seh a pte nr 4°. Bee w tans of : Education : _ | Whatis the cause of declining scores on ‘Student achievement tests? “Doe: our eduicatioral sys fevormicdle: — ® How can we improve our educational © 2s children? system? es eae84 Part One Troubled institutions We place tremendous faith in education, We expect it to provide a guiding light for the young and to pass on the democratic traditions of our society. Education is seen as a path out of the slums for new immigrants and out of Poverty for the sons and caughters of the disadvantaged. But it is also essential for the ‘g00d life” and profes. sional careers so highly valued by the middle class, As technology becomes more Sophisticated, even our hopes for our economic future are coming to rest on the Quality of our educational system and the graduates it produces But while our goals and aspirations continue to grow, our ‘educational institutions Seem to be mired in one crisis after another. On the one hand, the Poor and minorities are charging that the educational system has shut them out, and they are demanding their share of the educational dream, At the same time, the middle class, which has tong been the backbone of the educational system, is begi inning to have doubts about how well it is serving their needs, Several national reports have issued stinging attacks on the quality of American education, and the glut of young men and women seeking 4 career in education has turned into a serious shortage of high-quality teachers. ‘The picture is not really so bleak, however, for North Americans are still among the most educated and bestinformed people in the world, The educational system is Js SchOos do much more than teach reading, wniting, and arihmetic One of er ‘most (portant functions isto provide for stuclents’ social and recreational needsChapter 4 Problems of Education 85 a “failure” only because the goals we set for it are so high. The history of our edu- cational institutions is one of continual expansion, and our population has become more and more highly educated over the years. In small traditional societies, education takes place in the home and in children’s informal day-to-day association with adults. Training for the few specialized occupa- tions that exist is the responsibility of those who hold the jobs, usually members of the same family. Customs and traditions are passed along from one generation to the next without the assistance of schools or professional teachers. In more complex societies, specialized organizations for the transmission of knowledge developed. In the beginning, these schools were mostly for the training of priests and other religious officials, but secular education soon followed. Until the nineteenth century, education was reserved for aristocrats and a few of their important servants. The masses had little need to read or write, and some aristocrats saw any attempt to develop these skills in the lower classes as a threat to their power. It was only a little more than 200 years ago that the governor of the colony of Virginia condemned all popular education: “Thank God there are no free schools or printing; . . . for learning has brought disobedience and heresy into the world, and printing has divulged them. . . . God keep us from both." It was not until the end of the eighteenth century, when democratic revolutions took place in America and France, that the idea of education for the common people began to catch on. Education for the lower classes became more important as the masses began to share in important governmental decisions and religious groups em- phasized the need for everyone to be able to read the Bible. Yet progress toward ‘equality has been slow, and the children of the wealthy continue to receive more and better education than the children of the poor. Ahigh school education is now the rule, not the exception. In 1890 only 7 percent of children of high school age in the United States were in school; today more than ten times that percentage actually graduate.” Because of this growth, education has become a big business. Virtually every American receives some formal education, and most people spend a good portion of their lives in school. There are now about 1.6 million primary school teachers and 1.1 million secondary school teachers in the United States. Another 350,000 people teach at the college and university level, mak- ing the total number of teachers around 3 million.> UAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL? In the past, the keys to economic success usually involved such things as the own- ership of good farmland or the canny skills of the small businessman, As formal ed- ucation and professional training have gained in importance, so has the issue of ed- ucational equity. Many have charged that our educational system fails to provide equal opportunity for all, and, as a result, the poor, immigrants, and minorities have far less chance of “making it” than they did in the days of the frontier. To understand this significant issue, we will first examine the role sociat class plays in a student’s aca- demic success, and then look at how good a job the educational system does of meeting the needs of minority students.86 Part One Troubled Institutions Social Class and Achievement Grade-school teachers and university professors alike can easily see that the daughters and sons of affluent parents do better in school than the children of the poor, In fact, numerous studies have found social class to be the single most effective predictor of achievement in school. As Robert James Parelius and Ann Parker Parelius put it: Whether we look at scores on standardized ability or achievement tests, classroom grades, participation in academic rather than vocational high schoo! programs, involve- ‘ment in extracurricular activities, number of years of schooling completed or enrollment in or completion of college and professional school, children from more socioeconom- ically advantaged homes outperform their less affluent peers.* There are two principal explanations for this difference. One focuses on the ad- vantages higher-status children have because they come from home environments in which books, a large vocabulary, and an emphasis on achievement are common, The other notes that the schools themselves are often organized in ways that ignore the educational needs of the poor. Family Background Lower-class children live in a very different world from middle- class children, The homes of the poor tend to have fewer books, newspapers, and magazines, and the parents have less education. People with low incomes are less likely to read for entertainment; thus, children in low-income homes are less likely to be encouraged to learn that vital skill. Lower-class families are also larger and are more often headed by only one adult. Children in such families often receive less parental contact, guidance, and educational encouragement. Another factor is health: poor children are more likely to be undernourished than their middle-class counter- parts, and they are sick more days a year.> And unhealthy children simply do not learn as well as healthy ones, More positively, the academic success of children from affluent homes stems from the value their parents place on education. A number of surveys have shown that children from wealthy families want more education than children from poorer back- grounds. Some of this difference results from the fact that middle-class homes place a higher value‘on education and long-range planning. But some of it also reflects a realistic adjustment by poor children to the fact that they have less chance of getting a good education, Children who speak only Spanish or some other language foreign to the schools are obviously handicapped. But language differences also have an important impact on the educational achievements of the various social classes in the same ethnic group, Standard English is more commoniy spoken by African Americans with middle- class backgrounds, while those from the lower class are more likely to speak “Black English” dialects. Because schoolwork is done in, standard English, the lower-class children are at a disadvantage. Similar language differences are found among whites. People from the lower class tend to use short, simple sentences, while middle-class people use longer, more complex sentences containing more abstract concepts and a larger vocabulary. These differences give middle-class students a big head start in their schoolwork and also make it easier for them to understand their teachers.Chapter 4 Problems of Education 87 The Schools In addition to the obstacles in the home environment of many lower- class students, the school system itself favors the education of middle- and upper- class students, This fact is obvious, first of all, in the way schools are financed. Even a brief examination of the American system of school finance reveals glaring inequities both in how taxes are levied and in how they are spent. Wealthy tax districts spend much more money on their students’ education than do poorer communities ‘There are great differences among the various states in the importance placed on education and in each state’s ability to pay for it. For example, Alaska spends more than two and a half times as much money per pupil as Utah.” But the differences between local school districts within the same state can be even greater. Because Property taxes are a major source of school funding, districts with expensive homes and other valuable real estate often receive much more revenue than poor districts. In Illinois, for example, the poorest districts spend about $2,100 per student while the richest spend over $12,000.8 Moreover, such inequities occur even though the rich school districts often have a lower tax rate than the poor ones. In 1990, property owners in the Edgewood School District in San Antonio, Texas, had to pay $1 in taxes for every $100 of the assessed value of their property. In some of the oil-rich districts in Texas, tax rates were as low as eight cents and yet they still raised more money for their schools.” Defenders of the present system of financing may point to studies that conclude that the amount of money spent per student has little direct effect on educational achievement.'