In this post, Larry Cuban reflects on what he has learned about schools and social reform over many decades as a teacher, superintendent, and historian.
How My Thinking about School Reform Has Changed Over Decades (Part 1)
He began convinced that schools could change society. Today, he believes that teachers can change the lives of individual students but that schools are not powerful enough to reshape the structure of society.
I agree with him.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Today it’s clear the so-called “school reform” has always been about Private Ownership Of Public Schools (💩S)
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Brilliant Larry Cuban has been a great asset to many of us who came of age as educators in the last 50 years, many thanks. Larry is right that individual teachers in singular classrooms cannot change society even though we do enhance the development of various students we work with. What needs to be added to this equation are organized movements, which do indeed change society. The brave students who desegregated lunch counters in the South came from nearby campuses. Civil Rights org’s recruited on campuses from which busloads of activists headed into danger, like those tortured and murdered in the Freedom Summer of 1964. Young high school students filled the jails of southern cities in support of campaigns at that time. Soon after, the nation’s campuses and high schools became centers of militant opposition to the War in Vietnam. In addition, the women’s movement had strongholds in higher education from which it changed not only schooling but also national law and discourse. I’m sure everybody gets my point. Schools and colleges have been potent sources of opposition to inequality when teachers and students start and join mass movements in society. No single course or teacher can have the impact that organized opposition can have and has had in and out of schools and campuses. All educators who follow brilliant Larry’s example of teaching are owning the professional responsibility and ethical integrity of our vocation. Social justice, though, requires mass movements consolidating popular forces against the status quo.
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“Diane” It would be difficult to argue that individual teachers do NOT change individual students’ lives throughout our education.
On the other hand, on this blog, we are saying that reformers are trying to change the entire structure and meaning, even the function, of the the institution of education which, in the long run COULD and, if implemented, probably WILL change society (as it’s long term aim is). Insofar as the institution (as it is now, as public) breaks away from its ground in our cultural ethos embodied in the Constitution and our other founding documents, society as a whole is bound to change. By that break, becomes open to put democracy behind (first by persuasion and, later, by force) and to take a new direction towards a host of other kinds of foundations, instead of those developed around democracy. Take your pick: capitalism/ oligarchy and its political ally, fascism; extreme forms of socialism; one-religion totalitarianism, dictatorship, etc.
Taking a stand against that long term change is basic to what we’ve been fighting for here. CBK
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Muddling through is often the best we can do. (But curriculum reform will make this muddling much easier!)
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Education can change the lives of individual students, but it cannot obliterate poverty. Poverty is a product of our economy. Unless we pay people fairly and provide them with ample opportunity to make a living wage, we will continue to have a great number of students with poor nutrition and a lack of access to health care. We will continue to have children that are homeless, and we will continue to have children that are traumatized due to dysfunction within their families. These systemic problems are beyond the scope of the typical school.
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retired teacher You say: “. . . These systemic problems are beyond the scope of the typical school.”
Yes and no. Yes, in the short term. No in the long-term. Those (few or more) individuals who ARE changed, even with (and sometimes especially because of) their “impoverished” background, can and do create change–it just takes allot longer.
Also, the factual presence of rife examples of poverty “producing” (rather: manifesting) people who make MAJOR contributions and changes in the world points directly to the human spirit that can override poverty and even be inspired by it.
And to the broader point, “impoverishment” in family upbringing is certainly not only of the economic kind. And THAT opens us up to a whole new conversation. CBK
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Agreed. I taught in an integrated suburban public school where I saw many of my former poor ELLs go to and complete college. They became social workers, teachers and business people. Some of them became independent business owners. However, this school district was two thirds middle class and about a third poor. I believe these students would not have had the same opportunities if they had attended a poor school with large classes and few supports. Also, the parents of these students modeled hard work and aspiration unlike some American minorities that get worn down by generations of poverty and racism.
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retired teacher Yes, yes and yes. “Impoverishment” is all over the map. CBK
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Education cannot cure poverty because American capitalism, the most brutal of the capitalist democracies has poverty built in as part of its basic business model. As a result 20% of Americans are poor, 9% of Canadians, 5% of Finns which is one of the pillars of their educational success.
