School reforms that focus only on the classroom may miss important outside
influences, suggests IPR faculty fellow James
Rosenbaum in a report written for the Strategic Education Research
Program of the National Research Council. Policymakers and others often blame teachers for students’ failures,
Rosenbaum points out. The implicit assumption is that classrooms are where
learning occurs, and therefore low achievement must be the teacher’s
or student’s fault. As a result, reforms are directed solely at teachers
and students. Learning, however, may be fundamentally affected by the organizational
context in schools, from the structure and pacing of classes and curriculum,
to the transitions between grades, to the overall decentralized approach
to education policy, and larger contextual factors such as the neighborhood,
health care, and housing issues. Focusing only on teachers and students,
Rosenbaum suggests, may miss the bigger picture and ultimately undermine
reforms. The Importance of Organizational Features. Basic features of social
organization of education are well known, but their impact is rarely considered
or questioned, Rosenbaum suggests. Curriculum, for example, implies that
courses have continuity over time, coordination across courses, and perhaps
coordination with activities outside school. However, a great deal of
what to teach and how is left to teachers. This highly individualized
approach raises the question of how well the coursework is synchronized
with students’ day-to-day and year-to-year coursework in other classes.
Beyond curriculum, the transition from elementary school to junior high
is accompanied by many social organizational changes that can affect learning,
and that are rarely considered when assessing the learning process. Different
teaching methods, more fragmented time, and a shift from a highly personal
relationship with a single teacher to a more anonymous identity all can
affect learning. The highly decentralized nature of education policy in the United States
is another aspect of social organization that can affect learning. In
a mobile society such as the United States, local control over school
policy can have a dramatic effect on learning. Students moving even across
town often face vastly different expectations and coursework. This effect
is especially pronounced for low-income students, whose families move
more often than higher income families. Beyond the school itself, neighborhoods, family life, and peers play
a large role in their capacity to learn. Yet policymakers rarely examine
the institutions outside school—health care, housing, the welfare
system, employment, neighborhoods, and after-school activities—that
may affect student performance. Low-income children lose 30% more days of school each year owing to illness
than higher income students. They are twice as likely to suffer from anemia,
asthma, and to have severe vision impairment. Giving all children equal
opportunity in school is unlikely to lead to equal achievement if low-income
children come to school hungry, ill, and unable to see the blackboard.
Expand Research beyond the Classroom. Although students must eventually
learn to deal with discontinuities such as those experienced in school,
an individual’s capacity to adapt may depend on maturity and attainment
of certain skills. It is possible that discontinuities are more harmful
at certain ages, for example, or may be eased if introduced in small steps.
These issues deserve detailed examination. Prior research efforts that
relied on classroom evaluations to understand the causes of low achievement
are unlikely to reveal the full story. Without taking a larger organizational
perspective, Rosenbaum suggests, any learning gains made in the classroom
might be eroded by surrounding organizational features. The report is available as an IPR working paper (WP-02-20) and may be downloaded from www.northwestern.edu/ipr. |
