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[Executive Summary Part 2]Education Reforms and Students At Risk - October 1996
By the year 2020, the majority of students in America's public schools will be living in circumstances traditionally regarded as placing them at risk of educational failure. 1 Many will be poorly housed, undernourished, subject to the effects of others' abuse of drugs, and provided with few positive adult role models. A greater number of young people will be neglected or abused by those adults who enter their lives, and -- because misunderstandings, insufficient resources, or a lack of regard for individual differences and capabilities -- treated harshly by the very institutions that ostensibly were created to help them. 2
There are at least three rationales for improving our schools' readiness to meet the projected educational challenges posed by these demographic trends. The first is related to the transmission of societal values. Throughout our history, people have supported the view that all citizens must be taught to read the great religious, philosophical, historical, and political works of their heritage. Early labor union organizers, for example, frequently argued that workers needed Sundays off from work so that they could go to "Sunday schools" and learn to read the Bible. Without reading and reasoning skills, the knowledge and mores we have established as a society will be endangered, and the opportunities to extend these systems of belief will be cut short.
A second rationale for improving the schooling experiences of at-risk students is linked to our democratic way of life. How can a democracy survive if a significant percentage of its citizens cannot read and place in perspective the public debates of the times? A citizenry needs information, but it also must be able to interpret this information and make thoughtful judgments. A democracy cannot survive if its citizens lack the skills to seek common ground through deliberation and consensus-building.
The third rationale for better serving at-risk students is provided by the inevitable consequences of moving into a post-modern, high-tech, world economy. Over the last 20 years, the number of highly paid, low-skill jobs in the U. S. has greatly diminished because of the powerful combination of automated production processes at home and access to very low-wage factories located in developing nations. As a result, between 1973 and 1992, the average annual income of young U. S. male high school dropouts fell by an alarming 49 percent.3 When young people do not succeed in school, the economic consequences to individuals and to the country are staggering.
These three rationales converge on one central thesis. As a nation, we need to find ways to improve the quality of education for all citizens, particularly those young people who are most at risk of failure.
In this study for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, we have reviewed the research from the past 30 years and examined ongoing experiences of reform initiatives.4 We have conducted case studies at 18 schools that had previously been designated as effective in working with at-risk students.5
We have observed in classrooms, in halls, and on playgrounds; interviewed school and central office administrators and program developers; and conducted focus groups with teachers, students, and parents. Frequently, we have left sites feeling very good about the future -- the programs in place were working well. However, this century has seen many widely celebrated "lighthouse" schools and exemplary school improvement programs,6 few of which have resulted in any lasting improvements in the education of large numbers of disadvantaged young people. We knew from the start that, for our study to be of use, more than simple descriptions of successes would be needed. We have aimed to identify broad, over-arching conditions that must be met in transporting isolated successes to the entire population of schools serving at-risk students. These conditions have been the focus of our work, and we have classified them into two categories: community in schools and schools as high-reliability organizations.
"Community" is concerned with the deep-structure fabric of interpersonal relations.7 Soundly woven, this fabric permits a shared frame of reference and supports mutual expectations.
The relations among adults in schools provide models of behavior for students. The ways in which teachers, administrators, and classified staff persons relate to students also define the conditions within which teaching and learning of specific subject matters take place. In addition, these relations determine a school's readiness to undertake and sustain efforts to achieve shared goals (e. g., making the campus a safe haven or raising reading achievement scores), and they define a school's image in its neighborhood -- for parents, nonparent residents, local businesspeople and shopkeepers, and community-based service organizations. The quality of these relations is critical to all facets of school operation, yet it is typically taken for granted. Just as typically, in our experience, the quality of these relations is much lower than it must be if schools are to be productive.
In previous studies and in this one, we noted several attributes of interpersonal relations in schools that were associated with effective programs or periods of program effectiveness. Students felt cared about and respected, teachers shared a vision and a sense of purpose, teachers and students maintained free and open communication, and all parties shared a deep sense of trust. Visits to the effective schools and to other sites confirmed that the weakening or absence of these attributes often accompanies program failure. Building on studies of community in work and school settings,8 we have identified 10 elements that characterize adult, student, and adult/student relations in schools that are communities:
Schools that consciously work at strengthening these elements are, in our view, building the necessary foundation for excellence.
For schools serving many poor students, community building presents special challenges. Personal, monetary, and material resources in these schools are likely to be stretched thin, so that opportunities for investments in community building are often severely limited. In addition, accommodating the ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity that is typical of these settings requires special talent and dedication. The sites we studied offered distinctive examples of achievement in terms of the dimensions listed above.
Shared vision, shared purpose, and shared values were most often the result of efforts to define common goals for education and for working with students. In some cases, forward-looking principals who were willing to work persistently (or staff persons themselves) succeeded in changing staff attitudes and building emotional and practical supports among the staff for student-related outcomes. In one case in which the "founding" principal had left, staff members continued to shape their vision for the site in terms of shared values originating in their commitments to their students and to one another.