You must seriously mitigate poverty as a PRECONDITION to educational success.
Education does not fix poverty. The elimination of poverty makes education more successful.
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There is a small divergence here between liberals and socialists who are also engaged together fighting corporate reform. Liberals believe in equal OPPORTUNITY, however socialists want us to move much closer to equality of outcomes ( some say equality of results.) Of course we will never make all INDIVIDUAL students have equal results but the goal must be to ELIMINATE educational differences of results by particularly RACE & CLASS. our work is not finished so long as some races and some SES classes do better than others.
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Doug Little Spoken like a true ideologue; but I don’t think you really read my note. CBK
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Larry once put it in a nutshell.
” it is very difficult for schools to make children equal in a society, otherwise dedicated to making them unequal.”
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Doug Little What’s equal (or supposed to be in a democracy) is opportunity; and that is often a VERY individualized thing . . .
. . . so that, what is good/best for one, is bad/worst for another, and all nuances in between. Or another way to say that is that: what is of value and meaning to one is nothing to another. And THERE is where only the wise teacher can make those spot decisions; though better in reflection and with others’ input.
But for those among us who are capitalist-bent, it’s at the “point of sale” where–lo and behold!–and ooops! CEO/entrepreneurs often overlook that same relationship! (What a concept.) CBK
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I for one do not agree that equality is based on OPPORTUNITY. I want equality of RESULTS.
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Doug Little I didn’t say equality was based on opportunity. I must ask in all seriousness: do you know how to read? CBK
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Equality of what results, DL? No matter how hard I try, I am not going to be an outstanding mathematician. It just isn’t in me. Then there is the question of what the “equality” that you seek is. I don’t think these are easy questions at all.
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Equality of results is not based on individuals. It is based on group averages.
If the average education results of blacks = the average educational results of whites for example then you have achieved equality of results.
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You probably want to use medians then. I could probably get the same average with some arrays of scores that are very different. Then we have to ask if we can really say the two groups are performing at an equal level (10, 10, 10, 10, 3, 3, 2, 2 and 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 5, 4, 1). I am getting picayune, I know, but I have a feeling that equality might be harder to define than we think much less how we get there. Perhaps it is more the understanding that, given the opportunity, roughly equal numbers from various groups will succeed who are pursuing the same outcomes.
Sorry. I am getting wound up in my own logic.
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Simply put from my POV, if the results are not equal across race and class, then the opportunity is proven to be unequal.
However society will make much faster progress in educational outcomes by eliminating poverty than any in school reform.
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“Simply put from my POV, if the results are not equal across race and class, then the opportunity is proven to be unequal.”
It’s simply put, but you have not addressed my concerns. Simply put, you can make statistics say any reality you want them to. The mean is not necessarily a very informative measure of central tendency. both the arrays of scores have the same mean but represent very different populations.
However society will make much faster progress in educational outcomes by eliminating poverty than any in school reform.
On this point, we agree, but, again, the devil is in the details.
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I dont use standardized test to measure outcomes. There is so much more available. We can use graduation rates, post secondary completion rates, …
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Doug,
You are correct in writing that “achievement gaps” refer to groups, not individuals.
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No disagreement, Diane, but apparently Doug does not used standardized tests to “measure” achievement gaps, but data like the percentage of graduates , both K-12, and post secondary. It is common knowledge that a high school diploma means different things depending on where you went to school. It was when I went to college almost 50 years ago. I know that the high school students from my last teaching job were far from as well prepared as students in wealthier communities. They did not have the same opportunities both in and outside of school. We know that schools have jiggered graduation rates to meet various mandates. I, too, agree that the most important data to consider is the socio-economic. Less poverty and a stable environment would have the most effect on life outcomes, and it is harder to ignore the existence of poverty when it is staring you in the face. I’m sure the data can be fudged, but people living in cars is harder to hide. I am not opposed to using the type of data Doug suggests for examining groups; I am just concerned that we understand exactly what it is telling us.
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Oh brother. All of that is taken into account. Apples to apples comparisons.
