent, students cannot bring books home for homework in many classes. These students take home incomplete photocopied papers instead; the papers often lack instructions and background material. Without books or background material, students often can- not understand their homework assignments and parents often can- not help students with their homework. Seventh- and eighth-grade students do not have science textbooks to use in class or to take home. Many texts in use at the school are long out of date. For example, a literature book in use at the school was published in 1969. . . . School toilets often lack toilet paper and students have urinated or defecated on themselves because they could not access bathrooms with toilet paper. Parents have spent hundreds of dollars of their own money to purchase toilet paper for the bathrooms in efforts to rectify the lack of essential supplies for their children. (p. 55)

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• Wendell Helms Middle School in San Pablo (located in the West Contra Costa Unified School District in Contra Costa County [in the San Francisco Bay Area]).

Helms does not have enough textbooks for all the students in the school. One algebra class has no books at all—not even books for students to use in class. The students must use class time to copy prob- lems into their notebooks from the blackboard. And students must rely on notes they took in class for instruction on how to do their math problems because they have no books anywhere to which they can refer for clarification. In science and history classes for which the school does have books, there are not enough books for students to take home for homework, so students may use books only during class time in school. Several students at Helms compare the school to the schools they used to attend when they lived in Mexico, and the stu- dents are surprised that in the United States students do not have books to take home and safe places to learn, as the students had when they lived in Mexico. . . . Ceiling tiles at Helms are cracked and falling off, and the school roof leaks in the rain. Students worry that they will be hit with falling tiles when they enter the library and other areas of the school. Students sometimes cannot use the gym on rainy days because the leaks cause dangerous puddles on the gym floor. . . . Toilets often do not work in the school bathrooms. The bathrooms regularly are strewn with used condoms, cigarette butts, and empty liquor bottles. Most of the stalls in the boys’ bathrooms are missing doors. The bathrooms only rarely have soap, toilet paper, or paper towels. (p. 30)

• Susan Miller Dorsey Senior High in Los Angeles (located in the southern part of Los Angeles Unified School District).

Students in some classes at Dorsey have to stand or sit on counters for entire semesters because the school does not have enough seats for all the students in their classes. . . . Students routinely see rats in their classes. Teachers set rat traps in some classes, and janitors take dead rats away from the traps as frequently as every other day when the teachers set these traps. . . . Some classes at Dorsey do not have per- manent teachers when the school year begins. These students take instruction from a series of substitute teachers for weeks until the school hires a permanent teacher or a long-term substitute teacher to teach the class. The students cannot learn with the series of substitutes because the lack of continuity prevents the substitute teachers from creating lesson plans and teaching material that develops on past les- sons. . . . The school does not have enough books for all the students. Students in some math classes do not have any books at all. These students must copy down problems and notes from the board, often

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without accompanying written instructions and examples. Students in some English classes do not have full class sets of books, so students read different books at different times. Students in these classes cannot engage in class discussions and lessons about the books they read because the students read different books. . . . The school does not have enough open and unlocked bathrooms for all the students. Those bathrooms that are open for student use are filthy and lack toilet paper, soap, and paper towels. Many of the stalls lack doors. . . . The windows in some classrooms do not shut and the classrooms do not have heat, so in the winter the classrooms become extremely cold. Students must wear coats, hats, and gloves in class to keep warm because the tempera- ture falls so low during class time. The students find it difficult to learn because of the extreme chill. . . . Approximately half the classrooms at Dorsey do not have air conditioning and temperatures in these class- rooms become extremely hot during the spring and early summer. Students sweat in class and are unable to concentrate on their lessons because of the heat. . . . Glass in two or three of the windows in the school gym have been broken and not repaired for at least two full years. (pp. 46–47)

In Williams, the State engaged (via the leadership of Governor Gray Davis) in a vigorous and costly defense—spending $15 million on expensive private lawyers and numerous expert witnesses.27 Some of the State’s experts (e.g., Susan E. Phillips; Christine H. Rossell) have a history of serving for the defendants in civil rights lawsuits.28 Shortly after assuming office on November 17, 2003, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recognized that the Williams plaintiffs were correct in their claims of inequities, and requested that State Attorney General Bill Lockyer enter a settlement negoti- ation. On June 30, 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger provided an interview for the Capital Morning Report. He expressed the state’s current position on Williams:

It’s terrible. It should never have happened. Every child is guaranteed to get equal education, equal quality teachers, equal textbooks, homework materials, all of this stuff ought to be equal, but it hasn’t been. And this is why the State was sued. And it was crazy for the State to then go out and hire an outside firm and to fight the lawsuit. Fight what? To say this is not true what the ACLU is saying, that they actually got equal education? All anyone has to do is to just go to those schools, and I’ve gone to those schools because of my after-school programs. I’ve seen how inner city schools are falling behind because they’re not getting the equal teaching and the equal books, equal learning material. So, of course, we are settling that lawsuit. We are very close in settling that, and it is part of the budget negotiation, because we’ve got to give every child in this

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state equal opportunities, equal education, equal learning materials, equal books, everything equal.

(Oakes, 2004, p. 1897)

In 2004, the plaintiffs and defendants settled Williams. The State allocated the following amounts of money: (a) $138 million in new funds for “standards-aligned instructional materials” for schools in the first and second deciles of achievement, as determined by the state’s Academic Performance Index (API); (b) another $50 million for “implementation costs and other oversight-related activities” for schools in deciles one through three based on the API; (c) another $800 million for “critical repair of facilities in future years” for schools in deciles one through three as determined by the API. Legislation adopted in August 2004 (SB6 and 550, and AB 1550, 2727, and 3001) imple- mented the settlement. About 2.3 million California children and youngsters are likely to benefit from the Williams settlement funding.29 Suffice it to say, the near $1 billion settlement embodied a major victory for the Williams plain- tiffs. Yet, the settlement signals only the initial step toward a revitalization of California’s public schools; still remaining, for example, is the very challenging issue of the recruitment/retention of highly qualified teachers for the many schools populated by low-income students of color. As well, there is the serious need to establish structural changes in order to measure and report the provision of “opportunities for teaching and learning” to allow longitudinal cross-school comparisons (Oakes, 2004, p. 1897).

Conclusion

Discourse on the at-risk notion has gone unabated from the mid–1980s to the current time. As presented in this chapter, this discussion has focused on two quite different perspectives. One position is that via indicator inventories, at-risk students—and by extension, their families—can be identified. As such, this deficit thinking perspective asserts that students, due to their putative cog- nitive, motivational, and familial deficiencies are at risk for school failure. By sharp contrast, another position is that the academic problems faced by many students—particularly low-SES students of color—stem from an exogenous nature. That is, systemic inequities in society are central to understand why numerous students are predisposed to experience serious academic problems. I have presented ample empirical evidence and argumentation why the struc- tural framework has far greater veracity as an explanatory model for compre- hending the school failure of many students. In short, students are not at risk for academic problems due to their alleged deficits. Rather, schools are organ- ized and run in such oppressive ways (e.g., inequities in the distribution of teacher quality characteristics and inequities in the distribution of economic resources for schooling) that many students are placed at risk for school failure.

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