Books Every Teacher Should Read. #1: Shopping Mall High School.

One of the many things that has always puzzled me about so American left-educators is that they oppose tracking and are utterly convinced that parental choice of schools will lead to inequality, but defend student choice of classes within schools to the hilt, whereas Shopping Mall High School shows that it has much the same effect as tracking, and is driven by exactly the same dynamic as choice of schools.

One of the reasons to defend choice (of schools or of classes within schools) is that tracking is generally institution-directed, whereas choice is student/parent directed. It seems pretty clear to me that schools have no business acting in a gatekeeper role to determine who may and who may not pursue the more challenging courses of study. Of course, the students & parents who self-select into advanced course are mostly the same as those the school would have chosen, but certainly not always (and keep in mind that advanced courses are by no means a limited resource — it is no more expensive to teach a class of 25-30 high school Calculus students than 25-30 pre-Algebra students).

By the way, my observation with respect to these issues are that schools actively discourage advanced courses and parents push back. Minority students are disadvantaged in this dynamic because minority parents seem less likely to resist recommendations of school officials.

BTW. the reason that “American left-educators” support choices of classes within schools but not choice of schools themselves is pretty obvious — the latter is threatening to the American left education establishment, while the latter is not. Choice of schools means charter schools at minimum and — if the trend were extended — vouchers for private and religious schools. Choice of classes within public schools, on the other hand, mean business as usual.

[T]he reason that “American left-educators” support choices of classes within schools but not choice of schools themselves is pretty obvious—the latter is threatening to the American left education establishment, while the latter is not.

You mean “while the former is not.” Your point is a good one, though not a complete one, I think. I can rail about the “American left education establishment” as well as anyone, but there are principled reasons to be concerned about school choice. I think those concerns can be responded to, but it’s not as though the establishment’s hostility is entirely self-interested.

So, for example, opponents of inter-school choice say that educated parents will exercise a great deal of effort figuring out which school is best, and exercise choice on behalf of their kid, whereas uneducated parents will allow their kid to choose to be with his peer group.

My observation has been that it is more than that. Within school choices are different than between school choices in a couple respects. First of all, within-school choice tends to operate more at the upper levels (late middle school and high school) whereas charter schools are mostly at the elementary level. And within school choice is not generally between higher or lower quality classes at the same level but rather the choice between the advanced and less advanced tracks. So — Algebra in 8th grade (leading to calc in 12th) — or not? Biology in 9th grade (leading to AP Senior science) or Earth Science? AP English, History, etc — or standard versions? And so on.

Let me say a little more about the within school dynamic that I’ve observed. It seems to me that most school administrators, counselors, and teachers are somewhat suspicious and hostile to the advanced classes, which attitudes extend to both the students taking these courses and the teachers teaching them. Part of this is personal — most educators (as the stats bear out, though things are improving) were not AP students themselves, and so they themselves are living proof that such courses are not necessary. And then there are reasons of institutional self-interest for wanting students to take less rather than more difficult courses. If students stay well within the limits of their abilities, it’s easier on teachers and administrators. Nobody struggles, nobody requires extra help, nobody has to be switched out to different courses, etc. Schools recognize there is a demand for the advanced courses and so they must offer them, but they don’t really like them.

I was once a parent on a middle-school improvement committee. I suggested that considering the achievement gap and that that there are virtually no African American students in AP courses here, middle-school teachers should be actively recruiting and encouraging promising African American kids to take the advanced-track courses in 8th and 9th grades. This was a non-starter. They looked at me like I was an alien. Closing the achievement gap was critical, of course, but AP classes are elitist and only for a few students — we shouldn’t be talking about that.

..my point is that the principled reasons that animate opponents to inter-school choice are also raised by intra-school choice (and that is what SMHS, written before the explosion of enthusiasm for inter-school choice, brings out so nicely).

What, BTW, do you see as principled reasons for opposing intra-school choice? And if it did not exist, what would replace it? Differentiation without choice (e.g. all tracking decisions made by school officials)? Or no differentiation at all (either calc AP for everybody or calc AP for nobody)? And if choice and differentiation were eliminated in K-12, would they be allowed at the university level? If so, why would differentiation be any more ‘fair’ there than in K-12?

I’m not saying that, in fact, intra-school choice is worse in this regard than what the real alternative in the circumstance would be. But, for example, setting (grouping children by reference to their likely uptake of what is offered in the class) enables schools to press students whose parents won’t press them to take more demanding classes.

But given that more demanding classes are not more expensive to teach and, therefore, not a scarce resource, there’s no necessary conflict between intra-school choice and, at the same time, enabling schools “to press students whose parents won’t press them to take more demanding classes”. Schools certainly could and should be encouraging promising students from non-professional families to take more advanced courses. So why don’t they?