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I find you very condescending and glib. Try considering your audience. We/I have seen the way statistics can be manipulated in the past couple of decades to draw conclusions that really are illusory. You have done nothing in the way you have presented your arguments to assuage the anger many teachers feel at being ignored for so long. Your one conclusion that we can all agree to and have for years is that poverty is a defining factor in the struggles faced by marginalized students. Perhaps you are some wonderful progressive guru whom we should all know and take at your word that your methods are above all criticism. If you have been on this blog for any length of time, you would be aware that how students are “measured” and for what purpose is extremely important to us. I know I can be annoyingly picky, but you, sir, would do better to acknowledge concerns and explain why concern is not necessary. “Apples to apples” is hardly a satisfying answer but rather another rude, eye rolling dismissal.
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I was a classroom teacher for 40 years. The data is very conclusive. We dont when we look internationally, state to state or within a city, the rich and middle class do very well, the working class, less so and the poor very badly with of course, individual exceptions. Poverty is the common link in chins, India, Africa Europe, and USA. Even where most of a country is one race, poverty determines outcomes. The way to equalize education, as much as possible, the solution is poverty reduction. USA 20% child poverty, Canada 9%, Finland 5% with obvious educational results. Canada and Finland are not richer than USA but they both have a better division of wealth.
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Thank you for providing some context. I can fill in most of the blanks without more detailed explanation now that I know you were a teacher for forty years. Poverty as the determining factor in the achievement gap is accepted fact here. A further dive into that data provides other useful information that we have explored here. Diane has done several blogs over the years on PISA data and standardized testing. A search of the archives provides a wealth of information that we have processed.
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USA asked the OECD PISA people why they are #17 and all these other nations are ahead of them. The answer it seems is that USA tolerates levels of poverty and concentrations of said poverty that are intolerable in most of these leading nations.
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Partially, although I believe sub populations from the U.S. did better than the same pops in other countries. Diane, come to my rescue! My memory is hinky. Then there is the fact that we have never done particularly well and yet manage to lead the world in many areas. It is really just in the past couple of decades that we have gotten so hung up on standardized testing.
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PISA scores and TIMSS scores show the same SES skewing as all other standardized tests. The richest kids do best, the poorest do worst.
Here is the data you are looking for.
American schools with low poverty have very high scores.
America has more child poverty by far than the nation’s we compare ourselves to:
http://blog.nassp.org/2014/02/12/pisa-its-still-poverty-not-stupid/
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Thank you. That is exactly what I was looking for.
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cx: “However society will make much faster progress in educational outcomes by eliminating poverty than any in school reform.”
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Doug, you are right. The clearest indicator of low academic performance (test scores) is family income.
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spedktr Your point about not being a mathematician is exactly on point: “opportunity is often a VERY individualized thing.” CBK
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Wrong.
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Doug Little Do you not understand what I mean? Or do you just don’t like the fact that differences between one person, who can do math well, and another who cannot, demand different treatment by teachers? and that a one-size-fits all treatment reflects a dismissal of equality of opportunity. The principles of math are standard. The teaching of math (or anything in pre-K-12, at least), on the other hand, finds its standardization in finger-on-pulse teachers relating it to individual students–in finding ways to do that according to students’ individualized needs, aptitudes, and abilities. (That’s why smaller classes are essential to teaching.)
Equality of treatment does not reflect equality of opportunity–but its opposite. My point is that a teacher who recognizes such differences can make adjustments in their teaching that respond to student differences and that are rooted in the idea of doing what is best for each individual student. The bigger the classes, the harder that work can be, and the fewer successes in teaching, as example, the general principles of mathematics. CBK
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You are not reading carefully. Differences between individuals do not concern me. Equity or equality of results is measured between GROUPS not INDIVIDUALS.
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This answer probably would have been better than just saying, “Wrong.” Even so, CK’s point about opportunity is important whether you are talking about individuals or groups.
I have another question to think about. If we could achieve equality of results, however that is “measured,” does that guarantee that those results are also equitable?
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Doug Little Teachers, on the other hand, deal with individuals and differences between individuals. The statistical anomaly is also a child who may need more, not less, individual help. I love statistics. But the statistician’s job is not the same as the teacher’s job. CBK
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I think that very often the actual teaching of academic material has nothing to do with teachers who most change the lives of students.
