Inadequacies of the common school model that dominates schools, the advantages of specialized schools, types of specialized schools, and how they can be effective within an organizational network
Ronald G. Corwin, Professor Emeritus
Department of Sociology, Ohio State University
The typical public school system offers a common curriculum for diverse students from all backgrounds. In the ideal common school, students are assigned randomly to schools and to teachers under principles of equitable treatment, rather than on considerations of distinctive needs. Though bent out of shape by segregated housing patterns and tracking practices, the common school prevails in popular mythology as the perfect public school. Even the reality that suburban schools, safely walled off from the inner cities, cater to homogeneous middle classes pursuing a single, college-oriented goal has not tarnished the nation’s belief that the common school is THE most appropriate for a democratic society.
Why the Common School?
The common school is a largely political response to the historic transformations that shattered this society during the early part of the past century. Unprecedented rates of immigration from various countries, drastic shifts in the rural-urban tilt, and disruptive economic, racial, ethnic, and religious distinctions all threatened the solidarity of this nation in the years between 1850 and 1940, even as it was climbing to world prominence. The comprehensive, common school would, it was believed, serve as a mechanism for bringing vastly different groups under one roof where they would come to share a common value system and language.
Once regarded as the first line of defense against elitism, the common school has now become as obsolete as the general store. It is, after all, based on an irony, the belief that student diversity itself makes it unnecessary for educators to pay much attention to diverse student needs and backgrounds. That illusion is grounded in the notion that the common school would serve as a laboratory for assimilating newcomers who would be eager to learn the language and customs. Educators bought the assumption that simply by interacting among themselves in schools, students from different backgrounds would become assimilated. No further assistance needed. This “school-mix remedy” then allowed educators the luxury of concentrating on the curriculum without needing to do anything else. This convenient assumption has not been dented by demanding new technologies, unstable job markets, and large concentrations of physically and emotionally disabled youths, street gangs, a thriving drug culture, and massive numbers of immigrants who choose to maintain close contacts with their country of origin and their native languages. Indeed, the school-mix remedy was hauled out again in recent years by reformers pushing desegregation programs with the limited objective of bringing together students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds in the same school.
The flawed hope that assimilation requires no more than putting everyone in the same school continues to thrive. And therefore, educators have given little attention to structural and procedural changes that might be necessary to improve admission policies, beyond implementing racial desegregation guidelines. It is no wonder that public schools are not yet structurally organized to (a) provide an effective socialization experience for diverse types of students; (b) equip them with distinct types of information and intellectual skills; or (c) help them overcome various hurdles created by problems at home, language deficiencies, and physical, and emotional disabilities. Schools deal with diversity and a knowledge explosion as afterthoughts tacked onto an organizational form designed for other purposes. As a result, even in fully desegregated schools, students can be segregated among classrooms and extra curricular and social activities. At the same time, any teacher can expect to confront a mixture of students carrying the full spectrum of challenges.
Inadequacies of the Common School
Unfortunately, a school admissions policy devoted only to the goal of representing students from diverse racial, ethnic and socioeconomic families is directly contrary to the principle of specialization. Notwithstanding their family backgrounds, students have different interests, talents, abilities, and handicaps. And, notwithstanding their common school tradition, schools are grappling with ways to teach expanding and changing areas of knowledge. In this atomic, electronic age of invisible forces, teaching has become ever more challenging. Students will not comprehend atoms from a field trip through the local milk factory, and theories of economics cannot be easily conveyed with simple household budget models. All of this makes it necessary for teachers to specialize. Teachers need to devise distinctive ways to teach abstract ideas to students with different levels of preparation, and schools need to be reorganized to better prepare students to learn abstract concepts and reasoning, at their own pace.
