The Great Education Debate

This morning, the NY Times featured a provocative article on education historian and reform advocate Diane Ravitch, Scholar’s School Reform U-Turn Shakes Up Debate.

An About-face
According to education reporter Sam Dillon, Ravitch has followed an unusual trajectory in education reform. Following a stint in the administration of George H. W. Bush, Ravitch was a leading, conservative voice in education throughout the 1990s and early 2000’s. She long advocated for accountability, standards, charter schools, and standardized testing, and was a vocal supporter of the 2001 federal act, No Child Left Behind.

Dillon reports that Ravitch, “is in the final stages of an astonishing, slow-motion about-face on almost every stand she once took on American schooling.” For example, she has found that charter schools often fare no better than traditional public schools and No Child Left Behind has done little to improve student outcomes. Furthermore, according to Dillon, Ravitch believes that “requirements for testing in math and reading have squeezed vital subjects like history and art out of classrooms.”

While important, Ravitch’s voice is just one of many in a long-running debate that shows no sign of letting up any time soon.  In fact, her former colleague at the Fordham Institute, Chester Finn, summarizes the current divide among education reformers. Dillon writes:  “Diane says, ‘Let’s return to the old public school system,’” [Finn] said. “I say let’s blow it up.”

Priorities

Ravitch’s interview with Dillon offers her current priorities for education reform. She says:

“Nations like Finland and Japan seek out the best college graduates for teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them with respect,” … “They make sure that all their students study the arts, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages, the sciences and other subjects. They do this because this is the way to ensure good education. We’re on the wrong track.”

UEE Commentary
The controversy over accountability, charters, standards, NCLB etc. is positive insofar as the reform debate is increasingly main stream. Regardless of where this debate goes, however, there are two things never under debate: 1) a quality teacher using quality curriculum is the key to student success; and 2) students must be able to read in order to study history, literature, civics, or the sciences.

The best way to support quality teaching and demonstrate respect for the profession (as suggested by Ravitch) is to systematically collect best instructional practices, instead of requiring each teacher to “re-invent the wheel”. This is one of UEE’s primary objectives.  And we focus on reading comprehension because it is the niche of reading instruction identified as most difficult for at-risk students and most critical for long-term student success.

Research: Curriculum Matters

Curriculum makes the difference for student achievement. But not all curricula are built the same. What really matters is not just curriculum, but high quality curriculum – the right curriculum.

Earlier this month, William H. Schmidt tackled this subject in his article The Myth of Equal Content, published in the ASCD monthly magazine Educational Leadership.  Schmidt is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State and is widely known for his international studies on math and science instruction. (Free asbtract here – Full article for subscribers only.)

Schmidt’s article blasts the myth that the quality of instructional content is consistent among districts and schools. Instead, he shows that instructional content varies tremendously and that the quality of curriculum plays a major role in determining student achievement:

“The real issue behind differences in student performance is unequal access to a high-quality, challenging curriculum.  In multiple analyses conducted with international data across countries and with U.S. data across states and districts, we’ve demonstrated the significant relationship between classroom instruction and student achievement.  Access to instructional content is always more strongly related to differences in student performance than are the student background factors often cited to explain such differences.”

“Schooling does make a difference in student achievement.  Specifically, the curriculum itself – what is taught – makes a huge difference.”

In the U.S., Schmidt argues that our focus on assessment is outweighing our focus on instructional content:

“In the United States, we have a much better track record in ensuring uniform, equitable assessment than in ensuring uniform, equitable access to learning opportunities.”

Assessments are critical, but they are no cure for poor instructional content. In fact, assessments should lead us to expose poor content – and call us to improve the quality of our existing curriculum programs.

While Schmidt focuses on the myth that all content is created equal, to me the more dangerous myth is that curriculum content doesn’t matter at all – that teachers can (and should) figure it out on their own. Regardless, Schmidt’s findings are a boost to all curriculum advocates. Although his focus is on math and science, the same holds true in reading, vocabulary, and writing.  High-quality curriculum matters!

Curriculum: A Key Reform Strategy

As educators, we know only too well that there is no silver bullet for improving student achievement. Instead, we must coordinate the various strategies necessary for student success. While many effective initiatives have been developed over the past decade – alternative governance structures (i.e., charter schools), alternative teacher recruitment channels, and others – too little attention has been paid to curriculum.

The chart above – my own “wheel of education reform” – outlines the key strategies to advancing student achievement. In looking at this chart, I am prompted to make two key observations:

1) Curriculum is unique because it directly affects the “moment of instruction” – the precise interaction between teacher and student. Curriculum determines exactly what is taught and how it is taught. As a result, it plays an immediate role in shaping the exchange between teacher and student – creating a powerful lever for success in the classroom.

2) By contrast, the majority of other reform strategies (shown above) create an environment that encourages/enables student achievement, but do not directly impact the exchange between teacher and student.  The underlying assumption is that in the right environment teachers will naturally “figure out” the right curriculum – and certainly some will.  [However, students (particularly elementary students learning to read) can’t afford to forgo quality instruction for a few years while the teacher is “figuring it out”.]

Recently, much attention has been paid to improving the quality of classroom instruction. In March 2009, President Obama remarked in a speech on American education, “From the moment students enter a school, the most important factor in their success is not the color of their skin or the income of their parents, it’s the person standing at the front of the classroom.” Yet, what impact can a talented teacher have if they do not have the most important tool for successful instruction – an effective curriculum?