? And there is little doubt that a badly run school can spend a great deal of money and still achieve poor results. But such findings hardly justify the practice of making the disadvantaged pay higher property taxes than the rich while their children languish in understaffed and underfunded schools. ‘There have been some serious efforts to correct this inequitable system through the courts. By 1990, ten state supreme courts had ruled their state's system of school finance unconstitutional and had required basic reforms, and court cases were pend- ing in more than a dozen other states.'! But because the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to get involved in this issue, the process of reform is a hit-or-miss affair. Eight state courts have upheld their system of school finance and no challenge has yet been made in many others.'? Moreover, such cases do nothing to rectify the great imbal- ance in school funding among different states, Family finances also have an important effect on educational achievement. Despite the fact that public education itself is free, children from poor families simply cannot afford as much education as those from more well-to-do backgrounds, Students from poor homes are more likely to drop out of school and go to work. At the college and university level, the costs of tuition, books, and transportation put extra pressure on poor students. Many highly qualified lower-class students must attend local commu- nity colleges, which emphasize technical careers, because they cannot afford a uni- versity education. Less qualified upper- and middle-class students may go to expensive private universities to prepare for professional careers. Moreover, the financial pres- sure on college students has gotten substantially worse in recent years. Even after adjusting for inflation, the cost of a college education has more than doubled since the 1960s, and the last decade has also seen large cuts in the financial aid available to college students.86 Part One Troubled Institutions Social Class and Achievement Grade-school teachers and university professors alike can casily sce that the daughters and sons of affluent parents do better in school than the children of the poor In fact, numerous studies have found social class to be the single most effective predictor of achievement in school. As Robert James Parelius and Ann Parker Parelius put it Whether we look at scores on standardized ability or achievement tests, classroom grades, participation in academic rather than vocational high schoo! programs, involve- ‘ment in extracurricular activities, number of years of schooling completed or enrollment in or completion of college and professional school, children from more sociveconom- ically advantaged homes outperform their less affluent peers.* ‘There are two principal explanations for this difference, One focuses on the ad- vantages higher-status children have because they come from home environments in which books, a large vocabulary, and an emphasis on achievement are common, The other notes that the schools themselves are often organized in ways that ignore the educational needs of the poor Family Background Lower-class children live in a very different world from middle- class children, The homes of the poor tend to have fewer books, newspapers, and ines, and the parents have less education. People with low incomes are less likely to read for entertainment; thus, children in low-income homes are less likely to be encouraged to learn that vital skill. Lower-class families are also larger and are more often headed by only one adult. Children in such families often receive less parental contact, guidance, and educational encouragement. Another factor is health: poor children are more likely to be undernourished than their middle-class counter: parts, and they are sick more days a year. And unhealthy children simply do not learn as well as healthy ones. More positively, the academic success of children from affluent homes stems from the value their parents place on education. A number of surveys have shown that children from wealthy families want more education than children from poorer back grounds. Some of this difference results from the fact that middle-class homes place a higher value‘on education and long-range planning. But some of it also reflects 2 realistic adjustment by poor children to the fact that they have less chance of getting a good education Children who speak only Spanish or some other language foreign to the schools are obviously handicapped. But language differences also have an important impact ‘on the educational achievements of the various social classes in the same ethnic group, Standard English is more commonly spoken by African Americans with middle class backgrounds, while those from the lower class are more likely to speak “Black English” dialects. Because schoolwork is done in, standard English, the lower-class children are at a disadvantage. Similar language differences are found among whites People from the lower class tend to use short, simple sentences, while middle-class: people use longer, more complex sentences containing more abstract concepts and a larger vocabulary These differences give middle-class students a big head start is their schoolwork and also make it easier for them to understand their teachers.Chapter 4 Problems of Education 87 The Schools In addition to the obstacles in the home environment of many lower- class students, the school system itself favors the education of middle- and upper- class students. This fact is obvious, first of all, in the way schools are financed. Even a brief examination of the American system of school finance reveals glaring inequities both in how taxes are levied and in how they are spent. Wealthy tax districts spend much more money on their students’ education than do poorer communities. ‘There are great differences among the various states in the importance placed on education and in each state’s ability to pay for it. For example, Alaska spends more than two and a half times as much money per pupil as Utah.” But the differences between local school districts within the same state can be even greater. Because property taxes are a major source of school funding, districts with expensive homes and other valuable real estate often receive much more revenue than poor districts. In Illinois, for example, the poorest districts spend about $2,100 per student while the richest spend over $12,000," Moreover, such inequities occur even though the rich school districts often have a lower tax rate than the poor ones. In 1990, property owners in the Edgewood School District in San Antonio, Texas, had to pay $1 in taxes for every $100 of the assessed value of their property. In some of the oil-rich districts in Texas, tax rates were as low as eight cents and yet they still raised more money for their schools.? Defenders of the present system of financing may point to studies that conclude that the amount of money spent per student has little direct effect on educational achievement.'® And there is little doubt that a badly run school can spend a great deal of money and still achieve poor results. But such findings hardly justify the practice of making the disadvantaged pay higher property taxes than the rich while their children languish in understaffed and underfunded schools. ‘There have been some serious efforts to correct this inequitable system through the courts, By 1990, ten state supreme courts had ruled their state's system of school finance unconstitutional and had required basic reforms, and court cases were pend- ing in more than a dozen other states.'! But because the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to get involved in this issue, the process of reform is a hit-or-miss affair. Eight state courts have upheld their system of school finance and no challenge has yet been made in many others.!? Moreover, such cases do nothing to rectify the great imbal- ance in school funding among different states. Family finances also have an important effect on educational achievement. Despite the fact that public education itself is free, children from poor families simply cannot afford as much education as those from more well-to-do backgrounds. Students from poor homes are more likely to drop out of school and go to work, At the college and university level, the costs of tuition, books, and transportation put extra pressure on poor students. Many high!y qualified lower-class students must attend local commu- nity colleges, which emphasize technical careers, because they cannot afford a uni- versity education. Less qualified upper- and middle-class students may go to expensive private universities to prepare for professional careers. Moreover, the financial pres- sure on college students has gotten substantially worse in recent years. Even after adjusting for inflation, the cost of a college education has more than doubled since the 1960s, and the last decade has also seen large cuts in the financial aid available to college students,88 Part One Troubled Institutions Of course, colleges and universities are not the only educational institutions that charge their students. In 1990, a little less than 12 percent of American children attended private schools.! The quality, the cost, and the philosophical orientation of these schools varies enormously. The most prestigious of them are the so-called prep schools, which offer a much higher level of