And, it is bound to happen. Schools are experiencing a structural lag that will force them to adapt new forms and procedures. Attempting to maintain comprehensive programs in this era is producing several types of strain. One type has already noted. The typical teacher, by design, faces a class of 30 students from different racial heritages and socioeconomic backgrounds, with differing motivations and interests, and with an IQ range of four to six years. Between half and three-fourths of teachers report having students in class who are not fluent in English, and over three-fourths have students with disabilities. The anomaly is that the teacher—and the school—are condemned to function as a “jack of all trades” in an era of specialization. No wonder so many schools are not doing well. Another form of strain comes from an astounding array of often conflicting goals, ranging from teaching knowledge to character training. Many of these goals are either logically inconsistent (e.g., teaching critical thinking along with uncritical patriotism), or they cannot be completely achieved simultaneously because of the limited time and energy of teachers and students. Still another source of strain as arises from competition among different programs having competing priorities and seeking limited resources. Schools become bi-polar, allowing slower and less motivated learners to slide so teachers can cover material at a pace intended for a hypothetical average student; in the meantime, able students complain of boredom. Far from being democratic, the comprehensive system forces less prepared students to compete with the better prepared ones.
The Case for Specialized Schools
Specialization is the hallmark of medicine. For someone who needs heart surgery, a small, general hospital is no match for a major research hospital, staffed with full-time cardiac specialists, supported by trained and experienced staff, and offering facilities designed for heart surgery. But while few hospitals are staffed exclusively by general practitioners, most public schools are staffed almost entirely by teachers with identical job descriptions. In most schools, any given classroom teacher can expect to work with youngsters who may have physical, learning and language disabilities; youngsters whose parents exhibit varying degrees of support for school policies; and youths from ethnically and socially diverse backgrounds. Moreover, as Merrifield observes, “We stifle specialization by assigning the diverse children of each attendance area to neighborhood ‘public’ schools…One size fits all for all required classes and lots of elective courses and extracurricular programs.”
While schools have become encumbered by obligations that common sense suggests require special skills and resources, most districts have few specialized schools. In 2002, 98% of the public school students in this country attended 91,000 regular schools. More than 9,000 alternative, magnet, vocational or other special schools enroll only 2% of them. Consequently, although only 12% of the U.S. population is foreign born, nationwide, 41% of teachers report that they have LEP students (students with limited English proficiency), and only 13% of these teachers have received at least 8 hours of specialized training in the last 3 years on how to teach such students. In California, 75% of the teachers have LEP students in their classes, but only half of them have received recent training. English learners make up 30% of all students in California, and most of those students tested in 2003 did not pass the English proficiency test. I surmise that a particular California teacher could be working with students from homes where parents speak only Spanish, or only Japanese, or another language, plus a few physically disabled or behaviorally-challenged students, and perhaps some slow learners and gifted students—all in the same classroom, or at least in the same school. Given the range of challenges that teachers are expected to handle, is it reasonable to suppose that most teachers have either the training or experience to handle them, alone, and within limited time constraints? This situation is not an accident of history; it is a deliberate policy. Could anyone have designed a system that is less likely to succeed?
Of course, there is always a danger that some students attending specialized schools will become isolated from contact with other types of students. However, if a good education means no more than compelling everyone to take the same program, with the same teachers, then everyone stands to lose. Moreover, fully integrated heterogeneous schools are already a myth. The truth is that students are sorted into tracks and programs and designated by labels, such as “underachiever,” “at risk,” gifted and talented,” “slow learner,” and “vocational.” And, of course, impoverished minorities are firmly segregated from their middle-class peers residing in other parts of the city.
The reluctance of American schools to group students and provide them with tailored programs supported with special resources may help explain why only 6 percent of American students achieve advanced proficiency in math, lower than 20 other countries. When judiciously used, homogeneous grouping acompanied by tailored programs and specilized resources can benefit teaching and learning. In response to questions about reforms in their schools, about half the principals participating in a 1998 national study by the National Center for Educational Statistics reported that one of the biggest problems is teaching students who are at different levels. Suppose it turns out that less-able, less-motivated students perform better in settings tailored for them than they do in comprehensive classrooms. And, why wouldn’t average students benefit from being in differentiated programs adapted to their varied interests and talents? Certainly, poverty schools deserve to have teachers prepared to cope with their challenges.
