Time to Buck the System

At the 2007 National Advisory Board Meeting, Six Educators Discuss How to Save Our Failing School System.

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On June 8, 2007, six leaders in education came together for Scholastic's annual National Advisory Board meeting. Drawing on their various backgrounds as administrators, researchers, advocates, and teachers, the board spoke about the changing needs of students, educators, and schools and offered insight into what Scholastic and other education-focused companies can do to better support teachers and students.

The New 3 Rs: Rigor, Relevance, and Relationship
While each board member addressed different issues related to his or her area of expertise, a recurring theme was the educational mantra preached by Dr. Willard Daggett, President of the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE): Central to education today is the importance of "rigor, relevance, and relationship."

• Make It Rigorous: Students will work hard...when they want to. According to Daggett, students do not give school their all because they are not given assignments that challenge their abilities. To tap into students' will to work, educators need to push them to make an effort and better their skills.
• Make It Relevant: To a wired generation of multitaskers, today's classroom seems slow and boring. Kids multitask and use technology for everything - everything except school, according to members of the board who felt that outdated methods and materials fail to resonate with today's students and stop learning in its tracks.
• Build Relationships: Students who have developed a connection with a teacher/mentor are more engaged in school. By providing emotional and social as well as academic support, educators can motivate students to make a stronger academic effort.

Addressing Current Problems
Dr. Marilyn Jager Adams, Chief Scientist at Soliloquy Learning and Senior Literacy Advisor for PBS, presented sobering facts about the problems that face education today. Among the data she cited was a report that focused on national reading levels. In 1992, only 30% of 4th graders were at or above their expected reading level; 43% had below basic reading levels. By 2005, despite more than a decade's worth of attempts to improve performance, there was a decrease of only 8% in the number of 4th graders scoring below basic on reading level assessments. Adams also discussed results from Florida's Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), which tests math, reading, science, and writing in grades 3–11. Students with level 1 scores (the lowest possible score) showed extremely poor fluency and vocabulary skills, indicating that low reading abilities affect other academic areas.

Daggett pointed to a connection between poor performance and low expectations. He addressed problems with secondary school systems, stating that the standards in high school curricula are too low, "much lower than those required for entry-level jobs." Surprisingly, Daggett found that in high schools around the country the English/Language Arts courses had the lowest reading requirements of all classes.The discussion shifted to focus on social issues when Dr. Pedro Noguera, Professor of Teaching and Learning at New York University's Steinhardt School of Education, said that the failure of the school system to educate children is not merely an academic problem; he pointed out that social factors that were also to blame. Referring to dropout rates that exceed 50%, he described the current environment as an "educational manifestation of social inequality." Among the statistics Noguera cited to show why children do not receive a quality education were the following:

• 1/5 of children come from families in poverty.
• 1/4 of children are not covered by health care.
• 70% of poor children lack access to a quality preschool program. This failure to get off to a good start hinders their later success in school.

Noguera emphasized the importance of these statistics, saying that family income and parent education are indicators of how well a child will do in school.

Among the factors contributing to the failure in our system is the fact, Noguera said, that public schools are not yet ready to respond to the growing diversity of their students. "Fifty years after the Supreme Court's Brown decision," said Noguera, "public schools remain highly segregated by class and race. In New York City public schools, the children who are missing are the white middle class. The rest of the world is there." What this observation indicates is that, in spite of the fact that white middle-class children make up a small percentage of the New York school system, educators continue to gear lessons toward that demographic; they have not appropriately adjusted the curriculum to address the need of a new, diverse student body.

Alberto Carvalho, Associate Superintendent, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, also focused on the changing needs of students. He stated that the country's inability to educate its children is "not a ‘skill-set' problem. It's a ‘will-set' problem. We know what has to be done and need commitment at the federal, state, and local, levels to move forward."

It's Time for a Change
Carvalho has begun to move forward, firing teachers and administrators who did not have "the will and heart" to be there and replacing them with people who had the right "will set," paying them 20% more for meeting certain demands. These changes have led to double-digit gains in reading and math proficiency, showing that a failing school system can be turned around.

In a revisitation of the 3 Rs, Daggett called for more rigorous standards to prepare students for life. Dr. Alfred Tatum, Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at the Northern Illinois University College of Education, and an expert on boys and reading, stressed the need for relevant literature "that will change [students'] lives, and text they will remember and live by." The 2007 Teacher of the Year, Andrea Peterson, stressed the importance of developing relationships with students so that teachers can understand how individual students think and learn. She illustrated this statement with a story of a boy she had in one of her classes. Finding out that his special skill was fixing things, she framed her interactions with him in that context.

A Call to Arms
When asked what Scholastic can do to help achieve the goals discussed, Daggett urged Scholastic to keep doing what they have always done so well, but to integrate technological, cultural, and other kinds of literacy into our materials.

Reminding his audience of educational publishers that teachers need materials that will allow them to differentiate learning, Tatum referenced Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, saying that Scholastic should "keep producing materials for the alphas, but never forget the epsilons."

Noguera emphasized that "relevance" means different things to different students and so asked Scholastic to keep producing materials that readers with varying interests and lives will want to read.

Adams encouraged Scholastic never to lose sight of how magical the love of learning is and to continue efforts to inspire it. "Sharpen your vision. You're in a position to help. Go for it!"

Peterson closed the meeting by explaining that educators are relying on the 85-plus-year-old company to change the system that has failed students and educators: "Scholastic is an important player in this orchestra we call education. Show up for the concert."

More specific suggestions of what needs to be done to improve the current system, include:

• Replacing teachers and administrators whoare not passionate about raising students' skills with those who are.
• Making text relevant to the students so they can find something that they want to read.
• Bringing technology into the classroom to enhance the curriculum and keep students interested in the work.
• Challenging students in the classroom.
• Supporting students in and out of the classroom.

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