But given that more demanding classes are not more expensive to teach

Is there a good reason for assuming this to be true? I’d suspect that AP classes tend to be taught by teachers with advanced degrees, as well as those with extensive experience, and I’d expect these teachers to draw higher salaries than teachers with fewer credentials or less experience. Even if the teacher gets the same salary whether teaching an AP class as opposed to a non-AP class (is this true?), surely increasing the demand for these types of teachers tends to drive up school costs? When you add in costs related to subsidizing test prices and course materials, I don’t see why we should assume that many of these demanding classes are not more expensive to teach.

If it isn’t, then you can see how there might be an incentive for schools not to push students towards those types of classes.

SoV, even if you were right that, on average, troublemakers would be detrimental to learning in advanced classes, then that’d still be statistical discrimination. But the causality probably goes the other way to a significant degree. Let me guess, yes, just guess, you’ve never been tracked into a remedial class yourself. For a half way intelligent kid being stuck in a mind numbing, overwhelmingly boring, completely useless remedial class is an open invitation to cause trouble. And hey I’ve seen it from both sides of the barricade.
And personally I don’t know what the average relationship between causing trouble and scores on aptitude tests is. Based on personal experiences, again, from both sides of the fence, I’d hazard a guess that there is probably no relationship whatsoever. And if there is some weak positive relationship (which I doubt) then it’s probably due the fact that those suckers are lying when they say they’re measuring aptitude when in fact they are measuring straight up preparation and test taking skills.
Grade records and “slightest spark of ability” are also reflections of reverse causality as well as the fact that teachers will only tend to see “sparks” in the eyes of nicely behaved, properly dressed, well mannered, ass kissing pupils of the right skin tone.

I got tracked into remedial classes in 6th grade based on some of these wonderful ‘aptitude’ tests. Now, it was possible, just possible that for English classes this was the right placement. But there was basically no way in hell that I belonged in remedial math and science. At the time, being more interested in goofing off and causing trouble I actually didn’t mind this. But my parents did. They asked to see the actual aptitude test upon which the results were based. The counselor who administered the test refused. They went to the principal. She refused as well. They went to PTA meetings, to the school board, to the county ed super, they all refused to let them see the aptitude test. It was only when my folks hired a lawyer and were about to sue that the school very quickly jumped me from remedial 6th grade math to high school pre-calculus (which I dropped after a quarter in order to take math classes at the U instead). Of course they still wouldn’t release the aptitude test records but at that point (to my 12 year old annoyance) my parents got what they wanted.

In the end I can’t say I was much of a victim of the screwed up educational system. I turned out alright. But that’s pretty much all because my parents gave a whole lot of fuck about it. And because they were from a background which enabled them to know how to contest this kind of bullshit. But there’s a lot, A LOT, of kids out there who’s parents, even if well meaning and engaged simply don’t have the time, nor the resources, nor the financial and other ability to fight schools on this. I can tell similar messed up stories from my ( brief) time as a high school teacher when I saw lots of very smart kids stuck in remedial classes either because, well, let’s call it what it is, institutional racism (sometimes a form of ‘classism’ too , in regard to Appalachian kids), or because school teachers assumed that anyone who wasn’t an ass-kissing goody two shoes must be mentally challenged.

(as an aside, the educational system in other countries isn’t necessarily much better)

But given that more demanding classes are not more expensive to teach and, therefore, not a scarce resource

Isn’t this obviously false? Advanced classes systematically have smaller class sizes – at my high school there was an application process to get into the limited amount of seats in the advanced classes. (Which included the imponderable judgment of the teacher – there were a number of jokes among the students when the male AP English teacher selected a class of 15 girls and 1 boy.) Obviously, classes with smaller class sizes are more expensive per student, limiting the number the school can offer (with a given finite amount of money); therefore, seats in them *are* a scarce resource.

Although for a while I entertained the theory that the scarcity was intentional to create a positional good, since for the people who did get into the top tier of classes (almost all of whom had rich and influential parents, of course), it looked better on their college applications. Well, I didn’t know the term “positional good”, but that was the idea. On further reflection, though, the small class size itself explains why they didn’t open up more sections: they couldn’t afford to make all their classes that small because there weren’t enough teachers.

Of course the fact that you’re causing trouble cuz you’re bored out of your freakin’ mind doesn’t really occur to anyone.

It turns out this isn’t so clear. At least your experience and mine cancel out that way. It didn’t help, though, and I left anyway.

Actually, there is no reason why advanced classes have to be smaller than remedial ones, nor is it necessarily obvious that they would be. Indeed, the argument could be made the other way around, that intelligent and motivated students are much easier to teach en masse than students who may need significant individual attention, so advanced classes scale up much better than remedial ones.

At my high school (public, urban, white, upper middle class, and significantly underfunded), advanced classes were not a scarce resource, with over half the student body taking at least one or two. As a result, each calculus section had 50+ students, whereas algebra I had around 20 per section. The largest class, at over 90 students, was a senior honors english/history class. Books were old, and if the school ran out they would make and bind photocopies and/or ask students to share. Students sat on the floor or the window sill, yet none of this seemed to have any material effect (heh) on the learning.