It seems clear that every school district needs a substantial number of specialized schools that not only can serve their own students but also can act as resources for other schools in the district. Types of Specialized Schools
A specialized school is a school with a particular focus and demonstrated competency operating within a planned network of schools. It is part of an interdependent division of labor.Each specialized school in the network is staffed by trained specialists with (a) clearly delineated responsibilities for which they will be held accountable; (b) a supportive knowledge base; (c) specialized training; (d) incentives to work hard at whatever they are expected to achieve; (e) a separate administrative structure; and (f) a supportive environment, which includes specially equipped classrooms, programs, and other critical resources. Note that all of the pieces must be present. For instance, teachers cannot be held accountable for outcomes unless they are backed with the necessary support.
Specialization establishes a mission that, on the one hand, clearly specifies what a school is supposed to achieve, and on the other, describes how it fits in with other schools in the network. The mission makes it possible to tie performance standards and sanctions to each administrator, teacher, and student. The mission also minimizes competition among schools. When providers are undifferentiated, they all compete for the same thing, the same teachers and the good students. A division of labor sorts the population into different domains, thus widening the base and minimizing wasteful competition. In a specialized school, staff members work with a distinct type of student who needs assistance that cannot be as effectively provided within conventional classrooms. Teachers must be trained and have experience and other qualifications appropriate to the school’s mission. For example, a school for the emotionally disturbed employs teachers trained in psychology as well as the relevant subject matter. In a school for the performing arts, some teachers have acting experience and the custom facilities might include small auditoriums and sound stages. A school for the physically disabled has health care environments, special toilet facilities, ramps, and desks. All specialized schools need to have a separate administrative structure, with administrators who have been delegated authority to support and coordinate key tasks and to recruit properly trained teachers.
Because “specialization” is a word that has been widely used, and misused, within the education community, it will be helpful to sort out some of the meanings associated with the term.
(a) Special Programs and Homogeneous Types of Students. Specialized schools should not be confused with grouping students into special courses or programs. Specialized courses and programs are almost incidental to the overall school mission and must compete for resources with other programs and activities within a single school. By contrast, within specialized schools, all tasks contribute to a coherent program for a targeted clientele. However, even this weakest form of specialization seems to have positive outcomes, because it allows teachers to tailor lessons to match student needs. There is some data supporting the effectiveness of grouping by ability, On the one hand, when Chicago schools disbanded remedial classes for ninth graders and put everyone in college prep courses, failure rates increased, grades declined slightly, test scores did not improve, and students were no more likely to enter college. On the other hand, a recent report by the Fordham Institute shows that schools that track by ability generally get better overall results. Middle schools with more tracks have significantly more math pupils performing at the advanced and proficient levels and fewer students at the lower levels.
Other terms that are sometimes confused with specialization are diversity and homogeneous community. Some proponents of choice use the term, "diversity" to suggest that schools with specialized programs are abundant in the private sector, while others seem to equate specialization with "homogeneous communities" of students and parents who share the same religious, political, and social backgrounds. Neither term qualifies as specialization as defined above, since neither requires trained staff, special resources, and the like.
(b) Idiosyncratic Specialization. Some schools have evolved almost by accident into a form of specialization that can be called "idiosyncratic." Idiosyncratic specialization is an informal and unplanned form of specialization that schools and teachers work out on the basis of their personal skills and predilections. For example, because of the interests and talents of particular teachers, one school may have become adept at working with at-risk students, while another has a reputation for being effective with advanced learners, and still another gives priority to math. Schools also adopt different informal practices for transferring students among teachers with particular strengths, for handling discipline cases in various ways, and for addressing requests from parents for particular teachers. Sometimes a school becomes highly distinctive as a result of its idiosyncratic features. However, that fact alone does not qualify it as a specialized school if the specialties have evolved in a haphazard manner. Idiosyncratic behavior is uncontrollable, and hence can produce unwanted dysfunctional results. For example, schools sometimes evolve as "dumping grounds" for those students the system chooses not handle in any other way. Idiosyncratic patterns are unpredictable and unstable because they are so heavily dependent on (a) the personal talents of teachers, who may leave, and (b) the tolerance and encouragement of particular administrators who happen to be in charge at the time. Formal specialization, on the other hand, identifies the special capacities of each school, which then can be held accountable for fulfilling its assigned mission by recruiting certified, experienced teachers. Isolated instances of the kind of specialization I am talking about already exist in embryonic form. They include district specialists, specialized schools, alternative schools, magnet schools, and controlled choice plans. Each is discussed below.