Strong principals are often those who have succeeded in achieving shared vision and purpose by listening to and working with their staffs, students, and parents to reach consensus. Focusing on a particular program or problem has also served to bring the various parties together. In one site, an emphasis on cooperative learning gradually spread to the entire faculty and staff, welding the adults at the school into a family. At another site, the infusion of a private school curriculum into all grades of a public school provided the neighborhood with new pride and staff with a shared context for discussions of learning objectives and student progress. At an alternative school site that was created by eight school districts in a rural area to address the needs of at-risk students, the various principals and staff took on the challenge and fashioned a unified approach together with their students.
Incorporation of diversity was a hallmark of all the successful sites we visited. Teachers and administrators actively sought out the distinctive talents of their students, and they have come to see great value in a diversity of linguistic abilities. In one site, problem-solving discussions among students could be heard in Vietnamese and Spanish; at another, aides "talked like the students talk" on the playground to facilitate conversation and a sense of closeness. Cultural celebrations are almost the norm in these sites, and the most successful schools have developed strong outreach efforts to involve area families and residents in their programs.
Communication and participation are closely related, and open-door policies and open forums for discussion at staff meetings were featured ingredients at the most successful schools we studied. New teachers quickly found mentors and endless opportunities to learn about the school setting and instructional approach. Staff teams, often with parent participants, recommended new strategies or modifications in current practices. Staff development programs strengthened capabilities for taking part in leadership activities at the sites. At one school, for example, the principal selected different teachers to attend different workshops and to report on them, thus building their knowledge and self-confidence. Students at these sites were also regarded as full participants in site activities, and every effort was made to solicit their views on how well programs were working and what could be done to improve them. At one site, no student's problem was "off the table," and individual and group discussions with students were often held in informal settings to encourage active interchange of comments and ideas.
Caring, trust, and teamwork are in some ways the results of effective communication and active participation by all parties at the school site. Many of the most impressive sites we studied had created family networks within and across grades or classes. Staff members worked hard to engender feelings of trust in their students and colleagues. At one site, for example, teachers brought their classes together regularly and organized a "buddy system" among older and younger students on the campus. At another site, teachers, vocational specialists, and personnel at student job sites formed teams to bolster students' self-confidence and increase opportunities for learning. At a third, school staff members regularly greeted every student every morning -- with a handshake, hug, and a review of the previous day's progress or that day's plans. Among staff themselves, caring, trust, and teamwork often arose as a result of sharing the challenges posed by new programs, students with special needs, or neighborhood or district problems.
Respect and recognition were much in evidence in the effective education programs for at-risk students that we visited. Even when new programs are being implemented, lack of respect for students, as indicated by harassment and severe punishments, can kill any chance of positive results. Lack of mutual respect and recognition among staff members also weakens the social fabric of the school and lowers morale. When positive performance is affirmed, both teachers and students strive to do their best. At one model site, a principal who was relatively new to the campus chose to demonstrate his respect for the staff and the students by letting them orient him to their successful implementation of Robert Slavin's Success for All program.9
1. Gary Natriello, Edward L. McDill, & Aaron M. Pallas, Schooling Disadvantaged Children: Racing Against Catastrophe (New York: Teachers College Press, 1990).
2. Alesia F. Montgomery and Robert J. Rossi, "Becoming at Risk of Failure in America's Schools," in Robert J. Rossi, ed., Schools and Students at Risk: Context and Framework for Positive Change (New York: Teachers College Press, 1994)
3. Samuel C. Stringfield, "Attempts to Enhance Students' Learning: A Search for Valid Programs and Highly Reliable Implementation Techniques," School Effectiveness and School Improvement, vol. 6, 1995, pp. 67-96.
4. Rossi, op. cit.; and Robert J. Rossi and Samuel C. Stringfield, Educational Reforms and Students at Risk: Final Research Report, vols. I-III (Washington, D. C.: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U. S. Department of Education, forthcoming).
5. Samuel C. Stringfield, Linda Winfield, Mary Ann Millsap, Michael Puma, Beth Gamse, and Bonnie Randall, Urban and Suburban/Rural Special Strategies for Educating Disadvantaged Children: First Year Report (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Department of Education, 1994); and Robert J. Rossi, Effective Strategies for Keeping Students in School: Evaluation of Projects Funded by the School Dropout Demonstration Assistance Program (Washington, D. C.: Office of Policy and Planning, U. S. Department of Education, forthcoming). We are grateful to the schools that have participated both in our previous national evaluations and in the current studies of reforms for at-risk students.
6. Eugene Randolf Smith and Ralph W. Tyler, Adventures in American Education, Vol. III: Appraising and Recording Student Progress (New York: Harper, 1942); for a review, see Larry Cuban, How Teachers Taught, 2nd ed. (New York: Teachers College Press, 1993).
7. John W. Gardner, Building Community (Washington, D. C.: Independent Sector, 1991).
8. For example, Robert J. Rossi and Mark A. Royal, Measuring Workplace Community: Final Report to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (Palo Alto, Calif.: American Institutes for Research, 1994).
9. Robert Slavin et al., Success for All: A Relentless Approach to Prevention and Early Intervention in Elementary Schools (Arlington, Va.: Education Research Service, 1992).
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