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If all parts of a ship have been replaced, is it still the same ship? When does the old become new, or when does the new still inherit the old? The Ship of Theseus paradox, an illustration used by Clayton Christensen in How Will You Measure Your Life? fits any conversation about reform or change. In a time in the United States where children are more like Kevin in Home Alone than the kids in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, how does what we know about education fit the social climate of 2014?
This blog dove into the heart of public education before Christmas, pulling apart its philosophical foundations. With the start of a new year and semester in the classroom, however, the focus turns to more direct, empirical and practical analysis of education issues. After exploring the political issues and inequalities surrounding education, turning toward weighing solutions is best. A common framework of change taught to group leaders is: What should stop? What should start? What should stay the same?
Answering these questions through reform is challenging because solutions are interdependent, or may conceal actual solutions. For example, developing teachers may not be sufficient if school administrations or district policies need an overhaul. Empowering parents may not be sufficient if teachers are not developed. Improving funding streams has a threshold effect because school/district leaders have to be good managers and stewards of funds to allocate those resources to impact instruction.
Reformers have a high bar to disprove what G.K. Chesterton said about them: that they are right about what’s wrong but wrong about what’s right. Therefore, this blog can now lay the groundwork for finding what’s right. How? Through research-based solutions and by approaching education with a careful lens of values combined with a working theory of how the education system in the United States works. What do the features of the landscape look like today? As education requires social scientific research, having a consistent concept of education is equally important with having strong evidence.
Education today is like Theseus’ Ship: so many features have changed over the last several decades, yet the system must carry out the same purpose to provide free, compulsory and democratic education for all our children.
Feature #1: Children grow up in different kinds of families and communities
In recent weeks, the conversation about welfare reform has heated up nationally, with new conservative voices throwing their hats in the ring with new ideas. The questions being asked, thankfully, is no longer should we have welfare? But what kind and for what purpose should we have welfare? As part of the welfare reform conversations are realizations about the contexts into which programs go to offer support: programs are useful only if they create the right incentives.
In other words, policymakers can view the world through the normative lens of traditional family, rewarding two-parent families when fewer and fewer exist. Why should policies force single women to choose between work and welfare — why force the choice between a salary and aid for children when policies should reward single women who are both “breadwinners” and “caretakers”? The Washington Post summed it up well with survey data:
For example, the survey found that 64 percent of all respondents and 77 percent of women on the brink agreed with this statement: “Government should set a goal of helping society adapt to the reality of single-parent families and use its resources to help children and mothers succeed regardless of their family status.”
The key point here is that policies reflect social attitudes, and American welfare policies reflect the social attitudes of helping “widows and orphans” in a parochial way. Because policies which give aid for more children or for being unemployed pat women and children on the head a viable alternative is not offered. While aid for women and children in need is absolutely essential, it cannot come without an equal amount of economic opportunity.
The American public needs to acknowledge, and in turn reward educational leaders who acknowledge, that our family structure has changed almost irrevocably. With more students living in non-traditional family settings, more flexible arrangements must be made in schools and communities to welcome the 21st century family into a shared responsibility for the education of children. Parent conferences, volunteering in schools, expectations for where and how homework should be finished are all affected by this change.
American communities have also changed dramatically in the past several decades. The book Bowling Alone by Harvard scholar Robert Putnam is a must-read for anyone concerned with the health of American society and government. His description of social capital — the bonds which hold together responsibility and leadership in communities, shows a serious decline in connectedness in the latter half of the 20th century. From the introduction: “In 1992 three-quarters of the U.S. workforce said that “the breakdown of community” and “selfishness” were “serious” or “extremely serious” problems in America.”
Putnam identifies general stress and busyness, population sprawl, television/computers and individualistic values as the four main causes of disconnectedness. If our society is becoming increasingly focused on individuals, on the needs of people retreating to private needs in comfortable, homogeneous groups, then schools have an imperative to restore their communities. Schools ought to see themselves as places of civic learning and development not just for students, but for parents as with Chicago’s Logan Square program, and for community safety as with ending the school-to-prison pipeline.
Feature #2: Research-based practices will offer answers
This blog has taken considerable time outlining the differences between traditional public education and education reformers. While the distinction is where the “battle lines” are drawn in the debates today, genuine reform will not happen until the lines are blurred and more discourse happens between traditionalists and activists. The common denominator is research on the impacts of certain reform proposals on student performance, inclusiveness and college readiness.
The imperative for research-based education reform is made greater by the public’s uncertainty. The annual Education Next survey revealed that the public’s attitudes are hardening rather than shifting in either direction about charter schools. If momentum in the education reform movement is to build, the public and policymakers must see a proven track record of success in meeting educational outcomes before accepting unproven or suspect reform strategies.
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Two examples of this feature of public education today fit here: Teach For America and charter-public school partnerships. Rather than the polemics hurled around in media debates and inflammatory editorials, discussing Teach For America should be based on peer-reviewed evidence of its success and findings the conditions under which alternative certification programs will achieve its goals. TFA, accordingly, should commit to altering its recruiting, retention and placement process of Corps Members based on external and internal research.
A new brand of charter school-public school partnerships is taking hold in Boston Public Schools. Horace Mann Charter Schools tap into the creativity, innovation and human capital of the reform movement while still providing the oversight, information sharing and common metrics of a public school district. Charters and public schools ought not be mutually exclusive, as the elements of charter schools which produce high performance, such as rigorous academics, school culture and visionary leadership can meet with the more secure and inclusive practices of traditional public schools.
Ultimately, evidence should mediate the debates within education reform rather than commentators and special interests such as corporate donors or unions. While these interests may base their platforms on research, the research is what in the end ought to drive the platforms. For after all, all sides of the education reform debate face a common objective: to prepare students for college and careers. And giving students the best chance to pursue the career and personal opportunities they desire is becoming increasingly difficult — as the recent cuts to the Georgia HOPE Scholarship Program show.
With the common language of college readiness, education advocates of all opinions can start to be more than right about what’s wrong. They can be right about what’s right in building education’s Ship of Theseus.
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