(c) District Specialists. Thousands of nonteaching professional personnel work as school psychologists, reading and language experts, school nurses, bilingual and special education teachers, college job placement counselors, and counselors in the areas of alcohol and other drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and suicide prevention. During some years, non-instructional staffs have grown at twice the rate of instructional expenditures. The position of district specialist represents the most primitive type of specialization. They usually serve more than one school and are not housed in facilities staffed by others with the same specialty and same special mission. Operating in isolated positions marginal to the basic district structure, specialists cannot count upon resources that effective specialization requires.
(d) Specialized Schools. Specialized schools, by contrast, can count on all of these things. They have been around a long time in one form or another, but are nevertheless relatively rare. Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati was created in 1918 for academically gifted, college-bound students. Other well known specialized schools include New York’s Bronx High School of Science, Boston’s Latin School, and Lowell in San Francisco. Many cities have founded public vocational schools and schools devoted to special education, the arts, and to modern technologies. However, although many states pay most or all of the cost for a public specialized school, there are relatively few specialized schools within any given district. For example, Washington, D.C. operates one of the most challenged school districts in the nation. Yet, it has only four early childhood education schools and six specialized high schools (for the arts, careers, student drop outs, multicultural education, and academic achievement). New York City undoubtedly sponsors more specialized schools than any other district in the nation. There are over 24 schools for students with learning disabilities, more than 100 for autistic and dyslexic students, and many other schools offering therapy for the hearing or visually impaired, and early childhood education. Some of types of specialized schools are affiliated with one another through professional networks. For example, in 1988 a consortia of 80 specialized secondary schools of mathematics, science, and technology was established to provide opportunities for this type of school to exchange information. Nevertheless, these schools usually operate as isolated units within their respective districts.
(e) Alternative Schools. Alternative schools, sometimes called “free schools” or “open schools,” sprang up in the early 1970s as political expressions of the counter culture movement of that era. They were unique schools that usually offered a special teaching style or curriculum focus. In 1970, with the assistance of $6 million from the federal government, Minneapolis opened four elementary schools and one high school, all with different organizational designs. Of the four elementary schools, the least structured, was referred to as "free" in that students had freedom to direct their own education. The second type was called "open," and had an informal classroom design. The third was "continuous progress," and the fourth had a traditional approach, but Minneapolis chose to call it "contemporary." The city of Berkeley also sponsored a full-scale alternative program featuring basic skills centers, environmentally-oriented programs, independent contracts with businesses to provide curriculum, and other approaches. Alternative schools caught on and spread to major cities across the country during the 1970s. However, within a few years the reform fervor had diminished and most had gone out of existence or drifted back into conventional schools. One study of several alternative schools operating in 1973 found that most already had come to look a lot like conventional schools.
(f) Magnet Schools. Magnet schools evolved along with alternative schools. A magnet school is a school or education center that offers a special curriculum capable of attracting substantial numbers of students of different racial backgrounds. Magnet schools were conceptualized as a political response to remedy racial segregation in school enrollment; and they continue to be part of a broader desegregation plans, often stemming from litigation. According to the Magnet Schools of America website, the first school designed to reduce racial isolation by offering a choice to parents was an elementary school created in 1968 in Tacoma, Washington called McCarver. In 1969, Boston’s Trotter Elementary School opened for the same reasons. Both of these first attempts offered a different organizational pattern and guaranteed continuous progress education, by which students would progress at their own rates. As a desegregation strategy, children and faculty could be reassigned to reduce, eliminate, or prevent minority group isolation. Neither of these schools was called a magnet; rather each was referred to as an "alternative." According to the Magnet Website, the term magnet caught on after 1971 when a district used it to describe the ability of one school to attract students. The idea behind magnets is that if a school voluntarily attracts students and teachers, it will succeed because, more than for any other reason, those in attendance want to be there.