education than most public schools, but only to the children of familics who can afford to pay the price (or the gifted few who receive scholarships). Thus, the finest primary and secondary schools are largely closed to poor, working-class, and even most middle-class children, But even less prestigious and less affluent private schools have a major advantage over the public schools. It is far easier for them to kick out the troublemakers and the low achievers and thereby isolate their students from disruptive influences. But the public schools must try to meet the needs of all the young people in their com- munity, even if they are having social or academic problems. Because children from upper-class families generally receive a better secondary education, they have easier access to the elite universities that lead students to top positions in government and the corporations. Moreover, some less qualified students from upper-class families are able to attend elite universities because of admission programs that favor the children of alumni and the children of big contributors to the university's fund-raising campaigns. Aside from the differences in the quality of the schools, achievement is also af- fected by the expectations of the teachers for their students. There is considerable evidence that teachers expect less from lower-class students, in terms of both aca- demic achievement and behavior, than they expect from others, Students respond to such expectations by underachieving and misbehaving. The expectation of low achievement thus acts as a selffulfilling prophecy: students become what they are expected to become.'" Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson performed an inter- esting experiment to demonstrate this fact.'* Experimenters gave a standard IQ test to pupils in 18 classrooms in a neighborhood elementary school. However, teachers were told that the instrument was the “Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition” (which does not exist). Next, the experimenters arbitrarily selected 20 percent of the stu- dents’ names and told their teachers that the test showed that these students would make remarkable progress in the coming year. When the students were retested eight months later, those who had been singled out as intellectual bloomers showed a significantly greater increase in IQ than the others. Rosenthal and Jacobson concluded that the increase was the result of the higher expectations of the teachers and the communication of these expectations to the students. Many similar studies have since been made, with mixed results. Most of them supported Rosenthal and Jacobson’s findings, but some did not, and it is not yet clear under exactly what conditions teachers’ expectations are most likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.!© One thing we do know is that lower-class and minority students are the ones most likely to"be harmed by this process, for they are the ones for whom teachers hold the lowest expectations. For example, when D. G. Harvey and G. T. Slatin gave teachers pictures of students and asked them to evaluate their chances for success in school, the teachers reported the highest expectations for white students who looked to be from middle- and upper-class backgrounds.!7Chapter 4 Problems of Education 89 The chances are, however, that lower-class students will not be in the same high school classes as middle-class students even if they attend the same school. Most high school students are placed in one of several different “tracks” or “ability groups.” The ‘most promising” are put into college preparatory courses, while others go into vocational or ““basic”’ classes. There is considerable evidence that lower-class students are more likely to be placed in the vocational or basic track.'® Tracking is supposed to be based on such criteria as academic record, performance on standardized tests, and the students’ own feelings about college, but there is little doubt that the schoo!s themselves have lower expectations for students from the lower classes. And even when there is no bias, a serious problem remains. Once students have been placed in a lower track, they will be exposed to less challenging material, and teachers will have lower expectations of them. Because they are isolated from college-bound stu- dents, even the best students in the lower tracks are less likely to want to go to college. Karl Alexander, Martha Cook, and Edward L. Dill found that students in a college preparatory track were 30 percent more likely to plan to go on beyond high school than equally motivated and able students in nonacademic tracks.'? | Minority Education The history of the American educational system’s treatment of minori- ties has not been a bright one (see Chapter 7). Black Americans have been the victims of particularly harsh treatment. During the era of slavery they were seldom given any education at all. As recently as 35 years ago, blacks in the South attended segregated schools that were clearly inferior to those attended by whites. A landmark Supreme Court decision in 1954 recognized the fact that segregated schools were inherently unequal and declared them unconstitutional. In the turmoil that followed, intentional legal segregation was ended, but unlike de jure (legal) segregation, de facto (actual) segregation has been resistant to change. Although blacks and whites were assigned to the schools nearest their homes regardless of race, most schools remained segre- gated because most neighborhoods were segregated. To deal with this problem, the Court ruled that school districts must aim for racial balance in their schools, even it it became necessary to bus students long distances. Intense opposition from whites made school busing an inflammatory racial issue for two decades, but public interest in this controversy has been dectining in recent years, Polls show that a large majority of Americans support integrated schools, and, as the furor at the start of busing programs died down, parents and students often came to accept them. Moreover, migration to the suburbs has left too few white children in many big cities to create truly integrated schools. For example, when suit was first brought to force desegregation of the Los Angeles city schools in 1963, about 55 percent of the students were white; but by 1988 they made up only 17 percent of the-pupils in the L.A. schools.*° The debate over school integration has generated a great deal of concern about the effects of integration on students. The Coleman report, published in 1966, found that the quality of schools attended by blacks and by whites was similar when meas- ured by such factors as physical facilities, curriculum, and the qualifications of teach- ers.” The greatest influence on achievement was found to be the students’ class background. Middle-class students did much better than students from the lower90 Part One Troubled Institutions class. However, Coleman found that disadvantaged students did better when they were in the same with middle-class students. He concluded, logically enough, that integration would improve the performance of lower-class black children if they were integrated with middle-class white students. The effects of desegregation on academic performance have been the subject of dozens of studies since the Coleman report was first published. These studies vary widely in methodology and overall quality and have reached many contradictory conclusions. Rita E. Mahard and Robert L. Crain reviewed 93 different studies on this topic, and after they had elimi- nated investigations based on poorly designed research, an analysis of the others led them to some interesting conclusions. Desegregation did indeed improve the aca- demic performance of black students, but mainly in the primary grades, not junior high or high school. Moreover, there seems to be an optimum ratio of white students to black students, Which varied in the different studies from three to one to nine to one. Finally the most successful approach to desegregation was the so-called met ropolitan plan that integrated inner-city and suburban schools.*? In addition,to the academic benefits, school integration may help reduce racism and create understanding among the nation’s many diverse ethnic groups. But unless school administrators modify some of their traditional policies, minorities may be resegregated into diff n integrated school. For example, academi tracking often results in predominantly white college preparatory classes and pre- | dominantly black vocational classes. Weilintentioned bilingual and compensatory ed- ucation programs may also result in the removal of minority students from regular classrooms for a large part of the day * Thus, to realize the full benefits of an inte- grated education, it is necessary to do more than just integrate the schools. Admin- istrators, teachers, and concerned parents must work to create an integrated and supportive environment within individual schools as well. How well are minority groups doing in today’s educational system? The answer is a complex one. Some Asian groups have done extremely well and now have a higher level of education than European Americans, The gap between Americans of Euro- pean and African descent has also narrowed considerably in the last 30 years. Today, the average white has 12.7 years of schooling and the average black 12.4." Just as important, the academic performance of the African Americans who are in school has shown significant improvement. For example, in 1971 18 percent of black 17- year-olds who were in school ranked at the “basic (lowest) level” in the reading tests given by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, but by 1988 less than 3 percent were in this category 7° Yet despite substantial improvements at the high school level, the percentage of African Americans who go on to college declined from 22.6 percent in 1976 to 21 1 percent in 1988.