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The ongoing debate about the causes of achievement gaps between different student groups in New Zealand's education system. the arguments for and against holding teachers accountable for these gaps, and the role of social class and family background. It also introduces various initiatives aimed at improving educational outcomes, such as KIPP schools and 90/90/90 schools. However, the document cautions against overgeneralizing the success of these schools and emphasizes the importance of addressing the root causes of poverty to close the educational gap.
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1. Introduction: Discussions of “league tables” of NCEA results in secondary schools and the proposed “national standards” in primary schools have drawn attention once again to what is often called “the gap” - the wide variation in success rates for different groups gaining school-based qualifications. InNew Zealand this has tended to focus on differences between Maori and Pakeha but it arises also in discussion of social class. Up and down the country newspaper editorials and commentators on radio and television have sung the same tune: the failure of students must be laid at the door of teachers. In relation to the proposed standards, the tone is of outrage that teachers should be “scared” of being held accountable. Spokespersons for schools and the occasional academic have tried (largely in vain) to argue that achievement differences are largely the result of social class and home background and hence it is ethically wrong to hold teachers accountable for them. Thisdebate (“social class” vs “teacher accountability”) mirrors one which hasbeen going on for a long time in many countries but particularly in the UnitedStates where the gaps between African Americans/Latinos and white Americansand between wealthy schools and poor schools are enormous.
Although there are overlaps in basic positions, the dispute is often ideological rather than data based and because of this, each side tends to see the other as merely providing excuses. When critics of the proposed national standards argued that most of the variation in achievement is the result of social class differences the Minister called this an excuse for inadequate teachers and “failing schools.” On the other hand, those who stress the role of schoolsand teachers are, in turn, accused of providing an excuse for social policies which keep families poor and their children ill- prepared to learn. Thus the question aboutthe “gap” boils down to the question, which is empirical rather than ideological: “Can educational inequalities be removed
by changes in the school or must they betackled in the wider community?” This paper attempts to answer this empirical question and, hence,to move beyond ideology.
2. Social Class and educational achievement:
The case presented by those who stress the role of social class is straightforward:
authors say, “Although good schools make a difference, the biggest influence on educational attainment, how well a child performs in school and later in higher education, is family background.” op.cit,( p 103). Tackling each problem separately, the authors argue, is relatively ineffective for even when there is a solution (eg a medical cure or an educational breakthrough) the problems just appear in new ways.
Despite this very cogent case, there isa powerful body of opinion which rejects it. A key representative of this school thoughtof in the USA puts the case thus: “Educators…are continually told that poor children and African American, Latino and American Indian children cannot achieve at high levels because poverty and discrimination create too many hurdles to learning. Far too many have swallowed this argument---hook, line and sinker.” (Chenoweth, 2007, p.ix). Chenoweth and her supporters, (including apparently the Minister and her advisors in New Zealand) believe that the case for social origin is misguided and that “teachers can do it.” Their argument goes like this:
I want to examine each of these arguments:
poor and minority and whose test scores in mathematics or reading were in the top third of their states.
Since the social class argument is notterministic, de it is not an inevitable that children from lower socio economic backgrounds will achieve badly. If there are schools which “defy the odds” competent educationists will rejoice and try to isolate features which can be generalised to help improve other schools. Nevertheless, particular claims about such schools have tobe treated very cautiously for a number of reasons:
own personal drives and give these children an education to improve their life chances.
of the evidence looked at so far supports the case that all or even most of the reported success can be attributed to instructionalmethods, as is often implied in the popular literature. Even if theydid, this would not show that“what they have done, anyone can do.”
A major problem in arguing that if some can do it all can do it, is that it presumes that what is done by excellent teachers in certainsituations can be replicated by average and below average teachers in quite other circumstances, but
Karin Chenoweth is a reporter and a leading figure in the Education Trust (USA); she is very sensitive to the problems of accurately measuring the achievement of schools. So she identified and visited 15 schoolsand wrote a book about them (Chenoweth, 2007). The schools selected had to satisfy the following criteria:
Although the data are, by necessity, limited it seems that these fifteen schools do produce results which are outside the range that would be predicted on the basis of their composition Furthermore, many of thecriticisms levelled at this kind of literature do not seem to be present here:students are not selected, there is little “teaching to the test”, and the curriculum isnot narrowed: rather, there is a broadly based attack on the problem. There is typically an impressive involvement of parents, longer school days, the provision of homework centresand health facilities on campus, free “summer schools,” help in theclassroom from teacher aides or parents and so on. The schools do not achieve results simply by adopting certain instructional procedures though they do focus on reading(often “across the curriculum” eg in science and social studies). Far from treating the social/cultural as irrelevant, these schools make it central and dedicate their energies to trying to compensate for the initial social disadvantage by replicating in and around the schools the services which middle class children already get in and around their homes.
Even so, we must note that we are talking about only 15 schools out of, say, 15, impoverished schools, that they are, by andlarge, well resourced (from the Federal
result he has gone on to set up a Circle ofInfluence website for teachers who are interested in “pushing the boundaries of their influence.” (Smith 2007-2008).