Now over one million students attend 3,000 magnet schools, 80% of them located in urban areas. At least 60% are located in high-minority neighborhoods and are designed to entice white parents to voluntarily transfer their children as a means of improving racial balance. Funds for magnet schools are provided by the U.S. Department of Education's Emergency School Aid Act. By 1980 most major cities had systems of magnets, but it was the federal courts that caused the greatest surge in magnet education. According to the Magnet Schools of America website, today magnet schools are still used to reduce racial isolation, but, they are more and more considered superior options within the public sector for all students, even in districts of primarily one race. A key feature of magnet schools is the specialty curriculum designed to embrace a subject matter or teaching methodology not generally offered to students of the same age or grade level in the same local education agency, such as a science-technology center or a center for the performing arts. The International Network of Performing and Visual Arts Schools and the Magnet Schools of America list at least 500 public schools with a focus on arts education in the United States. The Network defines a school of the performing and visual arts as one in which at least 40% of the school day is devoted to arts education. However, not all magnets are school-wide programs. Some operate as programs within a school or as special classes. Some arts schools are "arts-infused," meaning that the arts are used in every aspect of education, without actually teaching the arts as a separate subject. Most magnets focus on one of the following basic skills: individualized learning, math/science concentrations, gifted and talented programs, language immersion, the arts, and at the high school level, vocationally oriented training. Some feature programs in business/finance, justice/law, and technology. Other possibilities for specialization include:Health care facilities for alcohol and other drug problems, pregnancy and day care, and sexually transmitted diseases; Diagnostic counseling centers for recent immigrants; for students who engage in violence, vandalism, and verbal or sexual harassment, and for students returning to classes after jail sentences or extended truancy; Language clinics for limited English proficient students; Remedial schools and programs for students with educational and learning deficiencies; Centers focused on helping teachers and administrators learn to cope with specific tasks (such as a deaf child or a child who cannot speak English).
Magnet schools resemble charter schools in that they are free to establish their own special focus and missions. Consequently, like charters, they operate as unique isolated entities, not as part of a systemic plan or network of interacting schools. As a result they sometimes develop bizarre programs, such as one devoted to the care and feeding of animals or another focused on athletic skills. Therefore, while instructive precursors of the planned networks, most magnet schools do not provide much insight into how a planned network of specialized schools would operate within a district. However, there are few models that illustrate what I have in mind. One is Cambridge, Mass., and another is Montclair, N.J. Both cities have eliminated attendance zones and assigned each school some distinguishing program features. Another District, No. 4 in East Harlem, also has eliminated attendance zones for junior high students who must apply to any of 24 programs throughout the district. In the East Harlem case, several “schools” are housed within a single building. Each school retains a distinct administrative structure and teaching style. These examples can provide insight into the kind of networks I am proposing for charter and vouchers schools.
Organizational Networks
Specialized schools can be fully effective only as members of organizational networks. A network of organizations consists of all connected relationships among affiliated organizations. Networks are guided and constrained by interdependencies formed through voluntary exchanges, contracts, overlapping memberships, membership in common formal associations, and various forms of communication. Networks operate on their own logic and laws. The organizations are not governed by an overriding administrative system as organizations are. But they are nonetheless guided and constrained by existing laws and customs, and more important, by relationships they have established with other member organizations.
Competition is not, as choice advocates want us to believe, the fundamental property of organizations. The fundamental property is interdependency. Schools could not function without the help of other organizations—colleges, neighboring schools; parent and community organizations; district, state, and regional offices; the police; food service providers; suppliers; auditors, and professional organizations. Cooperation and exchange are at the heart of these relationships. A viable model of choice, and of reform, must build on and reinforce this cooperative system.
Networks offer the advantages of institutional cooperation and exchange of goods and services while allowing participating organizations to retain wide spheres of autonomy. The ability of an organization to make creative use of networks to its advantage can be the difference between success and failure. For example, a financial weak charter school might be able to survive by establishing a working relationship with a sympathetic donor, or by placing students in a local business in exchange for its support.
