A quick review of the events surrounding education reform in 1988 suggests that there is less there than meets the eye. Many of the stories generated lots of heat, but there was very little light shed on the real problems facing schools. Five cases in point:
□ Paterson, N.J., school principal Joe Clark grabs headlines by illegally expelling 60 "troublemakers" and, to keep out drug pushers and other thugs, chaining shut school fire exits. The issue was real: Too many school boards are reluctant to remove youths who terrorize our classrooms. But Clark's bullhorn-bellowing, bat-brandishing style probably did less to convince kids that schools are for learning than it did to convince them that schools are prisons. Still, Time gave him the cover.
□ Former Education Secretary William Bennett unveils his James Madison High School proposal, an ambitious model for school curriculums. When we ask how to implement the plan, Bennett offers hosannas to a mythical "golden age" of schooling and says try harder. Those who need more concrete information, he suggests, are simply weak-willed.
□ Stand and Deliver, an inspiring portrait of inner-city math teacher Jaime Escalante, becomes a box office smash. Many movie-goers draw a skewed message from the film: There's nothing wrong with urban schools that a little talent won't cure.
□ The 1988 presidential campaign is trumpeted as a once-in-a-lifetime chance for the nation to discuss its hopes, dreams and visions for the schools of the future. Maybe next time.
□ Boston University sends a disturbing message to the nation's poorer school districts: The best way out of hardship is to surrender control to the first set of deep pockets that comes your way. The private university promises money and guaranteed student achievement results in exchange for the power to run the Chelsea, Mass., school district. The I0-year deal would exempt BU from laws that keep school officials accountable to taxpayers-turning the state's poorest public school district into nothing more than a private Petri dish for the BU School of Education.
In light of these well-publicized events, it's tempting to say education reform came to a screaming halt in 1988. But there were other voices to be heard in last year's debate-less shrill, to be sure, but undeniably more responsible over the long run. Here are just a few:
□ The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The foundation's report An Imperiled Generation - Saving the Urban Schools documents how the reform movement is degenerating into a cruel hoax in most of the nation's inner-city schools. Too many basic human needs today are unmet in these districts, the report argues, and the only rational first step to inner-city school reform is a broad program of renewal - that will meet the health and early education requirements of disadvantaged students: encourage creative teaching and learning; upgrade shoddy school facilities and create a network of school support. The report echoes the conclusions reached in Children in Need, a landmark 1987 study by the Committee for Economic Development (CED).
□ The Commission on Youth and America's Future. Their report The Forgotten Half: Non-College Youth in America reminds us that nearly 20 million 16-24-year olds, who won't go beyond high school, can expect a lower standard of living than their parents enjoyed. The American dream will become a pipe dream, the commission warns, unless there is increased funding for proven federal programs for early childhood education and job training. Also needed are better links between colleges and public schools, and programs that encourage dropouts to "drop-in."
□ Howard Gardner, Harvard professor and author of Frames of Mind, and Robert Sternberg, Yale professor and author of The Triarchic Mind Both authors challenge the concept of "intelligence" as it is commonly applied in schools: the ability to absorb facts and recite them on command. Gardner believes school offers few rewards and little encouragement to those whose talents extend beyond the ability to manipulate words and numbers. Sternberg divides intelligence into three equally important components - the analytic, the practical, and the synthetic ( or creative) -- and argues that schools give short shrift to the latter two aspects of intelligence. Both works could help us move away from narrow notions of intelligence now embraced by schools - and from our willingness to equate test performance with educational gains and losses.
□ Former Proctor & Gamble head and CED chairman Owen Butler, David Kearns of Xerox and William Woodside of Primerica. They exemplify a new understanding in the business community: We all must share in the promise of America, or none of us will. America cannot prosper in the next century without greater investment in our schools.
□ Rochester, N.Y.; Dade County, Fla.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Hammond, Ind.; and several school sites in New York City. They, along with a handful of other districts and schools, are struggling to make school restructuring a reality. Higher salaries and career development opportunities for teachers, shared decisionmaking and school-based management are not merely dreams in these districts - they're starting to happen. Significantly, each district is home to a strong teachers union, which gives members the encouragement and security needed to take risks.
But this handful of districts is the exception and not the norm. In most schools, as New York Times writer Fred M. Hechinger recently pointed out: "students still move from box to box, sometimes barely known to teachers who must deal with an average of 150 of them a day in 45-minute intervals." Little wonder. Everybody is so busy talking about restructuring that there is little energy left to ask some basic questions: Why do we still move students around like so many widgets? Why do we still have fixed class sizes? Why are teachers still dealing with 150 students a day? Why do we still insist on 45-minute periods?
With so many pressing questions at hand, it's time to put aside the bullhorns, the testing manias and the high-blown promises of those who would take the public out of public education. The best resolution we could make for schools in '89 is this: less heat and more enlightenment.
Happy new year to all the dedicated individuals who seek to enlighten children and face the daily heat.