RECLAIMING OUR PUBLIC EDUCATION

The golden ROPE for Urban Schools

 

From the very beginning of our nation, the Founding Fathers shared the belief that a literate population is essential to sustaining our “fragile democracy.” Without being literate and well- informed, the population of voters would be unable to resist tyrants and demagogues. Jefferson cautioned, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a civilized society, it expects what will never be.” Thus, a unified system of publicly funded and free schools was the nation’s goal. Horace Mann and other proponents of an educated citizenry set out to ensure “common schools” for teaching the three 3R’s and other skills essential for community engagement. By 1870, the concept “took hold” and most parts of the country began to establish free public elementary schools across social classes. Later, high schools began to be established.

 

Soon the task of replacing the “patchwork effort of schooling” made up of private schools for boys of wealthy families, religious schools, home schooling and small community schools supported by parents, gave way to cohesive schooling for American young people. Grade-level textbooks with effective pedagogy were developed.  Teacher training programs were developed and implemented: first, in two-year “normal schools” and then, in university level Education Departments. Professors traveled abroad to learn from the essential teaching practices employed in the successful elementary and secondary schools of European countries. By 1900, nearly every state of the union had some form of free public schooling made compulsory for children from six through sixteen. For this purpose, larger communities maintained “consolidated school districts” funded by a combination of local, state and Land Grant federal dollars.

 

These districts, under increasingly informed and experienced leadership, shared effective practices. Before the Great Depression, every urban area had committed to “systematic, cumulative and district-wide” programs of instruction at each grade level. Throughout the ensuing years, commitment to research and professional collaboration made our public schools increasingly effective for all children across social levels and ethnic backgrounds. This is not to pretend that racial bias and other social barriers did not exist, but rather, to begin the argument that research-based instructional methodology with a vision of equality is the only proven path to successful teaching and learning. By the mid-1950’s, American public education became #1 in the world.

 

During the late-fifties, education scholars began to notice some decline in schools’ performance and to sound an alarm of caution. They sought to remind school leaders that continued effort is always required for continued success. See for example, Why Johnnie Can’t Read (Rudolph Flèche, 1958). In the early seventies, those who were in the classrooms “where it was happening” also sensed the beginnings of real problems. But it was not until 1983 that A Nation at Risk, a government report, shouted “Help, Help.” This forced school leadership to recognize the reality of crisis.

 

Unfortunately, four decades of missteps ensued: church-basement schools to circumvent integration; ability grouping to get low-ability students “out of the way” of more-able students; sight-based management to shift blame; charter schools to improve district report cards and vouchers to outsource problems.  All of these initiatives recreated “patchwork schooling.”  American public education dropped first from #1 to #18 and now, by some rankings to #39.  At this point, it is clear that reclaiming the effectiveness of our public schools will probably require returning to those earlier and proven effective practices employed to replace the “patchwork schooling” prior to the 1900’s.  For this, school districts will need to exercise an even greater level of commitment than that demonstrated by Horace Mann and other early proponents of effective education.

 

Currently, leadership at the national and state levels of public education will need to re-establish schooling with the essential funding policies and instructional practices employed at the beginning of the early 1920’s.  District leadership will need to be selected based on successful experience as educators, that means those candidates with demonstrated understanding of school curriculum and of instructional pedagogy. Further, each leader chosen must sincerely adopt the district’s bright vision of academic success for all students. They must be eager to become part of a community of educators determined to ensure academic achievement for each and every student. They must be determined to make the district successful by employing systematic, cumulative and district-wide instruction. This is the prior policy of research-based learning experiences that served students well in the early days and promises to reclaim schools to our previous success.

 

Systematic instruction refers to the orderly presentation of content by means of research-based teaching techniques.  That is to say, educational pedagogy, informed by decades of research, setting forth effective teaching strategies. When these strategies are employed to deliver age- appropriate curriculum content, teaching is effective. Thus, student learning is achieved.  This statement is deceptively simple.  Because putting these strategies into practice requires well- trained teachers and carefully planned units of instruction.  Further, teachers must be encouraged to make conscious effort and constant observation of students while making use of each strategy. Those strategies remain essential because they are those supported by decades of research.

 

According to Friedman & Fisher’s Educators’  Handbook on Effective Instructional Strategies, the most useful instructional methodology includes: ensuring readiness; defining learning objectives; providing instruction and feedback; providing continuity  through meaningful repetition;  clarification of ideas and vocabulary; ensuring sufficient student learning time; allowing and encouraging peer interaction; teaching related skill processes; providing opportunities for decision making during the application of unit content and skills to real-life context.  Further, this handbook cautions against employing methodologies that have proven to be destructive to effective teaching and learning, such as: ability grouping; extraneous reinforcements; “look-say /whole language” to replace phonics; isolated “test preparation” drills; and “piled-on” curriculum content.