What you have to keep in mind is that there are certainly some insitutional power effects in play when you are talking about AP classes. At my high school, the AP calculus teacher wielded a lot of power in the department, probably because he was a solid teacher who got excellent results. But partly that was due to teaching the freshman honors math class, carefully observing students in the honors track and making sure he only had the students he wanted in his AP calc class. It wasn’t particularly small, but he was able to use this to maintain a very high AP passing rate and even 5 level scoring. Maybe that was the right thing to do, since anything less than a 5 on the AP calc test means you really haven’t learned calculus at all, but I can very easily see this kind of mechanism manifesting itself in various less desirable ways.

I think that slocum is partly right that advanced courses should not theoretically require additional resources, but for a variety of reasons, this may not be true in practice. Also, just based on my theory that 90% of all people are total frauds, I doubt most high school teachers can actually teach at the AP level effectively, which means offering a lot of AP classes means that the best students get the only decent teachers in a high school.

Katherine, In this discussion ‘tracking’ is used to mean something like: identifying and sorting students at a fairly early age (say sometime in the 10-14 range). You then put them on a track based on their perceived ability. This might include a high speed learning track, a more middle of the road track, and a remedial/slow learning track. The theoretical advantage would be that you can tailor the teaching more appropriately to their learning. A disadvantage would be if you get on the wrong track, and get stuck there for a number of years. A more subtle disadvantage would be if you might be capable of different tracks for different types of subjects.

functional, why do you assume I’m opposed to vouchers?

I wasn’t talking about you, but about the exact same “American left-educators” that you find puzzling because of their belief that “parental choice of schools will lead to inequality” (as if the parental choice of wealthy suburbanites doesn’t already exist to just about its fullest extent).

Thanks functional — I’ve had that discussion with people oh so many times.

Katherine and Sebastian — schooling is like Babies and Cars — US and UK English diverge completely. The Brits practice streaming much less than they used to, but setting (in which you are placed for each subject with children who have reached roughly the same level — there doesn’t seem to be an American equivalent term) is common and pretty uncontroversial. I suspect some of the disputes over tracking versus complete homogenisation in the US would be a bit less fractious if setting were more widely adopted (as it is, frequently, for math, but often only for a small elite top-set).

I’m sure there is good data on this, but I don’t have it (and don’t know how common setting would be). But what you’ve described is not setting, but choice of classes (as described in SMH). I strongly get the impression that the SLC grants the Dept of Education is running have tended toward homogenisation within grades 9 and 10 esp in the basic academic subjects (which, in the UK, are still the final compulsory years of high school — secondary school there standardly begins in 6th grade, and setting begins then or very soon after). But that’s anecdotal – there’s probably data, but I don’t know if the DofE is collecting it…

Sure, I didn’t mean that these were the only options or practices, just that resistance to tracking is often well-motivated but is also often used to promote homogenisation, rather than setting.

I’m not sure SLCs are, in fact, working out as you imply. I suspect there’s a lot of window dressing, but only from anecdotal acquaintance, not from any comprehensive study of what is going on (I hope such a study is under way).

Harry – the curiousity is killing me, did your stepfather stay at school past his 15th birthday? (I believe the story, my father and some of my older teachers at school can tell similar ones).

What’s interesting is that this was a grammar school — that is, all the boys had “passed” the 11plus exam, so were already part of an academic elite of about 25% of the population.

Since this is the most recent education-related thread, a real live example of schools that explicitly focus on and have narrowed or eliminated the achivement gap:

Philadelphia has a handful of racially and economically diverse schools where Black and White students achieve comparably high test scores, defying the traditional achievement gap. In some cases, African Americans outperform their White peers.

[…] The schools are different, but share some essential characteristics: focused attention on each child; little teacher turnover; a relatively stable student population; and, perhaps most importantly, rigorous dedication to narrowing racial achievement gaps. Each school is supported by strong leadership and boasts both economic and ethnic diversity.

Full article.

Well, there was a nice little wandering there. Back to the original post, I believe the reasonable point that edumacators in the U.S. oppose choice at the level of physical school and unconsciously (at least) support it at the individual school scope. I think this is true, and I think that it’s because of several points, a few of which make complete sense to me and a few of which do not. The idea, for example, that lower-income parents have the time/energy to move their child (whether permanently or daily) to another school merely to do them some selectin’ is seen as burdensome, whereas it makes total sense that if the school-as-mall can provide the same selectin’ opportunities in the local school just down the street (if in fact they’re lucky).

No one on the U.S. left cares one whit about the badness of choice for anyone; what I perceive as the major obstacle is fairness in the distribution of resources. If the middle- and upper-classes can take their kids out, the fear is that the remaining children will get the resource and opportunity shaft. There IS a bell curve of some form in all things; even in the private world, there are great schools, and there are crappy ones. Sure, the crappy ones are cheaper, but that doesn’t mean they’ll magically go away due to market forces, leaving only lean and efficient ones. Right?

So I think the main arguments that make sense to me about inter-school choice would be those that make arguments about how to continue to distribute competence and resources equitably without regard to race/class AND provide choice. Within schools, there is a rough ability to do this; across schools, not so much — yet.