Where We Stand

Ask any group of veteran teachers what's been the most striking change in American schools over the past 25 years, and they'll say, the enormous increase in violence and disruption. Of course there have always been youngsters who misbehaved. What's new and shocking is the breakdown of order in the schools. The kids who come with guns -- and sometimes use them. The classrooms where teachers spend their time trying to contain youngsters who yell obscenities when another student volunteers to answer a question. It's true that the violent and disruptive kids are only a small percentage of the whole -- perhaps 5 percent -- but they are putting at risk the education of the other 95 percent.

It's increasingly clear that the biggest roadblock to improving the achievement of U.S. students is violence and disorder in our schools. Education reformers say we must set high standards for student achievement and create curriculums and assessments embodying these standards -- and I agree with them. But high standards and excellent curriculums and assessments are not enough. Indeed, they will be worthless if students cannot learn because they are constantly afraid of being hit by a stray bullet or because their classes are dominated by disruptive students. This is just common sense.

To many Americans, the balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which is being debated in Congress, is simply good sense. A family has to live within its income, and the government, they reason, should be capable of doing this, too.

Interdisciplinary learning is a big educational fad these days, and it's no wonder. It's a very attractive idea. The world is not divided into disciplines so why should school be? Why not integrate what kids learn -- and show them how math and biology and history fit together -- instead of putting these things into separate boxes? A holistic approach, advocates tell us, will make learning far more engaging for students. It will also be more stimulating for teachers, who will be encouraged to make new connections and see things in new ways.

Last week, members of the U.S. Senate put aside their disagreements and, in a remarkable show of unity, voted 99 to 1 to pass a sense of the Senate resolution. The resolution and debate got very little media attention, and that's too bad because the senators were talking about something that is vitally important to all of us. They were debating the kind of history our children should learn and, specifically, the validity of the standards for American and world history that were recently proposed as models under Goals 2000: Educate America Act.

In "Learning to Teach," a public television documentary that follows three teachers through their first year in the Baltimore County public schools, producer John Merrow hits the nail on the head. Most people know about teaching from the students' vantage point; Merrow conveys the realities of life from the other side of the desk. Indeed, watching his teachers get ready for opening day brought back the feeling I had in my stomach before my first class--and reminded me of what a colleague told me during the early weeks of school: "The first year is always hell."

How can excellent teaching be recognized and rewarded? We've been waiting a long time for a good answer to this question, and last week we finally got one. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards awarded its first certificates of advanced competency. The recipients were 81 middle and junior high school teachers from across the country who had demonstrated that they knew their stuff in a grueling, year-long series of assessments.

The public is becoming skeptical about school reform. They are asking, "How can we take seriously all this talk about high standards, new curriculums and revolutionary ways of organizing the school day when there is violence and destruction in the schools?" And I think they are right. No reform is going to work when classrooms are chaotic and when kids who continually disrupt the learning of others cannot be removed.

Today's guest columnist is Joy Hakim, a former history teacher and author of "The Story of Us," a 10-volume history of the U.S. for elementary and middle-school students. The column is a speech she delivered to the American Association for State and Local History. In it, Hakim talks about the value of presenting history as a story and the importance of facing its paradoxes honestly.

"There is an implicit assumption that none of the critics' views and beliefs are valid."

It's always a big temptation to turn the position of people on the other side of a debate into a caricature. That's what's happening right now in our discussions of education reform - and in particular Goals 2000. But this approach shuts down discussion and makes it extremely difficult to come to reasonable conclusions.

The do-your-own-thing curriculums that are a feature of charter schools are poorly suited to our mobile society.

Are charter schools the "last, best hope" for public education? Will they "break up the logjam" that has blocked school reform in the U.S. for over 20 years? That's what supporters say, but charter schools are, at best, a partial answer to the problems that afflict our schools.

Freeing people to do their own thing is no guarantee of educational excellence or of permanent change.

The charter school movement is the latest in a long line of educational panaceas, and right now there is a lot of impetus behind it. But it is no more likely to be a cure-all than any of its predecessors.

I was recently sent a copy of a New York State Regents' exam, and I was glad to see that Regents' are alive and well, though somewhat diminished from when I took the exams in the 1940s.

When parents talk or sing to a child, they are providing stimulation that is essential to the maturation of the child's brain.

According to a recent report put out by the Carnegie Corporation, many children suffer permanent intellectual damage before they enter first grade. When the report, "Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of Our Youngest Children," came out earlier this year, I hoped that this finding would be widely discussed and enormously influential, but it seems to have sunk without a trace. Was it too troubling in its implications? Or too politically incorrect? Whatever the reason, its message must be heard.

What kind of message does it send when youngsters who are chronically disruptive get all the attention?

There is a great deal of concern about school violence these days -- and for good reason. Though some people maintain that the media greatly exaggerate the problem, those who work in schools in New York City or Chicago or Baltimore know better. And recent polls and surveys show that a majority of parents and other citizens agree with teachers about its seriousness. However, there is considerable confusion about how to deal with violence in the schools.

Most people are not especially worked up about the issues that figure in the so-called school wars.

We often hear we are in the midst of "school wars" that foreshadow the end of public education. Parents, like U.S. society in general, we're told, are increasingly divided along racial and religious lines. As a result, there are constant battles over issues like sex education, teaching values and multi-culturalism, with the schools caught in the middle. But a recent study by the Public Agenda Foundation, a non-partisan research group, suggests just the opposite. While there are people with extreme views, most Americans are far more concerned about holding students to basic standards of conduct and achievement. Moreover, there is considerable agreement about even some of the most controversial questions.

The same set of facts can lend itself to different historical interpretations.

When the new National Standards for American History were released a couple of weeks ago, there were some indignant -- and alarming -- comments. We heard that the standards are politically correct "garbage," which elevate the founding of the John Muir Society over the creation of the U.S. Constitution. We heard, too, that the standards are destined to become "official knowledge," and that when they do, American students will no longer learn to be proud of their country. Is this true? Are George Washington and Abraham Lincoln about to go the way of Christopher Columbus?

All voters going to cast their ballots simply to shake things up -- to bring about change for change's sake?

This year, the dirtiest word in American public life is "incumbent." There are proposals for term limits on the ballot in a number of states -- to make sure nobody stays in office for very long. And voters also seem to be set on "turning the rascals out," even when the incumbents are not rascals and the replacements don't have much to recommend them.

"Did someone intentionally commit a fraud, trying to do EAI a favor?"

This week, the Hartford (Conn.) school district achieved a doubtful distinction. It became the first to turn over the management of its entire system to a private, for-profit company. The five-year contract that the district signed with Education Alternatives, Inc. (EAI) gives the company authority to run Hartford's 32 schools and control the district's $200 million budget. But if the people in Hartford had paid any attention to what was going on in Baltimore, Maryland, they might have had second thoughts.

There's great suspicion of reformers who look down on first taking care of school safety, discipline and the basics.

According to a recent survey, there is widespread agreement among the American people on a number of important educational issues. On some issues, the public supports education reformers, governors and businessmen, but there are also huge differences. The survey, "First Things First: What Americans Expect from the Public Schools," was conducted by Public Agenda, a non-partisan, citizen research group.