A teacher can be superb at getting a student to under math concepts or why there is value in reading a piece of literature. And that is all good.
But the teachers who change lives often are the ones who connect with the student’s heart, not the student’s brain. The ones who recognize that a struggling student has something else going on at home and reach out to be an adult the student can talk to. The ones who recognize that while many students enjoy sitting in a lunchroom conversing and laughing with friends, for another kid being in a crowded and very loud cafeteria is excruciating and stressful, and so the teacher makes sure the student knows the teacher’s classroom is always a quiet place to go instead. The ones who notice a child is starting to have noticeably bad body odor or bad breath and figures out a way to discreetly suggest something that alleviates it or arranges for a different health official who can compassionately discuss it with the kid. The ones who take the time to talk to a withdrawn kid to learn that his parent is hospitalized or dying or an addict.
I suspect there are adults who fondly remember some interaction with a caring teacher that changed his life where the teacher didn’t even realize it. Sometimes all a student needs is kindness.
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I totally agree although I am sure there are people who revere a teacher simply because they knew their subject and how to convey it. I had some very good teachers over the years, but those whom I remember best are the ones who went out of their way to notice/encourage me.
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Larry Cuban “believes that teachers can change the lives of individual students but that schools are not powerful enough to reshape the structure of society.”
Cubans can obviously see things that American politicians can’t.
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Public schools: Change or Perish. Change to become powerful again!
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Change to become powerful again or perish !
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Public or Parish
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Agreed. We teachers can and do affect individual students’ lives. We can’t change society. It’s beyond us.
Sent from my iPhone
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I don’t necessarily DISagree with Larry Cuban that public schools HAVE been ineffectual in reshaping the structure of American society, but that doesn’t mean that they CANNOT be effective in reshaping or even partly reshaping society.
The “problem” isn’t the schools, it’s the “leadership.” Think about it. How many public school principals became administrators because (a) they couldn’t cut it as a teacher, or (b) they wanted more money, or (c) they wanted more power. I knew plenty. They openly admitted it. And lots of those principals became superintendents. Larry Cuban may well have been one of the good ones, but I’ve met more who just weren’t very good and who had no guiding educational philosophy whatsoever.
When I first became a teacher, I sent students to school board and board of supervisors meetings in the Virginia locality where I taught. These were, after all, public meetings. Members of both boards wanted to know – Gasp! – why students were there. I explained. The school superintendent “explained” to me why it wasn’t such a good idea. This was the same superintendent who — when asked why male teachers had to wear ties year-round, even though parts of the high school were (at the time) without any air conditioning — stoked up his pipe, puffed on it, blew out a cloud of smoke, and then said, “You know maybe we could have a 90 degree rule. When the temperature gets above 90, they can loosen their neckties.” Stupid sometimes is beyond fixing.
When the state of Virginia was working to create an interdisciplinary curriculum that was performance-based and that included a central component of democratic citizenship, I can recall several prominent superintendents discussing to the state superintendent why this could be a “problem” for them. Teachers might get “ideas.” It might open up a “can of worms.”
I often received dictates from the central office as to why a new policy or “initiative” was being introduced or implemented, and often “research” was cited. I knew enough and read enough to know that the “research” being cited was bogus. When I questioned it, like Trump does now, central office administrators deflected, or came up with a new “rationale” or just stopped citing the “research.” In one locality, the superintendent cited “research” to justify the creation of a new STEM Math and Science Academy. When I asked for the “research” citations, the superintendent couldn’t provide any, and referred me to the already-hired Academy director, He couldn’t provide any either. Meanwhile, I had lots of sold research to show that STEM academies were not needed and that the US already had a glut of STEM workers. The Academy not only was started, but just a few years after, all of that localities were turned into STEM “academies.”
Meanwhile, because I asked questions, and because I did my homework, I got labeled as a “troublemaker” and as “the enemy.” It helped that I was good at what I did, and I had a doctorate, and I’d taught the kids of some “influential” people who liked me.