*° The reasons for this decrease are mainly cconomic—the rising cost of a college education combined with a decrease in financial aid and a drop in the real income of African American families. The educational achievement of Hispanics remains below that of African Ameri- cans. In 1989, the average Hispanic had about 12.0 years of school, and the percent- age of Hispanics who dropped out before completing high school has actually been increasing?” (See Figure 4.1.) There are two main reasons for this situation. The first is language. Many Hispanics come into English-speaking schools with little knowledge of that language, and many others are less proficient in English than their classmatesChapter 4 Problems of Education 91 er Minorities h High School Percentage of High Schoo! Graduates 4.1 Source: Statistical Abstract of 2 Se ‘States, 1991, pp. 38, 40. Hispanic who grew up speaking it. The second is immigration. There has been a heavy influx of new immigrants from Latin America, and they frequently come from low-income groups that have received an inadequate education in their own country RITY AND REBELLION ‘Our leaders are fond of talking about the need to teach children democratic principles and the ability to think for themselves. But most schools are large bureaucracies that demand obedience to a rigid set of rules over which the students, and even most teachers, have little influence. Our schools have been compared to factories in which workers (teachers) turn raw materials (students) into finished products (educated citizens) under the strict supervision of the management (school administration); they have even been likened to prisons, with principals as wardens and teachers as guards. Although such comparisons can easily be taken too far, it is hard to see most schools as places that encourage creativity or individual initiative. In one sense, the bureaucratic structure of our school system both reflects and requires authoritarianism, Students are required by law to go to school, where they are compelled to spend large amounts of time in classrooms and where truancy is considered a form of delinquency All bureaucracies require strict rules and regula- tions if they are to coordinate the activities of large numbers of people. School life would quickly degenerate into chaos without such rules. However, some observers believe that the schools carry the emphasis on authority and obedience to harmful extremes. They argue that many schools are experiencing a problem common to bureaucracies—a displacement of goals (see Chapter 3). In this case, there has been 2 shift from education to the maintenance of order and authority as the primary goal of the schools. Many conflict theorists charge that there is thus a hidden curriculum92 Part One Troubled Institutions The problem of maintaining order is a particularly serious one in poor inner-city schools. In this photograph, a school official is using 4 metal detector to check students for weapons. in our schools: that along with reading, writing, and arithmetic, our students are taught conformism and obedience to authority Those who do not leam this lesson are doomed to failure in the educational bureaucracy no matter how academically talented they may be. While some criticize the authoritarianism of the schools, others condemn what they see as chaos in the classroom. The Gallup poll has repeatedly shown that the public believes ‘‘lack of discipline” to be the biggest problem in the schools today To most people this lack of discipline conjures up images of lazy or disrespectful students refusing to do their work, But there have been frequent reports of far more serious problems: drug dealing, students carrying weapons, and assaults and rapes directed against students and even teachers. These stories, combined with an increase in the number of reported incidents of school violence, have led many to believe that a new crime wave has swept our junior and senior high schools. However, such statistics are notoriously unreliable (see Chapter 13), and most.criminologists would probably agree with Joan Newman and Graeme Newman, who concluded that “ab though we are faced with the disturbing statistics on current school violence, the evidence available to us suggests that this phenomenon is not much more serious today than it was in previous centuries. Our general conclusion is, then, that = ‘crisis of discipline’ has always existed in schools.’ Such conclusions are, unfort:Chapter 4 Problems of Education 93 Miss Mary Jeffrey, a teacher in one of the schools of Centerville, was badly beaten by one of her pupils, a 14 year old girl. The teacher, for some offense committed by the girl's brother proceeded to punish bim, when the sister interfered and struck the teacher in the face. The teacher, in attempting to avoid the blow, dodged, throwing back her bead, with the result that ber hair caught on a hook in a hat rack and held ber While in this position, the girl rained blow after blow on the face of the defenseless teacher who was not a match for a strong, busky country girl. She bad just been pounded into unconsciousness when people attracted by the teacher's screams ran in and released ber June 1 1899 These selections, which appear throughout the text, are from the Badger State Banner, a newspaper published in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. nately, of little solace to teachers who must spend more time controlling their stu- dents than teaching them, or to the students who fall victim to campus violence. QUALITY OF EDUCATION ‘The controversy about the quality of our educational system has jumped out of the specialized journals and into the center of the political stage. Several prestigious na- tional commissions have been highly critical of our schools, and there is a growing fear that American students are falling behind their counterparts in other countries. Such attention is certainly long overdue. But before we can go very far to make the schools more effective, we must first decide what they are supposed to do. Teach students to do well on standardized tests of academic achievement? Teach the skills of critical, independent thinking? Essay writing? Higher mathematics? Public citizen- ship? Or do we focus on students’ social needs, such as preventing delinquency and drug abuse? In this section we will discuss some of the main issues in the debate about the quality of our educational system. But because the parties to this debate do not agree about the underlying goals of our educational system, they tend to see these problems very differently ining Achievement? It is estimated that 3 million Americans cannot read or write at all. Moreover, almost ten times that number are “functionally illiterate" —that is, their skills in reading, writing, and math are so poor that they cannot perform many of the basic tasks necessary to daily life in an industrial society The demand for a more educated work force has made the problem of illiteracy an increasingly serious94 Part One Troubled Institutions BPEBATE Is the Quality of Public Education Deteriorating? YES The decay of public education is obvious to anyone who cares to look. The cheap, run-down buildings that house so many public schools are the most visible signs of trouble, but inside those walls lie much greater problems. Year after year, our schools have been given more responsibility to solve social problems. We now expect our schools to combat racism, stop drug abuse, prevent unwed pregnancies, help the handicapped, and reduce delinquency. But at the same time, we are cutting away at already inadequate school budgets instead of providing the additional money necessary to deal with the demands of our technologi- cal age. Teachers are paid less than cocktail waitresses, and positions in math, science, and engineering go begging. Our schools often lack basic supplies, much less the expensive computer systems that are neces- sary if students are to learn the skills con- temporary society demands. Not only are our schools failing to meet the technological challenges of the 1990s, considerable evidence shows that they are not even teaching the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic very well. Many of our classrooms exhibit a kind of educational paralysis. Students are unruly, attendance is sporadic, the use of drugs and alcohol is common, and an atmosphere of violence prevails. Too many teachers have given up on discipline, and too many administrators allow students io dodge academic classes and take trivial electives instead. The private schools aggravate these already serious problems by skimming off the wealthiest and most motivated students. Not only does this situation tend to lower classroom standards even further, but it deprives the public schools of the support of the parents NO _ Determining the quality of public education is not like weighing a cabbage. ‘There are enormous disagreements about the ends that a good education ought to achieve and few effective ways to measure how well those ends are met. It is easy to point to the decline in standardized test scores as proof that our educators are not doing a good job. But the realities are much more complex. The fact is that the explo- sive growth of electronic communications and the everincreasing number of children living in single-parent homes have changed students in a fundamental way. If our students are given less family support and less exposure to the written word, how can. we expect them to earn higher marks than their predecessors? Moreover, there is reason to doubt the validity of standardized tests as a measure of educational achieve- ment. At best, these tests, which ask students to fill in hundreds of little bubbles, measure only the narrowest of educational skills. What about the