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Why
Lesson Design? Serious institutional change is a gradual adaptation to a specific challenge to an institution’s values. For K-12 schools, the new challenge is to improve student achievement in a new curriculum and to do so for all students. K-12 public schools cannot respond “We do not teach that” or “We do not teach this standard to all students.” To
meet the new challenge, the first wave of K-12 school reform focused
on the internal structure of public education, specifically decentralization,
improved labor-management relations (trust agreements, reduction of
strikes), and career-long teacher training (subject matter projects,
mandated re-certification). As a result, teachers are no longer certified for life, staff development
is continuous, school sites have a more important role, labor-management
relations are somewhat improved, and new institutional devices such
as trust agreements, waivers, University-school cooperative agreements
have helped create new, essential programs, the California Writing Projects
(CWP) and Peer-Assistance-Review (PAR) being two examples. During the last dozen years, the second period of K-12 school reform has focused on Accountability---developing Standards and Goals for student achievement, installing tests to measure and report achievement, and finally adopting incentives to reward and punish schools and individuals (students, teachers, and administrators) for results. Although still undergoing major revisions, the Standards and Goals are in place (Standards need a mechanism for translation at the district and school level), the Tests are said to be more systematic (Alignment to Standards is the goal, not yet attained), and Incentives have been tried (The result is in doubt). One interesting example of the on-going debate about the use of tests is the report from the Boston Teachers Union (from Ed Doherty, president of the Boston TU): Last year,
the Boston Teachers Union surveyed over 400 of its members on a variety
of issues, including MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System)
testing. The overwhelming majority of teachers (68%) indicated support
for this testing program when it is used as a diagnostic instrument
and even as an accountability tool when similar schools and/or school
districts are being compared. However, by an even wider margin (85%),
teachers are opposed to the use of this test as a high-school graduation
requirement. Although there is some indication that the implementation
of MCAS testing has improved curriculum and helped push students and
teachers to focus more aggressively on academic achievement, the potential
consequences of depriving thousands of students a high-school diploma
is simply unacceptable to most teachers. Although Massachusetts has consistently been among the
leading states on a variety of national student assessment tests, nearly
half of our 10th graders failed either or both the math and language-arts
test last spring. In many inner city schools, this failure rate soared
to 80% or 90%. Despite promises of more remediation programs for students
and the opportunity for them to retake the exams up to four times, teachers
fear for their students' future are not assuaged. Even if those failure
rates are dramatically reduced in the next two years, far too many students
will be deprived of a high-school diploma and the opportunities that
go along with being a high-school graduate. And, clearly, these consequences
will fall disproportionately on Black and Latino students. Finally, teachers object strongly to the massive amount
of reporting and editorializing about MCAS results and believe that
the unfair comparisons drawn between urban districts and affluent suburban
communities are destructive to the educational climate and demoralizing
to vast numbers of teachers, students, and parents.
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