A school district is composed of relationships among partially autonomous schools relating to one another not only directly but through district offices. These relationships establish a network, which in turn determines how schools operate. Districts, in turn, are involved in webs of relationships with a wide range of other organizations: colleges and consulting groups, county offices, employers who hire students, unions, courts, the police, suppliers of books and services, building contractors, etc. District boundaries are further permeated by cross-district student transfers and tuition arrangements, home schooling networks, and Ethernet programs. What is important here is that districts, and schools within them, are assisted—but also constrained—by widely ranging interdependencies among these diverse organizations. These relationships with other organizations are profoundly important and must be thoroughly understand before its performance can be accurately evaluated or improved. Sometimes districts are helped by their partners, as when a police department provides campus security. Sometimes they are hindered by their relationships, as when a building contractor fails to compete remodeling on time, forcing the district to find other temporary housing for students. Sometimes intense controversies (e.g., about textbook content) arise because of the actions of network partners (publishers) who cannot be fully controlled.
In sum, a school’s effectiveness depends heavily on how it relates with its network partners within a district. Put in the simplest terms, a charter school can either compete with other schools for resources and students, or it can help meet the pragmatic needs of the district. Putting it that way puts choice schools in a different light. If they compete by offering comparable programs to the same students, they are faced with the prospect of demonstrating that their approaches yield better results than their competitors. And, as already noted, that task is proving nearly impossible because of extreme differences among schools, and because of controversies about which outcomes to measure and how to report changes for students in various parts of the distribution. On the other hand, when schools perform services other schools are not providing, or are not providing effectively, their help will be welcome. What is expected of them can be adjusted to the known challenges they face and the importance of the role they are playing within the district. Network analysis can reveal the most challenging areas where school districts could use outside help. Programs for the physically disabled, for truant students, and for homeless students are obvious examples of areas in which districts need help, but programs focused on technology, science, or the arts are also needed in many districts. The same school district that resists supporting a competitive school might welcome that school if it offers to take over some of the responsibility for providing special programs like these.
Steps to Creating an Effective Specialized School Network
Step 1: classifying students on two dimensions: (1) demonstrated commitment to succeed in school, as reflected in past performance, expressed goals, and self concept; and (2) scholastic potential, as indicated in behavior, tests, and teacher and parent evaluations. If these categories are treated as hypotheses about the student, rather than fixed boxes, they can be used as starting points for identifying various kinds of student needs. Dividing each dimension into three categories yields nine types of schools (or programs) for students with different needs. They are identified in the following table.
Prior Commitment Prior Scholastic Performance To Succeed in School Above Average Average Below Average
Above Average 1 Gifted/Talented 2 3 Remedial/Vocational Average 4 5 6
Below Average 7 Underachiever 8 9 At Risk
Nine types of schools (or programs) in this hypothetical system are represented by the numbers in the table. The system is predicated on the assumption that working with unmotivated and troubled students requires distinctly different approaches and facilities than teaching scholastically oriented students.
School1, for high performing, motivated students, is often referred to as a school for “gifted and talented” or for “college-bound” students. Such schools tend to concentrate on a particular area of knowledge such as math, science, or technology; or it might offer courses and experience in the performing arts. A technology school might be heavily stocked with computers, seminar rooms, and science laboratories and a performing arts school would have an auditorium, sound systems, music rooms, and recording equipment. School 3 is designed to attract hard-working students who have not yet demonstrated high scholastic potential. “Remedial programs,” “work-study,” and “vocational schools” fall into this category. These types of schools could also be established for students whose primary scholastic handicap is inability to speak fluent English, and for those needing remedial work in particular areas, such as math. School 9 is often referred to as a school for “at risk” students. It provides a second chance for potential drop outs, pregnant teens, and students with a history of drug or discipline problems. The work and programs in this type of school are necessarily highly individualized. Students would have daily access to psychologists, counselors, and social workers. Remedial courses would be available as needed. Students in School 7 are often referred to as “underachievers.” Such a school would specialize in preparing students who have high potential, but who need special support and incentives. It might use individualized instruction, or have work programs and extra curricular programs to peak students’ interest in school. Unlike comprehensive schools, it is likely that most of the resources of School 7 and School 8 are dedicated to motivating and guiding able students. Students may be bright, but without the experiences and academic backgrounds that schools often require. In such a school the counselor-student ratio would reasonably be expected to be about twice that of some other types of schools.
