Hirschmeier

A & H W 5 5 3 2

S P R I N G , 2 0 1 0

Hirsch/Meier

E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, published in 1987, instant best-seller

Includes 63-page list of 5,000 “Essential names, phrases, dates, and concepts”

Hirsch now publishes extensive set of books, What Every First Grader Needs to Know, etc.; very popular with home-schoolers

Has become key figure in rationales for “standard-based education”

Basic Arguments

Basic goal of his program is to break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy

Participation and success in larger society requires knowledge of shared culture, i.e., “cultural literacy”

“Cultural literacy constitutes the only sure avenue for disadvantaged children.” (p. xiii)

“Only highly literate societies can prosper economically.” (p. 1)

Cites numerous indeces of a decline in cultural literacy: falling test scores, television, complaints from business leaders.

Basic Arguments (cont‟d.)

“More and more of our young people don‟t know things we used to assume they knew.” (p. 5)

Gives example of students who do not know what the Alamo was, when the Civil War took place, or what the Brown v. Board of Ed ruling was about. (pp. 6-8)

Example of time when his father wrote business letters that alluded to Shakespeare, but could not do so in today‟s world: “The fact that middle-level executives no longer share literate background knowledge is a chief cause of their inability to communicate effectively.” (pp. 9-10)


Quotes sociologist Orlando Patterson, who wrote that “To assume that this wider culture is static is an error. It‟s not a WASP culture; it doesn‟t belong to any group.” (p. 11)

“The civic importance of cultural literacy lies in the fact that true enfranchisement depends upon knowledge, knowledge upon literacy, and literacy upon cultural literacy.” (p. 12)

Multicultural education: “However laudable it is, it should not be the primary focus of national education. It should not be allowed to supplant or interfere with our schools‟ responsibility to ensure our children‟s mastery of American literate culture.” (p. 18)


American schools have been dominated by the content-neutral ideas of Rousseau and Dewey….” (p. 19)

Argues that television is not to blame. “The schools themselves must be held partly responsible for excessive television watching, because they have not firmly insisted that students complete significant amounts of homework, an obvious way to increase time spent on reading and writing.” (p. 20)


“Providing our children with traditional information by no means indoctrinates them in a conservative point of view.” (p. 24)

“The flux in mainstream culture is obvious to all. But stability, not change, is the chief characteristic of cultural literacy.” (p. 29)

“Our current distaste for memorization is more pious than realistic.” (p. 30)

“The more computers we have, the more we need shared fairy tales, Greek myths, historical images, and so on.” (p. 31)


“We will be able to achieve a just and prosperous society only when our schools ensure that everyone commands enough shared background knowledge to be able to communicate effectively with everyone else.” (p. 32)

Deborah Meier

Founded New York City‟s Central Park East School in 1974 – small, progressive “alternative” high school based on Deweyan ideals.

Founded other schools that became part of the Coalition of Essential Schools, which was founded on these basic principles:

Meier (cont‟d.)

Learning to use one's mind well

Less is More, depth over coverage

Goals apply to all students

Personalization

Student-as-worker, teacher-as-coach

Demonstration of mastery

A tone of decency and trust

Commitment to the entire school

Resources dedicated to teaching and learning

Democracy and equity (this principle was added later, in the mid-nineties)

Basic Arguments

Explains rapid increase in recent years in numbers of students expelled from public schools in Chicago and elimination of alternative programs: “The stories of Chicago and Lynnfield capture a dark side of the „standards-based reform‟ movement in American education: the politically popular movement to devise national or state-mandated standards for what all kids should know, and high-stakes tests and sanctions to make sure they all know it. The stories show how the appeal to standards can mask and make way for other agendas: punishing kids, privatizing public education, giving up on equity.” (p. 4)


Standardization “will not help to develop young minds, contribute to a robust democratic life, or aid the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens…. It undermines the capacity of schools to instruct by example in the qualities of mind that schools in a democracy should be fostering in kids –responsibility for one‟s own ideas, tolerance for the ideas of others, and a capacity to negotiate differences.” (pp. 4-5)


Identifies basic features of standards-based education: an official framework; classroom curricula, which includes commercial textbooks and scripted programs, that convey agreed-upon knowledge; a set of assessment tools (i.e., tests) designed to measure whether children have achieved the goals set out in the framework; a scheme of rewards and punishments aimed at districts, schools, and mainly individual students (pp. 5-6)

Standards-Based Alternative View

Goals: Should and can be a single definition of what constitutes an educated high school graduate; all schools should follow the same definition

Goals: In a democracy there are multiple, legitimate definitions of “well educated”. Different viewpoints represent a healthy tension that is an essential part of democracy.



Authority: Definition of a “good education” should be left to experts, including educators, political officials, leaders from industry and the major academic disciplines.

Authority: Experts should be subservient to citizens. Students need to see that the adults who teach them have been empowered to make decisions for them.


Assessment: If we have all agreed on a standard, it will be easy to devise a tool to measure how well the standard is being met. This allows for clear comparisons among students, schools, districts, and states.

Assessment: Standardized tests are too simple and simple-minded for high-stakes assessment. Decisions regarding kids should always be based on “multiple sources of evidence that seem appropriate and credible to those most concerned.” There is a clear need for “second opinions.”



Enforcement: Sanctions must be removed from the local, self-interested parties (teachers, parents, local school boards)

Enforcement: Sanctions should remain in the hands of people who know the particulars of each child and each situation.


Equity: Clear standards, applied equally to all students, is the best route to educational equity.

Equity: A fairer distribution of resources is the best means of attaining educational equity.



Effective Learning: Clear-cut expectations, accompanied by automatic rewards and punishments will produce the greatest effort, which will lead to effective learning.

Effective Learning:Improved learning is best achieved by improving teaching and learning relationships of both teachers and learners. Learning depends on the engagement of learners on their own behalf; this is largely a function of their relationship with the school.



Meier suggests an “alternative model,” based on the following:

Increased local decision-making and decrease in school-related bureaucracy

Schools should never be theaters based on the imposition of externally-imposed standards.

Must be small schools, in which students and teachers can have closer, more meaningful relationships

Parental involvement

High standards – but determined by the local community, not an external authority, standards “that give schooling purpose and coherence.”


Alternative model (continued): Standards and assessments constantly revised and re-examined

Based on her experience, if you do all this students will eventually “buy in” to the system

Kids have a strong need for the kind of community and relationships this sort of school can provide

Wants to see “small self-governing schools of choice, operating with considerable flexibility and freedom.” (p. 24)


The “dystopia of the ant colony, the smoothly functioning (and quietly humming) factory where everything goes according to plan” vs. “a messy, often rambunctious, community, with its multiple demands and complicated trade-offs.” (p. 29)

“A vibrant and nurturing community, with clear and regular guideposts – its own set of understanding, its people with a commitment to one another that feels something rather like love and affection – can sustain such rapid change without losing its humanity.” (p. 30)


Rejects economic argument; argues that political participation is much more important than economic achievement; cites low voter turnout as symptom of a real crisis in American culture and education.

The standards-based movement will ultimately widen the gap between rich and poor, haves and have-nots. Her model may not create equity, but it will not make the situation worse.

Education

Hirschmeier