Progress at Schools Project. In the early 1990’sMinistry the of Education contracted the Progress at School project, one of the largest programmes of educational research ever carried out inNew Zealand. It was designed to detect the influence of individual secondary schools on the examination performance of individual students or, toput the matter slightly differently, to find out “the added value (or the reverse of that) contributed by an individual school when the nature of its intake has been taken intoaccount.” (Nash & Harker, 1995, p *^ 35.)The examination scores of 37 schools were analysed using a sophisticated statistical technique known as Hierarchical Linear Modelling. The researchers also conducted many interviews. Many publications arose from this massive study. For my purpose, some of the major conclusions of this research are:
to their superior examination results.However, they identified three schools which “underperformed” and two schools which “overperformed” in relation to their intake. A comparison betweenthese two sets of schools yielded two clues. Firstly, “those who attendedthe two schools where performance improved reported a more extensive involvement in cultural activities with parents and a higher interest in reading.” (These of course are further variables outside the school which indicates that the effect of social class and home background may be underestimated despite already being huge). Secondly, they found a significant association with “emotional disturbance” at school. In poorly performing schools, for example, bullying was common. “The evidence of our research suggests that boys’ schools, particularly those with a largely working class intake, are peculiarly difficult to manage. The bullying that goes on in those schools scars morestudents than we like to think about.” (loc.cit, p. 51).
From this research we might derive a tentative suggestion that schools which want to improve the achievement of their studentsshould concentrate on the relationships within them rather than on the cognitive dimensions themselves. It may indeed be the case that in the schools discussed so far, the success has less to do with the focus on instruction and assessment and more to do with the fact that “new brooms” (principals and teachers) manage to create a much tterbe emotional climate than previously existed. It is certainly worth considering.
The Te Kotahitanga Project. Over the past seven years, a team of researchers funded by the Ministry of Education has been pursuing a project relating to effective teaching for Maori students in mainstream secondary schools. The project began with intensive work with Maori students yearsin 9 and 10. From this research, the researchers devised an Effective TeachingProfile (ETP) which they have used to work with teachers in 37 schools. Theyclaim that there has been significant improvement in Maori achievement. TheETP has many facets such as teacher expectations, a caring philosophy, well managed classrooms, a focus on achievement and a range of teaching strategies. But the fundamental stance of the Project is “the creation of a culturally responsive contextfor learning,” in which teachers “care for and acknowledge the mana of the students asculturally located individuals.” (Bishop
not begin or end there: “Our first priority was to understand the worlds of our students. Professional Development by our Pasifikastaff enabled staff to understand the pressures placed on our people by church commitments, family commitments, sport commitments, work commitments, friendships and finally school commitments. We had to enableour parents, students and staff to realise that a balance was needed to ensure that school work was valued. Our parents valued education and achievement, but failedto understand how absences affected results, how lack of healthy nutrition affected concentration, how ill health or faulty hearing eyesightor prevented learning, how punctuality was important, how the correct gear was needed to enable students to perform and how students needed time and space to do homework. We had to bring our worlds together.” (emphasis mine). They go on: “We have an excellent Health and Guidance centre, a social worker, guidance counsellor, two nurses, SENCO and RTLB all worktowards supporting our students. In addition a strong dean network and pastoral care system strive to cater for the physical and emotional needs of our students. We have a chaplain to assist and support the special character of the college. Health assessments are completed for every year nine student. Our lthHea workers liaise with the wider community. For instance, ‘Mighty MouthDental Services’ visit the college and offer dental care on the site, the asthma and diabetes clinic visit regularly as do support people for the deaf andthose with eye sight difficulties. The school has a close relationship with thelocal doctor who donates time to the college. Without the support of this health and guidance centre, the task of teaching would be more difficult and the difficulties faced by some of our students would not be identified. At all times we try to involve the parents and work as a partnership of parents, udentsst and teachers. We actively seek funding support for our welfare budget and try to minimise the cost to parents.” They go on to point to r otheinitiatives: parents were offered opportunities to study at no cost: courses were offered in adult literacy, numeracy, driving, and computing. So, ifthis school is to be regarded as a successful one (and it surely must be) the impressive results are not to be seen as dependent simply on changing teachers’attitude or methods of instruction (though these are important) but in reconstructing the whole school in relation to the community it serves. And this is a tight community held together by
succeed. It is clear from the McAuley case that the education of parents is as important as the education of their ildren.ch And yet, there have been recent savage cuts to funding for Adult and Community Education which will hurt lower socio economic groups most and yet these are the groups whose children need special attention if they are to succeed. (It must, however, be acknowledged that McAuley’s adult classes were financed from local fundraising.)
For the final word, I cannot do better thanDavid Berliner, who heads a research unit dedicated to these problems and has writtenmuch about them: “People with strong faith in public schools are tobe cherished and the same is true of each example of schools that have overcome enormous odds. The methods of those schools need to be studied, promoted and replicated so that more educators will be influenced by their success. But these successes should not be used as a cudgel to attack other educators
and schools. And they should certainly never be used to excuse societal neglect of the very causes of the obstacles that extraordinary educators must overcome. It is poor policy indeed that erects huge barriers to the success of millions of students, cherry- picks and praises a few schools that appear to clear these barriers, and then blames the other schools for their failure to do so.” (Berliner, 2004, pp. 5-6).
References:
Benn, M. & Millar, F. (2006). A Comprehensive Future: Quality and Equality for all our Children. London: Compass.
Berliner, D.C. (2004). Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved th^ July 2009 20 from http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential.
Bishop, R. & Berryman, M. (2009). “The Te Kotahitanga Effective Teacher Profile.” Set: Research Information for Teachers No.2.
Chenoweth, K. (2007). It’s Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Goldacre, B. (2008). Bad Science. London: Fourth Estate.
Harker, R. (1995). Further Comment on “Do Schools Matter?” NZ Journal of Educational Studies , 30 (1), 73-76.
Ministry of Education. (2009). National Standards and Reporting to Parents. Wellington: NZ Government.
Lemke, M et al. (2002). Outcomes of Learning: Results from the 2000 Program for International Student Assessment of 15-year-olds in Reading, Mathematics and Science Literacy. Washington: US Office of Education.