Safe To Be Smart:

Building a Culture for Standards-Based Reform
in the Middle Grades

by Anne Wheelock
Foreword by M. Hayes Mizell
"This book is not for the faint-hearted. It lets no one - students, teachers, administrators - off the hook. If readers take it seriously, as they should, it will lead to more hard work. But both the work and results will be infinitely more gratifying than is currently the case in most schools." -- from the Foreword

[Excerpted with permission of the author]


The Promise and Pitfalls of the Standards Movement

For years, educators and parents, policy makers and the public have documented the myriad problems of American schools. Some of these problems begin with inadequate resources of all kinds, especially in districts where large numbers of children live in poverty. Other concerns touch on schools in suburban, rural, and urban school districts alike: textbook-based curriculum that emphasizes breadth rather than depth, teaching driven by high-stakes standardized testing, and the unequal distribution of opportunities and resources for learning within schools.

Additional problems stem from misguided beliefs that only "deserving" students can benefit from challenging classrooms, school climates that discourage caring relationships, practices and attitudes that marginalize African-American, Latino, and poor students, and routines and norms that emphasize compliant behavior over learning (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Fine, 1991; Goodlad, 1984; Hopfenberg, et al, 1993; Kozol, 1991; Kreitzer and Madaus, 1995; Lipman, 1998; McNeil, 1988; Noddings, 1992; Oakes, 1985; Powell, Farrar, and Cohen, 1985; Sizer, 1984; Smith and Rotenberg, 1991).

Now, in the 1990s, layered over these day-to-day dynamics of schooling, comes the "standards movement" with its aspirations for improved learning for all students. But how do the reams of "standards" for what students will know and do offer solutions to the well-documented problems facing students and teachers?

Equally important, can educators reframe the "standards movement" in ways that address some of the most intransigent problems of schools, especially those aspects of school culture that feed widespread student detachment from learning?

New curriculum frameworks and large-scale assessments, policy-makers' tools-of-choice, on their own do not have the power to address the persistent problems of schooling that are rooted in school cultures. The promise of the "standards movement" for better learning and teaching lies in embracing new norms and routines that can turn schools into places that celebrate all kinds of accomplishments, where it is both desirable and safe for every student to become smart, work hard, and learn through risk-taking and effort.

Schools with "rigorous caring"

Students need schools characterized by "rigorous caring" between teachers and students and where they can engage in meaningful tasks to create high quality work. Students need schools where teachers meet standards of practice in a professional community. Everything in the culture of the school must attend to these purposes. However, because current "standards-based policies" offer little guidance or recognition for developing such cultures, schools must feel their way toward such changes on their own.

Viewed in their most promising light, standards for what students should understand and be able to do to demonstrate their understanding have the potential to guide schools toward better practice for all students. Standards developed by national professional associations can elevate expectations for student learning. They can offer a gauge against which teachers can assess the degree to which all students experience opportunities to learn challenging academic content. They can provide encouragement for teachers to infuse practices that produce high-level learning into all classrooms and a focal point around which whole faculties can center their restructuring work. As the linchpin for a comprehensive school reform strategy, standards can become tools for judging the value of decisions regarding every aspect of schooling from textbook selection to professional development (Wheelock, 1995).

However, as decision makers at policy levels in the states have developed long lists of topics for study, called them "standards," and adopted assessments to match, they have often ignored, diluted, or circumvented the standards of teachers' own professional associations. Drawing steam from Congressional passage of Goals 2000 and the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, standards-based reform efforts have intensified in both policy and practice circles. Thus, in the 1990s, state departments of education and local school districts have compiled volumes of written "content standards," "curriculum frameworks," and "standards of learning," all meant to guide teaching and ensure that all students have access to similar material.

Some "new" standards look like old wine in new bottles, amounting to little more than lists of topics or authors to be covered in prescribed courses. A few provide more guidance for teachers by including descriptions of classrooms where teachers are putting standards into practice, providing samples of work students might be expected to produce, connecting specific teaching and learning processes with high-quality work.

Schools still struggle for a common vision of meaningful learning

However, varying definitions of what is meant by "standards" still leave schools struggling to create a common vision for lasting and meaningful learning. For example, in some states, controversy over content standards for social studies and mathematics reveals distinct differences between those educators who define learning in terms of higher-order skills and deeper content and others who support a familiar "just-the-facts" approach (Manzo, 1997; Steinberg, 1997). Some teachers who focus on conceptual learning even find themselves at odds with their own unions' endorsements of standards that threaten to overwhelm classrooms with minutia (Diegmueller, 1996).