Physically disabled and emotionally disturbed students might fall into any of the categories, but if there are enough of these students to justify a separate school, their school might give priority to special education programs operated in conjunction with the other schools, e.g., by transporting students, through teacher exchanges, and by using modified computer based instruction.
Step 2: Creating Porous School Boundaries
I do not want to give the impression that students would be stuck in any one school, as is now true of most existing specialized schools and magnet schools. When schools participate as part of a larger network, students can associate with a broad spectrum of other students outside their base school through joint programs, courses, and extra curricular activities. All students could be required to participate in one or more joint programs, ranging from district-wide athletic programs and social events to lectures, seminars and workshops. For example, a performing arts school might hold auditions for students at other schools, perhaps giving the drama majors at the school an opportunity to direct plays. A technology oriented school could offer computer workshops to students throughout the district, and students attending a school for advanced study could on a regular basis tutor remedial students from any school in math or science.
Also, students could rotate among schools in half-day or full-day classes at different schools at designated times each week, or in remedial after-school programs, weekend workshops, and summer school. Also, they could rotate among different schools on an annual, a semester, or a trimester basis. As an example, consider Franklin County, Virginia where all 8th-graders enroll for one semester in the Center for Applied Technology and Career Exploration. Each student chooses to participate in three career modules, each six weeks in length, taught by pairs of instructors, one from the world of work and one a certified teacher. Students with varied interests and aspirations have a chance to work together on a specific problem, such as assessing the impact of a toxic spill in a local stream, and determine how to clean it up. The assumption is that barriers between students from different backgrounds tend to break down as they pool their knowledge to deal with a common problem. Some schools add another twist by offering joint courses for youths and adults.
Finally, cross-school collaboration could be facilitated by supplementing conventional classes with independent study, small seminars and discussion groups, team projects, computer instruction, and even system-wide lectures. Breaking curricula into specific units or course components of varying lengths would smooth transitions for students participating in more than one school program. For example, students who fail a unit on fractions could make it up in a remedial workshop offered at a network school, without requiring them to repeat the entire math course. Flexible scheduling may require teachers to work in teams and divide their work in unconventional ways. While in conventional schools such requirement is likely to meet resistance from unions, charter schools would not be bound by union contracts. Step 3: Creating and Staffing Schools That Match the Needs
Guided by a needs assessment, the school district would identify the schools designated to accomplish each mission identified. The district could convert existing schools or create new ones. In some cases, the district may wish to convert all schools to charters. In addition, as already noted, teachers and other professionals within the district could apply to start a charter school provided they submit evidence it would meet a district need, and provided that a core of skilled staff is ready to commit to the tasks involved. The district might also encourage or require some community involvement at this and later stages.
A major concern at this proposal stage is to minimize unneeded duplicates and also to weed out schools that could become dumping grounds for less-motivated and below-average students. In the existing common-school framework that dominates school districts, most teachers prefer to work in schools serving higher-income students. Schools serving lower-income students often get ignored or get second best. Many of their students are eventually placed in custodial classes offering ceremonial courses where often inexperienced teachers routinely pass them on, prepared or not. The advantage of specialization is that not only is each school held accountable for helping all students improve, but also it is in a position to recruit teachers prepared to help students who are performing at different achievement levels.
Step 4: Establishing Incentives and Rewards For Teachers
Teacher unions generally oppose contracts that permit differentiated assignments and pay scales. They fear that unethical principals will punish strong teachers who question their leadership by their school assignments. They also believe that most principals are unqualified to evaluate teacher performance, so they demand a single salary schedule for all teachers. Obviously, the teachers unions have some justification for their positions. But the consequences are creating a system of “rich schools and poor schools” within most districts. The better, more experienced teachers eventually use their seniority to settle into the schools serving the higher-income students, leaving the new, less-experienced teachers to serve the schools with the greatest need students. However, the idea of differentiated staffing has been around for over 40 years, and at least some districts have a form of it. Since state laws generally exclude charter schools from union contracts, they can offer teachers special incentives in exchange for their commitment to specialize and to work in non traditional settings. Meaningful incentives—including money, prestige, and opportunity to wield influence—should be offered to teachers and principals willing to work in schools with special missions. In particular, teachers should be rewarded when their students progress to the point where they are prepared to move on to other schools and programs. A large percentage of students enrolled in a program for so-called underachievers should eventually live up to their potential and transfer to other types of programs. Teachers who can make these students successful should be acknowledged and rewarded; if they can’t, they shouldn’t be retained as faculty in these schools. Step 5: Admitting Students
Admission to any specialized school should be voluntary, based on applications and recommendations. Moreover, no student should be stuck in a school. Mechanisms should be created to allow and encourage student exchanges and transfers among schools, and schools should be held accountable for assuring that a significant number of low-performing students show enough improvement to transfer to more scholastically demanding schools. Three considerations should guide how students are admitted to each school.