appreciation of good litera- ture and music, the knowledge of world affairs, the ability to communicate verbally, and the countless other skills that sound education should impart? The growing emphasis on equipping our students to deal with the social problems they will encounter in the real world makes today’s education more relevant and more valuable for the average student than it ever was in the past. Aren't students better off gaining the knowledge that helps them prevent an unwanted pregnancy and an early marriage than learning calculus? Our schools are reaching out to meet the emotional and social needs of a generation that lacks the family support that was assumed by traditional education. All in all,Chapter 4 Problems of Education 95 “S2e would be most effective in pushing our educational system is doing a better job "Sesands for reform, The tragic fact is that a__ of meeting the needs of students; those f number of students are emerging needs have simply changed. See high schools illiterate and uneducated, one Yet although more than one out of every four high school students in the United States and Canada drops out before graduation, the long-range trends have actually been toward a rise in the number of years the average person spends in schoo! and a decline in illiteracy ° Despite the fact that people are getting more years of education, there is a growing ‘concern that educational achievement is declining among secondary school students. One of the most worrisome statistics has been the poor performance of American students on standardized tests of academic achievement. For example, scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test—the most widely used college administration test for high school students—have declined significantly since their peak in the mid-1960s (see Figure 4.2). The National Commission on Excellence in Education summarized the problem in these words: “For the first time in the history of our country, the edu- cational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even ap- proach, those of their parents.”’>° ‘There are three common explanations for the decline in student test scores. The first holds the schools responsible. ‘The second blames the drop on changes in stu- dents’ social environment, and the third attacks the tests themselves, arguing that test scores don’t accurately reflect how much students are actually learning. Critics of the validity of these tests point out that some (but not all) of the decline in average scores Test Scores ‘Combined SAT Score Figure 4.2 Source: Educational Tesing Service 1967 1971 1975 1979 1983 1987 199196 Part One Troubled Institutions can be attributed to the increasing number of poor and minority students who are taking college entrance tests. The critics also raise « more fundamental issue; such tests, they assert, focus on only a single type of educational skill and should not be used to make an overall evaluation of educational achievement. The other side gen- erally agrees that these tests do not measure all aspects of educational achievement, but they argue that the tests are a valid indicator of important educational skills. And they point out that in addition to doing more poorly than past generations, American students fare badly on international comparisons. For example, in an international test of the math skills of twelfth graders, the United States ranked fourteenth among the 15 nations tested—behind poverty-stricken Hungary and just ahead of Thailand.*! ‘Those who blame the schools for the decline in test scores attribute much of it to a downslide in academic standards. In response to the protests of the 1960s, many schools reduced the number of required courses and gave students more freedom in course selection. As a result, enrollments in basic academic courses fell. A report to the National Commission on Excellence in Education found that since 1969, the amount of time spent on academic courses has dropped from 70 to 62 percent of all class time, while the time spent on such courses as driver education has increased from 8 to 13 percent. It seems reasonable to expect that achivement scores will decline if students do not take courses designed to teach basic skills. It can also be expected that scores will fall even more if the content of basic courses is watered down. A 1988 survey found that only 38 percent of twelfth graders do an hour or more of homework a night.*? Such softening of standards has often been covered up by the practice of grade inflation: assigning grades of A or B to students who have barely learned to read and write. But whatever the shortcomings of the schools, experts agree that students’ home environment has an enormous influence on how well they master their studies. And there are good reasons to believe that the environment of today’s students is less conducive to educational achievement than it was in the past. For exampie, the av- erage high school senior now spends three hours a day watching television.* Obvi- ously, children who sit in front of television sets instead of playing basketball will not become good basketball players. Just as obviously, children who watch television instead of reading books will not become good readers and, consequently, will not learn to write very well cither. Some also blame dependence on electronic calculators for the decline in math scores, although there is at present little evidence to support such a conclusion. ‘Teachers often complain that their students have been growing more rebellious and less interested in their studies. But it is difficult to determine if such comments reflect a real change in students or just an idealization of the “'good old days.” There is, however, one good reason to believe that these complaints are accurate—the huge increase in percentage of families in which there is only one parent or in which both parents work: outside the home. These changes in family structure often reduce the amount of time and energy parents have to give their children, and it seems reasonable to assume that some students’ behavior at school would suffer as a result. These structural changes in the family may also mean that parents are not able to spend as much time assisting their children with their studies or getting involved in the edu- cational programs of their schools. One recent study found that only 17 percent ofChapter 4 Problems of Education 97 the parents surveyed said they had taken the time to talk with their children’s teachers to discuss their children’s performance.*4 RESPONDING TO PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION The problems of education are economic and political problems as well, Some pro- posals for change call for modification of the entire structure of our society, including i¢ institution of education. But educational problems are also bureaucratic problems, and other proposals for change call for improved efficiency in the existing school system and its teaching methods. Some of these suggestions have already been im- plemented in private schools, with varying degrees of success. The proposals to up- grace the educational system fall into two broad categories: recommendations for providing more equal educational opportunities for al! citizens and suggestions for improving the quality of education, Toward Equal Educational Opportunity Almost everyone agrees with the idea that there should be equal educational opportunity for all. But as we have already noted, there is widespread disagreement about what this means and how it can be achieved. Integration of students from different ethnic backgrounds into the same schools is often proposed as a solution to educational inequality A second approach is to set up special compensatory education programs to help disadvantaged students. A third widely accepted idea is to remedy educational inequality by spending an equal amount of money on each student's education. Effective Integration For years the American government, particularly the judicial branch, has been trying to achieve racial and ethnic integration in the schools. Despite many advances, this goal has still not been achieved. Following court-ordered inte- gration, unofficial resegregation often occurred as whites moved to the suburbs or enrolled their children in private schools, It has been suggested that resegregation should be reduced by merging suburban school districts with inner-city school dis- tricts and then busing children within each district. One difficulty with this proposal is distance. Some suburban communities are so far from the city centers that students would have to spend a large part of their school day on a bus. Another difficulty is prejudice. The proposal docs nothing to discourage white parents from putting their children in private schools, and in fact might encourage them to do so. As an alternative, some have proposed voluntary desegregation plans that give students the right to attend any schooi they wish, provided that it does not have a higher percentage of students of their ethnic group than their neighborhood school. A related proposal is to create magnet schools with unique educational programs that can attract students from all ethnic groups. The goal of these plans is to reduce “white flight” while still allowing minority and lower-class students to attend inte- grated middle-class schools if they wish. Critics of such plans argue that they are not likely to reduce segregation significantly because most students choose to attend their neighborhood school.98 Part One Troubled Institutions Another possibility would be to encourage the integration of residential areas so that neighborhood schools would automatically be integrated. In many ways this is the most appealing solution, for it would provide the broadest possible opportunity for development of interracial friendships and cooperation. However. daunting ob- stacles stand in the way of any effort to create truly integrated communities. For one thing, a long history of prejudice and suspicion makes many Americans prefer to live in neighborhoods in which the residents have similar economic and ethnic back- grounds. Moreover, the poor and minorities simply cannot afford to live in affluent neighborhoods with the best schools. One possible solution is to create more subsi- dized housing for low-income families in wealthy neighborhoods, and tax incentives for affluent families to refurbish older homes and move back into lower-income neigh- borhoods. But specific proposals to encourage such actions usually run into intense opposition from wealthy home owners whe fear that low-cost housing will decrease their property values, or from the residents of low-income neighborhoods who fear they will be displaced by more prosperous newcomers, Compensatory Education Another way to boost the educational achievement of the poor and minorities is to provide them with special programs and assistance. The most popular and widely known compensatory program of this kind is Project Head Start, which gives preschool instruction to disadvantaged children. At first the results of the project seemed quite promising, but follow-up studies found that most of the early gains made by those in the program faded away by the time the children reached the second or third grade.