Educators Must Set Their Sights Higher

Eric Cooper

Submitted to The Advocate
December, 2004
By Eric J. Cooper

The Advocate article "Board of Ed to set goals for 2005," Wednesday, December 29, 2004, was both compelling and perplexing.  Compelling because it provides hope to a school community that high standards and achievement may become the norm for a system led by many excellent and able teachers, principals and administrators, and supported by many committed parents and stakeholders.  Perplexing because of what was reported, "...Board members said they met resistance from some administrators who said they believed some goals were impractical or too ambitious." The reader was left with insufficient information to assess what was "impractical" or "ambitious" for the administrators who expressed doubt. Hopefully the achievement targets to be set by the board will be sufficiently high so that teachers might use interventions to raise all students above state norms --despite challenges they face in terms of financial and family circumstances. 

As I travel around this country, the refrain I often hear from educators serving schoolchildren and youth, is that "some" students are just not capable of learning sufficiently to meet state standards. And a few have written in national and local publications that it is impractical to expect the elimination of the achievement gap, i.e., unless one were to lower the standards for high performing students.  I often cringe when I hear these statements because if one were to explore more deeply these low expectations for children, one might find institutional racism which prevents many students from achieving sufficiently to graduate from high school and attend a higher education institution of their choice. In his promotion of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, President George W. Bush makes reference to the pernicious impact of institutional racism on achievement as "...[the damaging effects of] the soft bigotry of low expectations." 

When we speak about eliminating the achievement gap, what we are advocating is the elimination of the racial predictability and disproprotionality of which student groups occupy the highest and lowest achievement categories.  The goal is one which eliminates the role that race and poverty play in student achievement.  Is this a realistic goal for a school community faced with an achievement gap which, in spite of all best intentions, remains constant over a number of years?  My answer to that would be a resounding yes! 

Why am I so optimistic?  Prior to her recent death, Susan Sontag responded in a C-SPAN interview, that the lives of people are often limited by the "...pessimism of the intellect...," but are sustained and lifted by the "optimism of the will."  If school communities develop the will, dramatic improvements will be forthcoming.  Examples hopefully will convince the readers that setting high standards, providing high content and culturally relevant pedagogy for learning and teaching can succeed for all students:

Four year data from the primarily African-American and Hispanic-American 15th Avenue School in Newark, New Jersey.  The table shows percentage of students reaching state standard over the course of four years (insert data about here):

School Year  2000 - 2001 -- Language Arts     11.8%        Math   5.9%
School Year  2001 - 2002  -- Language Arts     52.9%        Math 20.5%
School Year  2002 - 2003  -- Language Arts     59.9%        Math 59.2%
School Year  2003 - 2004  -- Language Arts     73.7%        Math 76.3%

I could cite countless number of schools in Seattle, Indianapolis and elsewhere that have seen similar gains for their students.  What have these schools and districts done?  First of all the district and school-based leadership have instilled the value of collegiality among teachers, and have encouraged flexibility for informal shared teaching.  Efficiency in administration tends to be an important consideration driven by appropriate organizational structures which maintain an irrefutable belief in the capacity of all students to succeed at the highest levels.  Sustained professional development which provides demonstration of effective interventions with students is another factor. The hiring of trained literacy coaches for each school, is important as are: implementing an instructional assessment for all schools; helping principals focus on learning and teaching; providing extra support for lowest performing schools; eliminating central office positions that do not support learning and teaching; creating parent workshops which provide participants with strategies for improving home learning for their children.

Is the task doable in Stamford?  Michael Fullan, an internationally respected researcher has eloquently pointed out that successful change requires that one deal continuously with countless dilemmas and subdilemmas involving issues such as the appropriate emphasis on "topdown" direction and "bottom-up" participation; along with adaptation at the local school site.  The emphasis on the latter is critical.  As readers of The Advocate have recently seen, planning of change demands that groups of people interact and make choices, with, and this is a critical factor, the particular involvement on the part of those who have the most at stake in sorting out individual and collective choices about the ends and means of education change -- the teachers.

It is my hope that the board of education will continue to provide the dynamic leadership which will enable a new superintendent to lead our community to the world-class school system this city deserves and needs.  As William Sloan Coffin has written, "...faith puts us on the road [to change] and hope keeps us there."  It is the hope of many in our community that 2005 will be a new beginning for ALL schoolchildren and youth.
Eric J. Cooper is a Stamford parent of two elementary students and president of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education at The Council of Great City Schools, Washington, DC & The University of Alabama, Birmingham.  He also works to improve education with the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and The College Board.