Power, Control, and Politics
The not-so-hidden influences on our current educational system
This post is part of a series by @edpsychprof where I share edited highlights from my K12 guide to education along with additional thoughts and commentary
Today, I get my hands a little dirty as I uncover some of the unseen but powerful forces affecting public schools in the U.S.
As we saw in last week’s newsletter, a school’s underlying philosophical orientation provides a roadmap to the school’s approach to learning. It’s not enough to know a school’s philosophy of education though, as they may be subverted due to systemic influences on schooling in the U.S., particularly around issues of power, control, and politics. Educators may call these systemic influences “the system,” and in the U.S., the system is often stacked against schools becoming places where children and adults can thrive. Other countries may be even more authoritarian in their approach to schooling (e.g., China) or much more focused on students’ overall well-being and development (e.g., Finland). Here is an overview of 12 key forces working against the U.S. having great schools.
1. Lack of professionalization. Education is not valued as a profession in this country. Teachers receive low pay compared to other fields requiring a college degree. Schooling is often seen as glorified childcare. In other countries, such as China and Malaysia, teaching is seen as an honored profession, akin to being a doctor, and teachers are treated with dignity, respect, and good pay. In the U.S., there is a perception that, “Those who can’t do, teach.” This bias against teaching discourages those with high ability and a desire to teach from becoming teachers. This happened to me. As a freshman in college, I was confronted by a dean at my university who strongly admonished me not to become a teacher because that’s where “all the students who can’t succeed at other majors go.” Teaching well is an art and science, but schools allocate insufficient resources towards mentoring teachers’ and systematic professional development.
2. Anti-intellectual bias. There is a strong anti-intellectual bias in the U.S. School isn’t seen as the “real world,” and those who spend too much time focused on their studies are labeled as “geeks” or “nerds.” Athletes, entertainers, and those with large social media followings are valued. We invest in sports programs but not in teaching. In other countries, like Finland, China, and Germany, children are encouraged to be smart and do their homework. The whole society comes together to ensure that kids have what they need to do well in school. It’s a norm to do well. In the U.S., intellectuals are often mistrusted. I went to a local zoning board meeting once, where a school location was the subject of debate because of its impact on traffic flow. The team in favor of the school location had prepared an extensive amount of data, including testimony of traffic experts and statistical simulations of traffic impact, showing that the impact would be negligible. The opposing team, led by a homeowner who didn’t want a school in his backyard, began his presentation by ridiculing the use of statistics. “We all know that statistics don’t mean anything in the real world,” he said, as the commissioners laughed. His side won, by the way.
3. Disregard for facilitating children’s development. After the preschool years, most schools move from being child-centered to becoming more teacher-centered. The predominant focus of many schools is controlling kids and getting them to a certain, predetermined place. Once kids enter kindergarten, play is rarely a part of learning, even though developmental psychology shows how critical play is for promoting development. This lack of emphasis on fostering children’s healthy development shows in the removal of educational psychology and child development courses from teacher education programs, while increasing the emphasis on subject matter classes (e.g., reading, mathematics). Decisions are often made that do not take into the account the best interest of the child. For example, we know how important sleep is to adolescent mental health and physical development, but many high schools start far too early for teenagers to get a good night’s sleep. Compare this to schools in Finland, where classes typically start at 9 am or later, with longer breaks for recess and lunch and less homework so kids can play and enjoy themselves outside school hours.
4. Segregation. Schools are more segregated by race and class now than they were during the Civil Rights Movement. Poor families tend to live in inner cities or rural areas where their school options are limited, yet studies show that if low-income families move to areas of “high opportunity,” they increase the odds of success for their children on metrics such as increased college attendance and improved earnings over their lifetime. There is a long history of discriminatory housing practices in our country which have favored White families over Black ones. Though some districts have tried to promote more integrated schools through placing magnet schools in inner city neighborhoods, allowing parents some degree of school choice, and altering attendance zones, some argue that only stronger measures to ensure housing desegregation will undo the segregation that currently exists in our nation’s public schools.
5. Racism. Racism is a powerful factor affecting the quality of our children’s school experiences (See Chapter 41: What if My Child is a Victim of Racism?). The American Academy of Pediatrics created a policy statement noting that racism adversely affects the health and educational outcomes of students who experience it. Students of color are more likely to experience higher rates of punitive school discipline (e.g., suspension, expulsion). Students from marginalized ethnicities or races are less likely to get referred for gifted education services, less likely to have highly qualified teachers, and less likely to take advanced course work, such as the higher math prerequisites, necessary for those college bound. Schools in high-poverty areas, often those with non-White students, get less funding than those from more affluent or White districts. As Geoffrey Canada, the founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone noted, "We have been sending kids into a system that is clear that it has failed them.[1]”
6. Inequitable access to transportation. Although school choice options are proliferating in states across the U.S., for those without the means to get their children to school, school choice is really no choice at all. Transporting kids is expensive! School districts usually foot the bill for bus transportation for kids in their zoned school districts. Some districts provide transportation to their magnet schools, but others don’t. And few charter or private schools have no-cost, accessible transportation. Consequently, parents with the financial means or time to take their kids back and forth to school get the benefit of having multiple school options for their children. Students from less affluent families or those with two parents who work outside the home may not have access to the same choices as those with more resources.