** A related program under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act provides federal money to give extra help to disadvantaged students who are already in school. Over 5 million elementary schooi students are aided under this program, and its supporters credit it with much of the reduction in the gap between the achievement scores of black and white students that has oc- curred in recent years. But critics point to studies showing that the benefits of ele- mentary school programs do not carry over into high school. ‘The research on both Head Start and Title I programs thus reaches much the same conclusion: these programs significantly improve the performance of the under- privileged students who are enrolled, but after they finish the program, the benefits tend to diminish.” The solution to this problem is obvious: don’t stop the programs after only a few years, Disadvantaged students should continue to receive extra help as long as they need it, which in many cases would probably be until their final years of high school. The difficulty with this proposal is, of course, money. Today, despite the growing popularity of Head Start, only 48 percent of the eligible students pattic- ipate in the program for even a single year, and the funding per student has declined by over 15 percent since 1981.** It would certainly take a lot more money to provide help-for all the students in all grades who need it. But such an investment in the future would pay enormous dividends in terms of a healthier, more competitive econ- omy, lower rates of crime and welfare dependency, and, most important, a more just society. A variety of educational-opportunity programs have also been established on the college level. Generally, these programs make special provisions for the admission of disadvantaged and minority students who do not meet standard admissions require-Chapter 4 Problems of Education 99 Compensatory education programs, such as the Head St are one of the best hopes for improving the educational students, t class shown in this photograph, ichievement of disadvantaged ments. They also provide tutoring and assistance to help these students stay in school Although these programs have their critics, they have become an accepted part of most colleges and universities. The greatest conflicts have arisen over special admis- sions programs for graduate and professional schools. Competition for places in these schools is intense, and white students complain that they are the victims of reverse discrimination, because some whites are rejected in favor of less qualified minority students. Supporters of special admissions programs argue that minorities have al- ready been subjected to a great deal of discrimination and that affirmative action programs merely attempt to compensate for some small part of it (see Chapter 7) Reforming School Finance As was pointed out earlier, schools in rich districts often receive much more money per student than do schools in poor districts. Although this problem could be dealt with by reforming the system of school finance in indi- vidual states, such an approach cannot do anything to rectify the huge inequalities among states, The only solution to that dilemma is a much greater federal role in funding the schools. For example, if the federal government paid for all primary and secondary education, it could provide equitable funding for all schools. There is, however, a strong tradition of local control of the schools in the United States, and100 Part One Troubled Institutions many people fear that national financing would mean federal control that would be unresponsive to the needs of local communities. Although such concerns are certainiy well grounded, there appear to be few al- ternatives to increased federal aid to education, even if it stops far short of complete financial support. When economic distress causes troubled school districts and fi- nancially strapped states to cut back on education, the result may be a vicious cycle, in which poorer education creates a less competent work force that, in turn, causes more economic problems. Federal money is needed to break this cycle. There is, moreover, another important reason for the federal government to get more involved: it is the only level of government that has the resources to significantly increase the overall funding for our educational system. Although critics of proposals to increase spending for education point out that the amount of money spent per child actually rose during the 1980s (largely as a result of declining student enrollments), America’s commitment to education still ranks faz behind most other industrialized nations. When the 15 major industrialized countries are ranked in terms of the percentage of national income they devote to primary and secondary education, only Australia ranks lower. In Sweden, the figure is 7 percent; in Canada, 4.7 percent; and in the United States, only 4.1 percent.” Improving the Schools The original Coleman report created a furor when it was first pub- lished in 1966, because it found that none of the measures of school quality it used— funding, teacher qualifications, or physical facilities—had much effect on the edu- cational achievement of the students. These results were widely interpreted to mean that “schools don't make any difference.” Subsequent research has shown that those results were largely a product of the extremely narrow questions the researchers asked and were highly misicading. For instance, Michael Rutter’s 1979 study of Lon- don high schools found that they had a critical impact on student achievement. Not surprisingly, the best schools were those that maintained high standards, required more homework, and had clear and well-enforced standards of discipline yet still created a comfortable, supportive atmosphere for students.*° Coleman himself later acknowledged that schools do make a substantial difference. In a comparison of pri- vate and public schools published in 1982, Coleman and his colleagues wrote that “the indication is that more extensive academic demands are made in the private schools, leading to more advanced courses, and thus to higher achievement.’“! In addition to the idea of requiring more work, reformers also propose reorganizing the school system and hiring better teachers. Requiring More Work The most obvious way to improve academic performance is to raise the schools’ requirements and make students work harder. In the 1960s, the schools were heavily criticized for their bureauczatic rigidity, and the curriculum was loosened to allow more individual choice. Now, with the increasing concern about scholastic achievement, these electives are being replaced with tougher requirements for more academic courses. A related suggestion that has yet to be implemented in most schools is to increase the amount of homework so that students must meet higher standards in the courses they do take. A criticism commonly heard from mi- nority leaders is that tougher requirements force disadvantaged students out of theChapter 4 Problems of Education 101 schools and into the streets. The efforts to make our schools more rigorous must therefore be accompanied by the kinds of compensatory educational programs dis- cussed in the last section. Otherwise, the result is likely to be lower, not higher, academic performance among some groups. While programs to increase academic standards and require more homework win at least verbal support from teachers and school administrators, another fundamental change, which these groups often oppose, needs to be made. The fact is that the United States has one of the shortest school years of any industrialized nation, and things are not much better in Canada (see Figure 4.3). The average student in the United States goes to school about 180 days a year, while in Japan schools are in session for around 240 days and in West Germs (0 days. Moreover, the average school day is only six hours in North America, while eight-hour days are common in other nations.” It is unrealistic to expect American students to compete with their counterparts abroad who have over 30 percent more school days a year. ‘The recommendation of the National Commission on Excellence in Education that the average school day be increased to seven hours and the school year be increased to between 200 and 220 days has largely been ignored, but it is hard to see how North American students can remain competitive without this kind of reform y about 2: Restructuring the Schools The last decade has been a time of ferment in our edu- cational system, and there are literally dozens of proposals for restructuring our schools. One of the most popular among conservatives is the voucher system. Under most versions of this plan, automatic support for existing public schools would be withdrawn and parents would be given a voucher that could be “spent” at any school, public or private. Advocates of the voucher system claim it would stimulate compe- tition among the schools and force schools and teachers to provide top-quality edu- The Average 22 School! Year F 200 i z 150 % a 3 100 j 50 Figure 4.3 Source: MJ. Barnett, “The Case for More School Days,” The Atlantic, 226 (1990), p. 80. os . * Data represent West Germany only. Japan Germany* Canada USA102 Part One Troubled Institutions cation or go out ofsbusiness. Critics of these proposals, who include many of the nation’s leading educators, say that such changes would create educational chaos as tens of thousands of independent schoois sprang up, with enormous differences in quality, curriculum, and objectives. California's Superintendent of Public Instruction described the voucher proposals as “dangerous claptrap” that would produce the same disastrous results as the deregulation of the savings and loan industry, and Wisconsin's superintendent likened this approach to “nuking” the public school system."