Some reformers originally hoped that grade-level learning goals included in state "standards" would help weed trivial content from curriculum. In practice, however, some state curriculum frameworks and the assessments that accompany them may instead crowd out strategies that emphasize teaching and learning for understanding. For example, in Virginia, some middle school science teachers report that the state's fact-heavy content standards have meant that they must abandon in-depth learning about science concepts involving hands-on work with laboratory equipment so that they can teach about punnett squares, a measurement of genetic variability (Mathews, 1997).

Likewise, in Massachusetts, a new social studies curriculum framework puts teachers in the position of having to trade in in-depth projects for "covering" multiple topics, however superficially, because they may appear on the state test (McNamara, 1998). As Brockton, Massachusetts, social studies department chairperson Susan Szachowicz explains:
If you put the time available in a school year against the scope of what is required by the standards, it's immediately clear that there is simply too much; it's too dense. So how do you carve out a month or two for our award-winning curriculum - a unit called "Election 96: Once Every Four Years" - without neglecting the required content outlined in the framework? Since students are going to face high-stakes assessment, a teacher would be irresponsible in omitting any of the core knowledge requirements. Yet shouldn't students have the benefit of experiencing a focused, comprehensive study of a Presidential election as it is unfolding? How can you resolve this type of dilemma?

Competing visions of what constitutes standards-based teaching further cloud discussions of standards-based reform. Appeals of conservative policy advocates for more drill and practice in "the basics" often appeal to those who harbor mistrust of schools and fear talk of critical thinking. In some states, those who oppose standards developed by the professional associations portray standards-based reform as "experimental," a description that taps into parents' fears that any change in the status quo will put their children at a disadvantage (Jackson, 1997). Attacks on the standards of professional organizations like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics are grounded in such arguments; advanced through nationally syndicated opinion columns and national media, they have reached millions, providing ammunition for those wary of professionally developed curriculum that promotes conceptual learning (Cheney, 1997a, 1997b).

In this highly politicized context, those who support teaching for understanding through problem-solving, reasoning, communicating, and making connections across subject areas often encounter difficulties in conveying new knowledge about learning to the general public. Thus, although frameworks for learning adopted in some states and districts may be little more than old curriculum objectives, the familiar factual content and specificity of such "standards," especially compared to the more complex ideas of standards of the professional associations, are reassuring to many parents and teachers. Likewise, in states where organized right-wing interest groups have used the standards-development process to attack multicultural content or eliminate the study of evolution from the curriculum, standards may serve to ensure that little of a nontraditional nature will touch students' recommended course of study.

Fundamental questions about standards-based reform

Against the backdrop of these political debates, many educators are struggling to make sense of what the "standards movement" might mean for their own students, classrooms, and schools. Within this context of unresolved tensions, fundamental questions emerge: Will educators use standards to tackle the problems identified by respected reformers over the past two decades, including unequal access to knowledge, lockstep curriculum, tedious assignments tied to standardized testing, and impersonal instruction? Or will standards-based "reforms" simply reinforce the status quo?

Will the teaching practices that educators anticipate will develop in tandem with standards take hold to transform all classrooms into vibrant centers for learning? Or will only some students in some classes benefit from teaching for understanding? Will schools and communities use "standards" to expand opportunities to learn to all students? Or will "standards" be reinforce existing labeling and sorting practices?

If lists of "standards" pegged to large-scale testing do not contribute to real school reform, what kind of standards would serve this purpose? How can the push for "higher standards" translate into improved teaching and learning in all schools? Can schools extricate themselves from the oppressive top-down models of control and standardization inherent in the use of standards for grade retention and bureaucratic accountability? Can schools find alternative models for authentic standards-based reform that will genuinely improve learning and teaching in every classroom?

Building a Culture for Standards-based Reform:
Turning Rhetoric into Practice

If schools are to realize the promises of the standards movement, they need alternative models for standards-based reform powerful enough to generate school practices that result in all students' achieving. They need support in creating school cultures that value student work of high quality. Such a culture, founded on new habits, relationships, and routines that deepen teaching and learning, can nurture a community of learners of students and teachers alike.

Establishing such a culture is fundamental to turning the rhetoric of standards into practice.

The dimensions of school cultures that foster high standards for student work are already known to educators who pursue deeper teaching and learning. Although many of these same educators remain unmoved by policymakers' calls for large-scale, test-centered, systemic reform, they do not reject "standards" themselves. Rather teachers who focus daily on helping students produce better work that meets higher "standards of quality" do assert that communities of educators, not politicians, must use their knowledge and experience to sculpt the teaching and learning experiences that will foster high quality work in each school.