7. Lack of funding. Public schools in the U.S. are typically funded by state and local governments, with additional federal funding for specific initiatives. Because students with disabilities or special needs may require more services, which cost more money, additional funds are available for students with identified disabilities. However, these funds may not cover the increased expense of those services, so there is less incentive for schools to identify students who might need these services. There is a scarcity of resources for building welcoming school buildings and purchasing innovative curricular materials. We have flipped our priorities on their heads: sports teams get high-end equipment, but some classrooms lack basic supplies. Most teachers I know regularly spend some of their meager salary on their classrooms. Some even purchase snacks and school supplies for their students who can’t afford them.
8. Outdated factory model of schooling. The current model of schooling in the U.S. is based on the idea that teachers and textbooks deliver a standardized curriculum to students, and then test scores, based on norms of “average” performance, are used to determine students’ rank and performance. As Todd Rose noted in The End of Average, this outdated model of education does not fit our current 21st century world, where we ought to be focusing on individual students, rather than teaching to some theoretical “average” student, so that all students can flourish in school.
9. Apprenticeship of observation. Although schools of teacher education often teach innovative, research-based approaches to instruction to prospective teachers, teachers often revert to teaching the way they were taught or how they wish they had been taught. Their vision of what is possible is constrained by what they already know about schools. On the other hand, think about someone who decides to become an astronaut: everything they learn will be new to them—they don’t have prior conceptions about what it means to be an astronaut, so they will be open to learning all they can about this new field. But we all know what teachers do—we were all students ourselves. So, it is notoriously difficult to change how teachers teach, especially when they enter schools that have a similar culture to how they were taught. Their mental model of what teaching looks like is reinforced by this “apprenticeship of observation[2].”
10. High-stakes accountability. Good teachers know how to measure individual student progress. Standardized tests do not assess what individual students have learned in class; rather, they rank students on whether they have mastered predetermined content and skills for their grade level. They may be biased and are often inequitable, as their questions assume a certain level of prior background knowledge that students may not have. Tests matter in public schools. A lot. They are used to rank schools, evaluate teachers, and rank students. Tests determine whether a child repeats a grade, gets a college scholarship, or graduates high school. When schools begin to innovate, teachers and parents may “push back” because they don’t want students’ test scores to decline, due to the high-stakes consequences involved. If schools incorporate portfolios and move away from grades, stakeholders may question how schools will measure student success
11. Lack of local autonomy for public schools. State statutes, federal laws, and district policies hinder the ability of public schools to significantly change their culture and practices. For instance, I know of one school that wanted to offer a project-based learning class period each day. The district’s school scheduling software did not have a code for that type of class, so the school ended up being fined by the state for not using the correct code for that class. Everything must be counted and measured in the current system, and that limits educators’ creativity. Even if students are engaged in an activity, they have to drop everything and move to the next class when the bell rings. If a teacher wants to take her class outside to explore, she is hindered from doing so because of the requirement to provide X minutes of daily reading instruction. Principals have little power; teachers have even less. Yet we know from research in psychology that people are motivated when they feel they have some degree of autonomy in their work environments. That goes for students too.
12. Teacher shortages and high teacher turnover. Students learn best from experienced teachers, and schools operate best when they have minimal employee turnover. Unfortunately, teacher shortage is quite high in the U.S., and it’s increasing. Teachers are leaving the profession due to a lack of pay, lack of professionalization, stress from high-stakes testing, lack of autonomy, burnout, and lack of opportunities for advancement. And fewer students are majoring in teacher education or interested in teaching. Research shows that being taught predominantly by new teachers decreases students’ achievement. Good teachers are more likely to leave the profession. All of these factors hurt students and make many schools unhappy places for teachers and students alike.
For Further Reading
Interactive website to locate neighborhoods that are more likely to help kids escape poverty
Harvard Opportunity Insights’ efforts to increase upward mobility
Kegan, R. (2009). Immunity to change: How to overcome it and unlock potential in yourself and your organization. Harvard Business School.
Rose, T. (2015). The end of average: How we succeed in a world that values sameness. HarperOne.
Notes
[1] I heard this quote by Geoffrey Canada during a Zoom conference on Racism and Schooling. Mr. Canada was one of the speakers
[2] Lortie, D. 1975. Schoolteacher: A sociological study. London: University of Chicago Press.
I’m curious—are there any hidden influences on schools that I’ve missed here? I love hearing from you.