* A less radical proposal is to open the enrollment of public schools so that students can attend any school they want, The idea is that such a program would cause a mass exodus from the weak schools and force them to improve in order to get their stu- dents back. Left unanswered are the questions of how the good schools could phys- ically accommodate all the students who would want to come and what would hap- pen to the teachers and facilities at the weaker schools. The school district in Richmond, California, recently tried this approach, converting its 47 campuses into specialty schools, each with its own distinctive focus, and allowing parents to choose among them. Although it was nationally touted as a creative response to the crisis of our schools, only three years after the start of the program the Richmond district is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, with its expenditures running more than 25 percent higher than income."* However, critics disagree about whether the Rich- mond district's difficulties are the fault of bad management or of the reform program itself. The Chicago school district, often called one of the worst in the nation, has at- tempted to solve its problems by a sweeping decentralization program that gives control of local schools to boards elected in each neighborhood. The initial imple- mentation of the program resulted in a great deal of confusion, but it is too early to say if the long-term results will be positive. Whether or not the Chicago experiment works, many educators support more “school-based management.” The idea here is to cut out the countless bureaucratic rules and requirements that come from central school administrators and give the decision-making power directly to principals and teachers at the local schools. But to be successful, such a policy must make the local schools accountable for the results of the program, as measured by such indicators as their dropout rates or student performance on standardized achievement tests. A proposal for educational reform that has been tried throughout North America calls for the public schools to get “back to basics.”” According to this concept, schools, should create a more rigorous curriculum that focuses on the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics, and both teacher and student performance should be con- tinually evaluated by standardized tests. But despite the increasing popularity of this approach, troubling questions remain, As more and more importance is given to standardized tests, teachers have been accused of “teaching to the test”: sacrificing the broader goals of education and focusing exclusively on the skills that improve test scores, Moreover, many educators reject the idea that successful education in- volves nothing more than teaching students to excel at basic skills. Is it better, they ask, to produce creative, well-adjusted children or neurotic overachievers who ace standardized tests but lack essential social skills? Obviously the matter is not that simple, but there are many alternative approaches that hold out a much broader idealChapter 4 Problems of Education 103 for education. The famous Summerhill “free” school, for example, encourages open expression and democratic principles among its students and allows them to focus their studies on whatever subjects interest them the most," and the rapidly growing ‘Waldorf schools give as much importance to art and personal development as to basic Better Teachers In the long run, there is nothing more important to the schools than the quality and dedication of their teachers. Recruiting and keeping the best possible faculty is therefore a vital task facing our schools. The most obvious way achieve that goal is to recognize that there is less prestige in being an elementary or secondary teacher than there was in the past, and then to offer a substantial increase in pay to attract and retain high-quality professionals. One proposal already imple- mented in many school districts provides additional merit pay for superior teachers. A related approach is to create master-teacher programs in which a school’s best teachers are given extra pay to provide counseling and assistance to other teachers. Money, however, is not the only problem, Teachers also complain about the frus- trations of working within a bureaucracy that is often more concerned about the smooth functioning of its schools than about education. Other sources of discontent are excessive paperwork, and the conflict between the demand that they be class reat improvements in computer-assisted education have been made in recent years, but to take full acvantage of these advances, schools must have better trained teachers and more equipment.104 Part One Troubled Institutions room police officers and the need to be educators, It is no surprise, then, that teachers suffer such a high burnout rate. Fewer than one in five new teachers is still in the profession after ten years But streamlining the bureaucracy and increasing pay will not guarantee that enough top-quality teachers will be recruited. Success will depend largely on society's attitude toward education. As Tom Hayden, chair of the California Assembly's Sub- committee on Higher Educatiort, put it: ‘The desire to teach is fostered in a soci f€ that supports the personal mission of helping others grow, of creating and sharing knowledge and pursuing a higher quality of life. Such values are not promoted in a climate of self-serving shortsightedness that lures people toward the quick fix, the fast buck, and the easy answer. Until a new emphasis on public service and social responsibility arises to balance interest, the teaching crisis will remain difficult to resolve." SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION The Functionalist Perspective _Functionalists see education as a basic institution that must meet a growing list of social needs. Originally, the two principal functions of educa- tion were to teach students a body of skills and knewledge, and then to grade them ‘on how well they had mastered their studies. Education also became an important channel for social mobility for talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. As industrial societies became more diverse and education became virtually universal, the schools took on an increasingly important role in transmitting values and attitudes as well as skills. They also assumed the important latent (hidden) function of reducing unemployment by keeping many young people out of the labor market Finally, as the traditional family unit became more unstable, educational institutions were asked to take up some of the slack by launching programs to prevent delinquent behavior and to help deal with students’ social and psychological needs. Many functionalists believe that our schools have been given so many conflicting tasks they are unable to do any of them very well, and as a result their efforts to achieve one goal often conflict with the other goals they have taken on. For example the time spent on drug education or “teen skills” can detract from the schools’ ac demic programs, and the attempts to modify the curriculum to prevent disadvantaged students from getting discouraged may lower the achievement of more gifted stu- dents. Functionalists also complain that many schools have become disorganized be- cause of poor management and the lack of sufficient concern on the part of parents and the community, All functionalists do, not agree on how to make the schools more effective. Many advocate the elimination of a number of new programs that have been introduced in recent years. Although such changes might well improve fundamental education, they are also likely to disrupt the efforts to deal with other pressing social problems. Proposals for employing more effective teaching methods are also compatible with the functionalist perspective. But most functionalists argue that such reforms cas work only if they are accompanied by a reorganization of the schools. For example.Chapter 4 Problems of Education 105 teachers must be rewarded for good teaching, rather than for being efficient bureau- crats or for the length of time they have spent on the job. Finally, many functionalists advocate better planning and coordination with other social institutions in order to reduce the problem of unemployment and underemployment among the educated. But such a program must be