Teachers working to build a school culture that supports high standards view the lists of "standards" that emanate from policy makers as useful only to the extent that they stimulate a deeper process for improving their teaching. As teacher Linda Nathan, Co-Director of the Fenway Middle College High School in Boston, explains:
We use the state frameworks, national frameworks, and city standards as guide posts. They are useful tools to give us an idea of what others think is important for students to know and be able to do. They are never the be-all and end-all. We firmly believe that there is no finite body of information for kids to know or finite set of skills for kids to be able to do. In this way, we run "counter" to much of the current standards movement.
Educators like Nathan do not turn to test scores to sort students who should be promoted from those who should repeat a grade, slot students into different ability levels, or lead teachers to the "right" page in the "right" textbook on a given day. Rather, these educators use "standards" as one lens through which they can examine their practice, help students meet learning challenges and develop stronger commitment to doing high quality work, make equal access to valued learning opportunities a reality, and open doors to future learning that matches students' own aspirations. Through concrete practice, not abstract theory, teachers in many schools are pushing for "higher standards," calling for richer quality work that students and teachers do in their schools. New York City teacher Loretta Brady (1996:4) elaborates:
While bureaucrats [are] making abstract lists of what students should know and be able to do and calling these curriculum frameworks "standards," we at least [understand] that far higher standards [are] achieved when the knowing is framed as a concrete task - a "performance" - that is personally meaningful and rich in the ideas at the heart of a discipline.

Unwilling to ride along as passengers on the "standards-driven" bandwagon, educators themselves are mapping their own strategy for improving student achievement. This strategy rests on a cluster of complementary practices designed to improve learning. Pursuing this strategy, teachers are beginning to reshape what Seymour Sarason (1982, 1996) calls the "regularities" of schooling. These educators understand that new standards and assessments will only "take" in a culture that fosters student motivation and values what researcher Jeannie Oakes (1989) notes is a key focal point for school success, a school wide "press for achievement."

Standards and school culture

Many standards-oriented educators begin discussions about standards by focusing on the work teachers do with their students, the norms that shape the relationships between teachers, and students, and the work students produce as a result. As Joe McDonald (In Berger, 1996a:8) explains:

It turns out that what we call standards are crude - albeit sometimes useful - abstractions for the culture of school. This culture is created by diverse sources: the habits and spirit of practice that characterize a teacher's intimate work and a school's collective work; the impingement of structure; the relative openness of the school to its community; and the astounding presence of actual children with their actual attitudes and needs.

As these educators reorient their school culture toward standards-based work, they do not see their goals as "making the diploma meaningful again" or "producing students who can compete with the Japanese." Instead, going beyond the abstract rhetoric of policy circles, they are embracing new norms, beliefs, and routines related to the quality of work their students do and the quality of relationships inside the school. These practitioners value the standards of their professional associations and may use curriculum frameworks developed in their own states to inform their work. But more often, it is the vision of better quality student work overall that inspires them, and to this end, they are putting new routines, beliefs about learning, and relationships into practice to develop a "culture of high standards."

What does school culture have to do with "standards-based reform" of schools? For many years, close observers of school reform have underscored the futility of any attempt to improve student learning without changing the culture and "regularities" of schooling (Corbett and Wilson, 1997a, 1997b; Dow, 1991; Fullan, 1991; Goodlad, 1984; Muncey and McQuillen, 1993; Oakes and Wells, 1996; Sarason, 1971; 1996). The rhetoric of "all students achieving" is little more than empty promise without a school culture, including the norms, values, routines, and beliefs about learning that define school practices, that nurtures that vision. If reformers fail to address the culture of schooling, the goals of the "standards movement" will remain unrealized.

What does such a culture look like? What assumptions and beliefs, school routines, classroom practices, and organizational arrangements contribute to sustaining a culture of high standards? As they work toward improved achievement of all students, standards-oriented practitioners assert that a school culture of high standards weaves together a set of norms and beliefs, practices and routines so that: Developing each of these aspects of school culture requires multiple changes in schools' standard operating procedures and structures. It means developing positive relationships among adults and between teachers and students. It means structuring support for students into the school day so that they will exert the effort necessary to do work that "meets standards."

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Order "Safe To Be Smart" from the National Middle School Association on-line. Go to the NMSA products page and search for "Wheelock" (Publication #1256; $16 on-line. [ISBN#1-56090-126-8 /1998/206 pp./November 1998.] Also try Amazon books. To order by phone from NMSA, call 1-800-528-6672.

ALSO SEE ANNE WHEELOCK'S

Is Your Middle School Ready for Standards-Based Reform?:
Assessing Interim Indicators

HERE AT MIDDLEWEB!

And see these other Anne Wheelock resources on our website