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Exploring and expanding the education discussion in New England.
An interactive online initiative of the Nellie Mae Education
Foundation. |
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THE CURRENT TOPIC: |
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Cutting
Through The Babel:
Measuring School
Achievement |
By Dr. James Comer
Discussions about schools and education call to mind the
biblical Tower of Babel.
One of the major reasons for this is the fact that although we
can agree that the purpose of education is to help prepare
students for success in school and in life, there is no easy way
to measure whether a school is achieving this. There are
many theories, demonstration programs, and research and outcome
claims. |
| In this mishmash,
the only thing that appears to be “hard evidence” is test
scores. But human behavior or performance, and its meaning, are
too complex to be captured by numbers alone. I am not
arguing against the value or use of science-based data in
education. I am reminding us that such data can be
misinterpreted and misused. Indeed, despite the fact that test
scores tell us only part of the story, and probably a small
part, powerful policymakers at the national, state, and local
levels have locked the entire education enterprise into
improving them. This has slowed our search for complementary
evidence and more useful benchmarks and measures. It has taken
the focus away from the need to provide all practitioners with
the skill necessary for understanding child development and
behavior and promoting the kind of student development and
learning essential for school and life success; indeed, needed
to raise test scores. |
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Dr.
James Comer is a nationally renowned
education reformer, psychiatrist, and Yale University Medical
School Professor.
This essay is
adapted from Leave No Child Behind:
Preparing Today’s Youth
for Tomorrow’s World by James P. Comer, published by Yale
University Press. Copyright © 2004 by James P. Comer.
Leave No Child Behind received widespread
attention upon its release and continues to prompt debate among
educators, policy-makers, and opinion-leaders. Dr. Comer is also
a member of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation Board of
Directors. |
Taking massive and decisive action without deep understanding
can be harmful. The story of the harm being done to a
significant number of children and school staff by high-stakes
testing is slowly emerging. Educators and policymakers, like
physicians, should be held to the ancient Hippocratic charge,
“Do no harm,” and should be held accountable. Yet because of my
work in schools, I understand the need for policymakers to “do
something” in the face of the poor school conditions and
performance in many places, and to act on what appears to be the
best thing to do – raise the test scores.
When I began my work in two elementary schools in New Haven,
Connecticut, in 1968, I was shocked by what we found. The
schools were thirty-second and thirty-third out of thirty-three
in the city on standardized achievement tests. They had the
worst attendance. The student behavior problems were
overwhelming. Parents were angry, alienated from the schools,
and unhappy with me, our project, Yale University, and everybody
else they felt could help their children but were not doing so.
The almost completely new staff brought in for the project was
in disarray from the first day; almost all were gone by the end
of the year. My first reaction was that we had to change the
environment; children could not develop and learn in that
chaotic situation. After stumbling through the first year, we
recovered. After five years, we discontinued working in one of
the original schools and added another school with a similar
profile. Eventually the two schools in our project achieved the
third and fourth highest level mathematics and language arts
test scores and the best attendance in the city. There were no
serious behavior problems, and one school had no teacher
turnover for thirteen years, and then only for personal reasons.
These schools were almost all African-American and poor. There
was no change in the social and economic makeup of the
community. After the first year, the teachers were drawn from
the regular pool of practicing and new applicants. The staff was
70 to 90 percent white. The schools used the same curriculum and
instructional program as the district. |
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Our speculation was that the
climate, context, or culture of the school was the major
culprit. In a dysfunctional culture, the kind of interaction and
bonding needed to promote development and learning cannot take
place. Thus, our focus was on creating a school context in which
the adults could support the development of children and not
focus only on raising test scores. But test scores went up
significantly. And equally important, student-staff-parent
behavior and participation improved greatly.
Eventually, the framework (School
Development Program [SDP]) we created was
used in as many as one thousand schools across the country. Most
were lower-income, elementary schools, but we worked with
schools across the socioeconomic spectrum and with all racial
groups from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. When the
framework was implemented well, student test scores and behavior
– student, staff and parental – usually improved.
The results of a
meta-analysis of comprehensive school reform models
done by
Geoffrey Borman, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and his associates in 2002 shows the effectiveness of
our approach. Of the twenty-nine most widely implemented models
studied by Borman, only three, using the highest standard of
evidence across varying contexts and varying study designs,
could be expected to raise students’ test scores. One of the
three was our School Development program. The point of
importance here is that SDP was not designed to raise test
scores, although we knew that had to happen if we were to
survive. This finding, and others, support the position we took
from the beginning. When we create conditions that support the
development of children, they will learn.
Today, in discussions about schools there is much
finger-pointing and blame without much listening. Almost
everyone who has anything to do with schools is blamed for his
or her shortcomings. The least powerful – students, parents, and
school staff – are blamed most and heard from least. While the
adults go around in face-saving blame circles, the needs of
students are not being met. Situations like this often create
denial, conflict, distrust, guilt, shame, and other feelings
that do not help matters.
Many of the most vocal leaders and policymakers with passionate
negative opinions about schools have not been in the average
school since they were in students – and the more affluent and
powerful the speaker, the less likely it was they had attended
an average school. Most would not know what to look for even if
they went in, including too many researchers.
One of the reasons for the blind eyes is the fact that most
policymakers, opinion leaders, professionals, and the general
public disconnect their own success from their own developmental
experience. This is a cultural affect. One of the most cherished
beliefs is that we make it on our own. This is a flattering myth
that we can no longer afford. It is part of the reason we expect
similar outcomes among all students without providing adequate
support in school for the underdeveloped and appropriate
learning opportunities for all.
Also, because of the disconnect, social and behavioral
scientists often make child care and rearing sound unimportant
and make child development sound autonomous and complicated. As
a result, development is seen as some mysterious
“scientific-thing,” the purview of mind and body doctors and
social workers. Educators do not want to be seen as child
rearers – “not professional enough,” “the task of parents,”
“teachers teach.” And too many parents do not understand that
the way they rear their children greatly influences development
and learning. The way each simultaneously serves the other –
care and rearing, development, teaching, learning, parents,
teachers, and other professionals – is not fully appreciated or
missed.
Listening to the voices of the people on the frontline can be a
reality check. Doing so was very helpful to our
Yale
Child Study Center team when we went into
schools thirty-five years ago. We lived in two schools, listened
to all the players, and experienced their challenges. What we
learned was sobering, useful, and different from what too many
are still saying today about the nature of the problems in
school and how to address them. I want the reader to hear, as
our team did, from staff and parents who should be informing the
school improvement movement but are not.
What we heard and observed made it clear that parents, school
staff, and students all wanted to succeed. This observation led
to a search for the underlying problems, which in turn led to
the construction of a model that permitted school-based
participants to engage in prevention, problem solving, and
learning-promotion activities. A similar search and
problem-solving approach is needed nationally.
Viewpoints readers
respond:
"I work in the
school reform and accountability area and have said many
times that parents, school staff, and students all want
to succeed...we just need to help them get there. "
-Roberta E C Tenney
Administrator, Office of Accountability and School
standards
New Hampshire Department of Education
"If the first Viewpoints is representative of what is
to come, I will be reading it regularly."
-Dr. Thomas Plough
President, Assumption College
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