combined with an effort to reduce the instability of our ‘economic institutions, since it is impossible to train students to meet the needs of an economy that is in a state of rapid and unpredictable flux. The Conflict Perspective Conflict theorists are not convinced that providing equal educa- tional opportunity and upward mobility for the poor have ever been goals of our educational system. Rather, they argue that the schools are organized to do the op- posite: to keep members of subordinate groups in their place and prevent them from competing with members of more privileged classes. They point to the fact that free public education for all children is a relatively new idea and that even today many poor children must drop out of school to help support their families. Moreover, expensive private schools provide a superior education for children from the upper classes, whereas the public schools that serve the poor are underfunded, under- staffed, and growing worse. Conflict theorists also argue that the old system of offi- cially segregated education and the current system of de facto segregation serve to keep blacks and other oppressed minorities at the bottom: of the social heap. Their general conclusion is that the social and cultural biases in the educational system are not accidents but rather are reflections of a social system that favors the powerful. Conflict theorists also see the schools as powerful agents of socialization that can be used as a tool for one group to exercise its cultural dominance over another. For example, feminists point out that schools perpetuate sexist attitudes by showing boys and girls in stereotyped gender roles, and encouraging girls to be the ‘‘cheerleaders” while the boys are the achievers. (See Chapter 10 for a further discussion of sexism in education.) Another striking example of socialization comes from the educational system's treatment of minorities. Until relatively recently, young Native Americans were likely to be taught that their ancestors were bloodthirsty savages, and African Americans often read in history textbooks that their forebears were happy-go-lucky “darkies” who actually enjoyed being slaves. From the conflict perspective, the best and perhaps the only way to change these conditions is for the poor and cultural and ethnic minorities to organize themselves and reshape the educational system so that it provides everyone with equal oppor- tunity but does not indoctrinate students in the cultural values and beliefs of any particular group. All children must be given the same quality of education that is now available in private schools; cash subsidies must be provided for poor students who would otherwise be forced to drop out of school; and special programs must be set up to provide extra help for children whose parents have a weak educational back- ground. Nevertheless, most conflict theorists probably agree with Christopher Jencks, who concluded that the educational system can do little to reduce inequality without changes in the broader society. Even if there were complete educational equality and everyone were given a college education, social and economic disparities would re- main, Such changes would not produce more interesting, highly paid professional106 Part One Troubled Institutions jobs or reduce the number of menial, low-paying ones. Thus, educational and soci change must be carried out together, Social Psychological Perspectives Social psychologists are concerned with how school- children learn, They also study the impact of the educational system on students’ psychological development. Many have commented on the possibility that the a thoritarianism so commen in our schools impedes learning and encourages un- democratic behavior in later life, Moreover, schools create serious psychological prob- Jems for students who for one reason or another do not fit into the educational system. ‘The heavy emphasis on competition and the consequent fear of failure are disturbing to those students who are already anxious and insecure. Students who do not do well in school are often troubled by feelings of depression and inadequacy, and the failure to live up to the academic expectations of parents and teachers is a major contributor to teenage suicide. Summerhill and other ftee-school experiments are attempts to improve the socialization process and, thus, to deal with these problems Other social psychologists. however, are not convinced that the social relatior ships in most traditional schools are harmful. They note that rational discipline may benefit children by exposing them to the rules and regulations that they will be expected to follow after they leave school, Moreover, some behaviorisis have charged that children in more open schools are reinforced for behavior that is unacceptable outside the school. These social psychologists do not necessarily favor the programs of traditional schools, however. Some children need a great deal of discipline and an emphasis on obedience to authority, but social relationships of this kind impede the ability of other children to learn and to function effectively. Thus, it seems logical to provide the greatest possible range of educational alternatives so that the needs of each student can be met. SUMMARY Schools, colleges, and universities were originally reserved for the elite. Today, how= ever, education has become a big business, employing millions of teachers and administrators. Children from the lower classes generally do not do as well in school as children from the middle and upper classes. Poor children usually come to school with 2 variety of economic and cultural handicaps, and the school system discriminates against these children in a number of ways as well. Racial and ethnic discrimination in the American educationai system goes back to the days of slavery. Since the Su preme Court's decision outlawing school segregation (1954), most legal (de jure) discrimination has been abolished. However, de facto (actual) segregation aris from segregated housing patterns is still widespread. Schools are always struggling to deal with the twin problems of authority rebellion. If schools lack discipline, students run wild and education suffers. But discipline is too strict, students learn antidemocratic values and attitudes, and likelihood of rebellion and delinquency is increased. There has been a growing concern about the quality of our educational syst because of the decline in high school students’ scores on standardized achieveChapter 4 Problems of Education 107 ests, Some critics argue that those tests are not a good measure of educational quality, others claim that the problem iies in the changing family environment of today's students, while still others hold the schools themselves responsible. Many proposals for creating more equal education have been offered, These in- clude programs to achieve more effective integration, programs to give special as- sistance to poor and minority students, and reforms in school finance. Suggestions for improving the educational process itself include raising academic standards and requiring more homework, lengthening the school year, restructuring the schools to give teachers and local administrators more power, and making education a more attractive career so that the schools can hire better teachers. Functionalists argue that the educational system is not running smoothly and that solving the problems of education is mostly a matter of reorganizing schools so that they will operate more efficiently. Conflict theorists are prone to look behind the stated goals of the educational system and argue that economic and political elites have an interest in achieving other, unstated goals that favor those in positions of power. Social psychologists are concerned about the harmful effects the educational system may have on individual students and about the best ways to correct these problems KEY TERMS compensatory education A program designed to help make up for the ed- ucational difficulties disadvantaged students experience. de facto segregation A system in which different ethnic or racial groups are in fact separated from cach other even though the law does not require it. de jure segregation A system in which the law requires the separa- tion of different ethnic or racial groups. FURTHER READINGS grade inflation The practice of as signing increasingly higher grades to work of the same quality. hidden curriculum The attitudes and beliefs that students must learn in or- der to succeed in school, such as obedience to authority, that are not part of the formal curriculum. voucher system A program in which the government gives students a voucher that may be used to pay for their education at any school they or their parents choose. Robeit James Parelius and Ann Parker Parelius, The Sociology of Education, 2nd ed Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1987). A good general text examining our educational system from a sociological perspective. Jeannie Oakes, Multiplying Inequalities (Santa Monica, Calif: Rand Corporation, 1990). A report on the way schools promote social inequality Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Campus Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) ‘An interesting historical look at the subculture of college undergraduates and how it has changed.108 Part One Troubled Institutions Christine H. Rossell and Willis D. Hawley, eds., The Consequences of School De- segregation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983). A collection of essays that provide a comprehensive look at what we know about the effects of school desegregation. Merry White, The Japanese Educational Challenge: A Commitment to Children (New York: Free Press, 1987). An examination of the educational system in the nation that has been the twentieth century's biggest economic success story.