 

Cumulative presentations of curriculum content and skills require focusing on essential learning experiences and recognizing that “Less is more unless less is not enough.” This means that care must be taken to choose “deep” learning experiences to create real mastery as opposed to “broad offerings” that result in fast forgetting.  To this end, pairing grades so that the first year introduces and illustrates new concepts and the second year extends understanding and application of those concepts.  For example, first and second graders master word recognition and basic sentence writing; third and fourth graders master writing short paragraphs with unity; fifth and sixth graders master writing paragraphs with coherence and purpose; seventh and eighth graders master writing essay that explore and emphasize ideas.  The value of this pairing is that it not only provides ample students learning time, but also ensures that teacher expectations of student readiness for new material is dependable. Thus, repetitions are purposeful continuity.  Moreover, enrichment and remediation experiences can be prepared and appropriately provided to individual students. This pairing process has also been proven to prevent student end-of-grade failing which wastes district funds.

 

District-wide approaches recreated the concept of “consolidated” schools which worked very well toward making our schools #1 in the world prior to their subsequent decline.  District-wide approaches are the only moral and legal means by which districts address their obligations of equity and prevent the intended or unintended use of discretion leading to “the best for the best”.  Further, district-wide programs and procedures are the most economical approach for educational operations, as well as the most effective for improving student achievement.

 

The reasons for this are many.  District-wide instruction procedures encourage collaboration among all teachers, principals and central office leadership. Teachers are able to share lesson planning, observations of student outcomes and to share solutions to problems that may arise.  Principals are better able to coach teachers informally, as well as to plan more productive faculty development meetings.  Central office leadership will focus staff development more efficiently and save the money otherwise wasted on “hit and run” guest presentations. Further, district-wide instructional practices encourage student interactions that support teachers and assignments with “My teacher does that too,” rather than undermining teachers with “My teacher doesn’t do that.” Also, siblings and neighborhood friends will share learning experiences and help one another when necessary.  Finally, teachers who are new to the district will be more easily prepared and supported as they enter the new school community.

 

District instructional leaders may find it useful to emulate those early leaders who worked in collaboration to plan curriculum units for all subjects and grade levels.  In the early days, district leaders formed communities of educators who worked to develop research-based units with recommended teaching strategies.  Consider the following template which illustrates an effective example of how district, research-based strategies may be employed to create an effective instructional unit. This unit illustrates the use of research-based teaching strategies suitable for all students in all subject areas.  Each day’s work addresses one level of Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Knowledge. Following his careful research of the teachings/learning relationships, Bloom concluded that “Every child can learn whatever any other child has learned, given appropriate experiences and ample time.”

 

Sample Unit Template

 

Unit Lesson Plan Guide

Day One

Purpose: Ensure the grasp of the literal meaning of the area content materials.

Procedure:

• Question students concerning the topic to access prior knowledge.
• Discuss what students know about the topic and list ideas students expect to learn from

reading the materials.

• Present critical vocabulary from the selection.
• Conduct guided silent reading (or listening) of the selection

Teacher Preparation:

• Read content materials and divide into meaningful segments.
• Develop questions for accessing prior knowledge of the topic.
• Develop questions that ask for the literal meaning of each segment.
• Select vocabulary words that are critical for grasping literal meaning of the material.

 

Day Two

Purpose: Ensure comprehension of the area content material.

Procedure:

• Ask comprehension level questions.
• Discuss answers.
• Discuss concepts essential to content comprehension.
• Discuss content material in relationship to prior knowledge, what the students expected

to learn and what the students actually learned.

Teacher Preparation:

• Prepare comprehension level questions.
• List criteria of acceptable answers.

 

Day Three

Purpose: Teach related content area skills).

Procedure:

• Describe skill and its use.
• Demonstrate the skill and its parts.
• Guide students as they perform each part of the skill.
• Guide students as they perform the entire skill.
• Supervise practice of skill. Check each performance, so that students do not perform the

skill incorrectly more than once.

Teacher Preparation:

• Identify appropriate skill.
• List steps in the process.
• Note any miscues students are likely to make.

 

Days Four and Five

Purpose: Extend knowledge of content area material and skills and meet individual needs Procedure:

• Provide vocabulary assignment.
• Provide paragraph length writing assignment.
• Provide independent skills practice.
• Provide review/re-teach activities for students as necessary.
• Provide reinforcement activities as necessary.
• Provide enrichment/extension activities as necessary.
• Check students’ work as it is completed and require students to correct errors.
• Provide unit projects for students to complete in small groups. These projects may require two units or more.

Teacher Preparation:

• Prepare guide for writing assignment.
• Select assignments from textbook ancillary materials.
• Select/prepare other materials as needed using additional resources.
• Prepare and provide reference guides and/or rubrics as needed.

 

Day Six

Purpose: Allow students to share content learning and to evaluate the usefulness of content learning.

Procedure:

• Discuss projects or project progress • Share written work.
• Demonstrate skill application

Teacher Preparation:

• Determine activities to be shared
• Determine the focus of evaluation discussion.