I can also recall – during that time when Virginia was working on its new curriculum – that a colleague asked a group of elementary teachers to design their “perfect” school, and they essentially came up with what a state-wide committee was drafting.. Then somebody asked, “But when do we teach long division?” and it all came apart. Something similar happened when I asked high school teachers to do the same, and someone asked, “But what about AP classes?” Yeah, what about them? Research finds that they’re more hype than educationally beneficial. PSATs and SATs? May as well use shoe size. But the drumbeat of nonsense goes on.
I still honestly believe that central purpose of public education is and ought to be democratic citizenship. University of Chicago social scientist Earl Johnson democratic citizenship “the supreme end of education in a democracy.” What Aristotle said is quite true: “the character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarch creates oligarchy, and always the better the character, the better the government.” If the proof is in the political pudding, one need only read the morning papers…or for that matter, the Traitor-inChief’s Twitter rants, which have only gotten weirder and more dangerous by the day.
Public schooling – and public higher education – has a responsibility to educate so that citizens can be members of “an impartial jury.” It has an obligation to teach what the ancients knew and what public policy research makes absolutely clear, that “the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole.” Need proof? Climate change.
But we cannot achieve the critical mission of public education if administrators dictate goofiness, and if school boards are not educated even half as well as we expect our students to be — and often they’re clueless: I once had a school board chairwoman tell me that the PSAT and SAT were unrelated…and another time, when a school board chair complained to me about phone call complaints from teachers, I replied, “Teachers have first amendment rights, too.” and the response was – and I’m not even kidding – “They do?”
Gordon Hullfish and Philip Smith considered critical intelligence –– “reflective reconstruction of knowledge, insights and values” –– absolutely essential to the maintenance of a democratic society. This means that citizens can not only think in terms of the scientific method but also they can apply that critical reasoning to a framework based on core democratic values. This is why John aAdams wrote that “the whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it.”
It’s why Thomas Jefferson wanted public schools, warning that “kings, priests and nobles … will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.” No kidding?
If we don’t commit to a larger vision and a bigger purpose, not too many “lives of individual students” are really going to be changed anyway.
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Here’s something to chew on, from The Washington Post, today:
“In June , a review commissioned by the school system confirmed what Thompson and others had believed all along: Students of color had to operate within a ‘hostile learning environment.’…Last week, Loudoun School Board members condemned white supremacy and passed a resolution denouncing hate. They also vowed to eliminate ‘opportunity gaps’ for students from marginalized communities. In its declaration, the School Board also promised to work to address implicit biases in schools and to build a more diverse workforce.”
In case you don’t know, Loudoun County, Virginia is one of the most affluent counties in the United States, usually listed as the MOST affluent county.
Now, how is the Loudoun board going to accomplish what it says it wants, if democratic citizenship and its core elements are not the central focus?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/loudoun-school-board-condemns-racism-hate-after-report-documents-discrimination-in-schools/2019/09/27/5f0db46c-dfb6-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
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democracy What you said. CBK
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I wholeheartedly agree with the young Larry Cuban and his John Dewey beliefs. I strongly believe schools can make a deep impact and change society, but we have never been able to create an innovative system for this change. Teachers alone cannot do it. Administrators cannot do it. Maybe this country will never get there.
I’ll argue that as long as we are stuck in content-based curriculum — it will never happen. Curriculum needs to be based around the opportunity for students to develop skills. But it also can’t be just about plugging in skills.
Annotating is a great example. Schools are having students annotate all the time. But students are usually doing it as busy work related to the content. But it is really just about a “close” reading focused on knowing the content. They never receive assignments that call for the need to annotate – so it’s a useless skill building exercise.
But it’s a very important skill for everyday people to use today – anyone who reads or watches the news. Sifting through the abundance of manipulated information and trying to find some honest truth.
Even this blog. Most of us come together here because we agree with a few ideas about where education is going, but it’s not gospel and it manipulates as well. We should have the skills to be aware when it happens.
History shows we have always received information this way, but now that information is coming in every direction, and we can live our whole lives in a bubble, it is crucial we learn a skill that frees each of us from these constraints.
But this is just one example.
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