The first consideration is the student’s personal circumstances. Some students may require language immersion experiences, others may be talented artists, and still others need remedial work. Their parents could submit applications, and also teachers would be free to recommend individuals they think would benefit from a school. In some cases—such as applications to schools of visual and performing arts or music—students might be required to audition or otherwise demonstrate minimal qualifications. Choice plans have been justly criticized for leaving some students behind. In the interest of expanding choice opportunities to everyone, when demand for a particular type of school exceeds supply, the sponsor should be required to take steps toward providing another school. In the meantime, admission would have to be based on random assignment. In no case, would residence dictate admission
Notice that parents would not have to leave the public schools to enroll their children in choice schools, and the range of options available within districts would expand significantly. Some of these options would directly benefit families with special needs not now being met by charter schools, whose goals often are dictated by the whims of individuals operating them. The real question, though, is a relative one: Is the current involuntary student assignment procedure based on residence really better than a referral plan that matches students to schools capable of addressing their special circumstances?
The second factor that must be considered in any discussion of student admissions concerns the school’s boundaries. A choice school’s jurisdiction can be ether contiguous with district boundaries or it can be regional (or in some cases, perhaps, statewide) in scope. Regional boundaries are problematic whenever suburbs are included, because historically they have resisted more than token numbers of outsiders. As Heise and Ryan have observed[i]:
“Politically, school choice seems most likely to succeed when it is confined to districts where there is not a great deal of attachment to neighborhood schools, which is most likely to be true in urban districts where neighborhood schools are not very good…Any effort to extend choice beyond a particular district or to include private schools will be even more difficult politically, in large part because such plans threaten (or will be perceived to threaten) suburban schools. What we should expect to see, in short, are scattered, geographically constrained choice plans in urban areas with a large number of inadequate schools.”
The wall of isolation around suburbs opens choice programs to charges of elitism and segregation, but I doubt that much can be done about it. One might hope that a few suburban parents can be enticed to participate if cities open specialized schools offering clearly superior programs. That was the magnet school strategy. But while those magnets that offered exceptional programs have sometimes attracted a racial mix of students, they do guarantee that students will actually interact together across color lines. Moreover, the strategy is often symbolic and has never been applied to most schools in a district. Conversely, one might hope that suburbs will agree to accept a limited number of inner city youths. But again, the numbers are likely to be small and amount to little more than a token victory. Still another tack that has been tried to promote regional schools is a coalition among districts that agree to cooperate. There are a few isolated examples of this approach, including the controlled choice program in Cambridge, Boston's METCO program, and Milwaukee's Chapter 220 program, and a legal settlement between Minneapolis and eight surrounding suburbs. However, by and large, we will probably have to be content with intra-district approaches to open enrollment.
The third factor that effects student admission options are the transportation arrangements. Some families are able to provide or pay for private transportation, while public transportation may work for others. Most states do not provide funds for transportation in connection with existing choice plans within the public sector. However, without funding, choice will remain an option only for the wealthy, or for the fortunate few with a choice school in their backyard. When transportation funds are not available, choice schools can be located adjacent to or on large public school campuses. “Schools-within-schools” models, consisting of several specialized schools that operate within a single building, provide a practical way to minimize transportation hurdles while at the same time facilitating cross-school collaboration. Students at Wyandote High School in Kansas City can enroll in any of eight distinctive schools in the largest building as well as take courses at a nearby community college.
