The Core of Education Reform in this Country

Eric Cooper
Michael J. Froning

Submitted to "Education Week" for publication
November 18, 2004
By Eric J. Cooper

Education week's articles appearing in the November 10, 2004, issue go to the core of education reform in this country.  The piece by Vartan Gregorian, "No More Silver Bullets," and that written by Milbrey McLaughlin and Martin Blank, "Creating a Culture of Attachment: A Community-as-Text Approach to Learning," represent two convergent points of view about the importance of teacher quality and curriculum as the primary factors for student achievement.  They are both powerful reminders of why learning and teaching have to remain the sine qua non of improving schooling, and they are as applicable to urban, as they are to suburban, exurban and rural schools.  Sadly, the concepts advocated are given short shrift in the education reform movement due to a relentless search for panaceas, or as Mr. Gregorian notes, the "silver bullet."  All too often the proverbial cart is put in front of the pull of a strong horse.  Testing and textbooks remain the primary educational driver, and in too many teacher education colleges, there is a disconnect between content, pedagogy, system change theories, and the relentless, high profile pull of research.

Education Week readers will recognize the theoretical framework behind the "community-as-text approach to learning" as reflected in the work of Piaget, Vygotsky, Dewey, Bruner, Freire, Taba, Bransford, Brown, and Mahari (to name a few).  These readers understand the need for real-world context for accelerated learning, and concurrently are cognizant of how one incorporates highly specific and broadly based strategies for students, so that these strategies become skills that build relevance, integration, synthesis, and elaboration for the learner.  Readers also understand the importance of incorporating universal themes in classroom instruction such as life and death, perseverance vs. surrender, hubris as opposed to humility, and love and hate.  These themes play important roles in an instructional calculus that combines high standards and high content to open up communities and the world to students.  Allowing the activation of the personal and collective background knowledge of students enables them to apply what they know to what they do not know; ultimately teaching them how to "read the world" (Freire).

Our work together on the TRUST (Training and Retaining Urban Student Teachers) Initiative in Birmingham applies this work to training teachers for urban settings and speaks to Gregorian's charge to schools of education to be part of a larger picture.  We are integrating teacher preparation with schools, the community, national partners, and building a model in which the universal themes of teaching reflect the universal themes of learning.  The isolation traditionally felt in teacher education is being changed to the feeling of community that is a result of a coherent, focused partnership in which all of us support the high achievement of our students.  It is a joint effort and it is the only way we can be sure that new teachers will have the skills and experience they need to understand and be successful in the context of today's schools.  Our work incorporates culturally relevant strategies that enable students who, because of financial and family challenges, are primarily dependent on schools for their learning.  We never forget that culture and "habits of mind" are deeply rooted in the life dynamics of those most in need.  Bruner and Freire clearly understood that culture is the frame for life-long learning, and that the circle of life is ever expanded by leadership that build on the social, economic, educational, and cultural needs of young people and their teachers.  The challenge we face is the need to build time for change in school/community/university engagements so that cognitive theories and research can take hold.

Eric J. Cooper is president of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education at The Council of Great City Schools & the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Michael J. Froning is dean, School of Education, University of Alabama at Birmingham.