DOCUMENT RESUME UD 030 122 ED 375 220 Restructuring To Educate the Urban Learner: Invited TITLE Papers. Research for Better Schools, Inc., Philadelphia, INSTITUTION Pa. Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), SPONS AGENCY Washington, DC. PUB DATE 93 RP91002004 CONTRACT 63p.; United Education Project. For related document, NOTE see CD 030 140. Viewpoints General (020) Collected Works PUB TYPE (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) (120) MF01/PC03 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *Academic Achievement; *Cultural Pluralism; DESCRIPTORS Economically Disadvantaged; *Educational Change; *Educational Improvement; Educational Planning; *Educational Quality; Elementary Secondary Education; Minority Groups; Staff Development; Student Improvement; *Urban Education; Urban Schools Diversity (Student); Reform Efforts; Research for IDENTIFIERS Better Schools Incorporated ABSTRACT The Research for Better Schools Urban Education Project provides a different framework from current education-reform efforts for restructuring urban schools and improving educational quality. This volume organizes a set of invited papers according to the Urban Learner Framework themes of cultural diversity and learning, unrecognized abilities and underdeveloped potential, resilience. enhanced achievement through motivation, and effort, and urban The decisionmaking framework integrates the new vision of the the learner, as expressed in four themes with four areas central to functioning of schools, namely: curriculum, instruction, and assessment; staff development; school environment; and management. the Papers and their authors are as follows: (1) "A New Vision of (2) "Cultural Compatibility and Urban Learner" (Eric J. Cooper); Tharp); Diversity: Implications for the Urban Classroom" (Roland G. Urban (3) "The New Age of Discovery: The Hidden Talents of America's (4) "Enhancing Achievement through Youth" (Ernesto M. Bernal); (5) "Developing Resilience Expectation and Effort" (Shin-Ying Lee); (6) "Linking Urban in Youth in Urban America" (Linda F. Winfield); "Redesigning the Students to the 21st Century" (Beau Fly Jones); (7) 'Vision' through Staff and Professional Development" (Yvette E. (8) "The Researching and Inquiring Manager: Responding to Jackson); Education" the Urban Learner; Working toward Culturally Appropriate Classroom, (James H. Lytle); and (9) "The Interconnections between Cultural, and Natural Systems Ecologies: Understanding the Deep in Characteristics of Culture as a Basis of Teacher Decisionmaking Urban Settings" (C. A. Bowers). References follow each paper. (GLR) U.S. DEPASTMENT OF EDUCATION °Pc* o Ecloca honal 14144,0 ono ifroprosmant EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) )cTros dOcumenl nes bean taftfogluoad as aosw. Iron, Ina lallf SO o Or pganrzihon otrainatong .t O Moot changes nave Omfo mode to mioonvo 111010OuctIon ouhty Pants of yr** o OP roOrIS stated in inrs Clocu mint 00 not oectssardv INSfamnt othoal ot OEM powbon pohcs "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC;." REST COPY AVAILABLE ,tiff4p Al IN I RESTRUCTURING TO EDUCATE 1 THE URBAN LEARNER: 1 INVITED PAPERS 1993 Urban Education Project Research for Better Schools, Inc. 444 North Third Street INMAGiC # Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19123 1 3 ABOUT RESEARCH FOR BETTER SCHOOLS AND THE URBAN EDUCATION PROJECT Research for Better Schools (MIS) is a private, non-profit, educational research and development firm. ( )ur sponsors include many clients from the public and private sectors. MIS has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education to serve as the educational laboratory for the Mid-Atlantic region since 1966. The present mission of the Urban Education Project builds upon the past experience of MIS. The Project seeks to initiate and support efforts to improve and restructure schooling in urban districts. Emphasis is placed on helping urban educators meet the diverse needs of students by developing an integrated knowledge base which incorporates and disseminates the most current, promising, and pertinent research. The Urban Education Framework presents a new vision of the urban learner as culturally diverse, capable, motivated, and resilient (Bernal, 1980; Stevenson & Stigler, 1992; Tharp, 1989; and Winfield, 1991). This view represents a major paradigm shift in research and theories of intelligence, learning, and instruction that could lead to a new order of results for urban learners. The new view challenges former sweeping generalizations of urban learners It suggests that urban educators build on strengths of the as deprived, underachieving, unmotivated, and at-risk. urban learner by embracing change that utilizes research on cultural diversity and learning, unrecognized ability and underdeveloped potential, enhancing ability development through motivation and effort, and resilience. The Urban Education Framework is grounded in the belief that focused educational change that gives special attention to urban learner issues can heighten opportunities for students to achieve academic success and life-long productivity. RBS Stall Urban Education Project Kira Dulan Barbara Presseisen Paul Hilt Diane Rosen Maureen Vanterpool David Kinney Michele Woods Pauline Lipman Ellen Newcombe Belinda Williams, Director This publication is based on work sponsored, wholly or in part, by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (0ERI), Department of Education under Contract Number 12P91002004. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of OERI, the Department, or any other agency of the U.S. Government. TABLE OF CONTENTS Overview it Belinda L. Williams A New Vision of the Urban Learner Cooper Eric 1 Cultural Compatibility and Diversity: Implications for the Urban Classroom Roland G. Tharp The New Age of Discovery: The Hidden Talents of America's Urban Youth Ernesto M. Bernal 14 Enhancing Achievement through Expectation and Effort 19 Shin-Ying Lee Developing Resilience in Youth in Urban America Linda F. Winfield 23 Linking Urban Students to the 2Ist Century Beau Fly Jones Redesigning the "Vision" Through Staff and Professional Development Yvette E. Jackson 36 The Researching and Inquiring Manager: Responding to the Urban Learner; Working Toward Culturally Appropriate Education James H. Lytle 41 The Interconnections Between Classroom, Cultural and Natural Systems Ecologies: Understanding the Deep Characteristics of Culture as a Basis of Teacher Decisionmaking in Urban Settings 49 C. A. Bowers About the Authors 54 OVERVIEW Belinda L. Williams Director, Urban Education Project, Research for Better Schools, Inc. Urban students are often described as culturally deprived, lacking abilities, unmotivated to learn, and at risk. These negative characterizations of urban learners represent a view that limits the development of strategies and programs that will improve urban education. Three decades of various efforts designed to remediate deficits (e.g., remediation, tracking, and labeling) have not significantly changed urban achievement and drop-out statistics. The Research for Better Schools (RBS) Urban Education Project decisionmaking framework for restructuring urban schools represents a paradigm shift that identifies the failure to adequately educate urban children as the failure of educational systems as opposed to a failure of students. The RBS Urban Education Project shares the dismay expressed by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1988) ..."we are deeply troubled that a reform movement launched to upgrade the education of all students is irrelevant to many children largely in our urban schools." The RBS staff does not believe that current reform strategies focusing black and Hispanic on management, collaboration, curriculum, assessment, and standards will address this failure. It is necessary to go beyond current reform efforts to focus specifically on the urban learner. The RBS decisionmaking framework for restructuring urban education creates a new positive vision of the urban learner as culturally diverse, having unrecognized abilities and underdeveloped potential, motivated to learn, and resilient. This vision can lead to real reform for urban children. The papers included here were presented at a seminar on November 5-6, 1992 in Philadelphia. This event was held to explore and clarify a new vision of the urban learner and to confirm the research-based themes supporting the RBS decisionmaking framework. The themes used to categorize the research and theory in the Urban Learner Framework include: Cultural diversity and learning Unrecognized abilities and underdeveloped potential Enhancing achievement through motivation and effort Resilience The knowledge base supporting these themes should guide educational planning and restructuring in urban schools. The decisionmaking framework integrates the new vision of the urban learner, as expressed in the four themes with four areas central to the functioning of schools, namely: curriculum, instruction, and assessment staff development school environment management This integration of the themes with the school functions gives additional guidance to restructuring urban schools and districts. This volume organizes a set of invited seminar papers according to the Urban Learner Framework themes and the school functions described above. It begins with an introduction by Eric Cooper, Director of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. In his introductory paper, Cooper, the keynote speaker at the seminar, alerts us to the "urgent need" to challenge current instruction and assessment practices which limit instruction to a focus on isolated skills, knowledge from textbooks, workbook activities and strategies based solely on teacher directed approaches, pullouts, and drill and practice. He calls for a "new vision of instructional reform" which will integrate research on cognition and the developmental experiences of diverse populations through instructional conversations that connect the home and ii school. He supports the themes of the RBS framework by recommending that educators must begin to recognise and build on the strengths that urban children bring to the classroom and incorporate the process of learning into the management of schools and environments for learning. "To do less," he warns, "is to have no vision at all." The next group of four papers clarifies the themes of the RBS framework and helps create a new vision of the urban learner. A brief overview of each follows. Cultural diversity and learning. In his paper, "Cultural Compatibility and Diversity: Implications for the Urban Classroom," Roland Tharp introduces his hypothesis of cultural compatibility which suggests that education is more effective when compatible with the cultural patterns of learners. He, first, reviews the nature of the evidence and arguments for cultural compatibility in monocultural classrooms and then discusses the principles which apply to multicultural classrooms and urban education. Four variables of cultural compatibility are described: social organization, sociolinguistics, cognition, and motivation. Unrecognized abilities and underdeveloped potential. "The New Age of Discovery: The Hidden Talents of America's Urban Youth," introduces the issues highlighted by Ernesto Bernal. By expanding on the theory of incompatibilities as introduced by Cardenas & Cardenas (1973) and elaborated by Roland Tharp in this collection of papers Bernal heightens our awareness of the central importance of counteracting the notions of compensatory education by changing the behavior of educators who communicate beliefs that urban learners lack talents. He describes "hidden talents" to mean cognitive as well as personality traits manifested in affective, motivational, personality, and cultural modalities. Hidden strengths such as leadership, interpersonal sensitivities, persistence, humor and a sense of community are defined. The need for a curriculum that is not merely cultural in content but reflects the multiculttaal traditions of students is proposed. Enhancing achievement through motivation and effort. In her paper, "Enhancing Achievement through Expectation and Effort," Shin-Ying Lee presents research which suggests the value and importance of reflecting on the practices and beliefs of other cultures to better understand the characteristics of our own practices and to help identify strategies to introduce change. Lee describes two distinctive patterns and aspects of achievement identified when comparing students in Asian classes with American students: (1) expectations and standards, and (2) effort and ability. She concludes that American culture, to a greater degree than Asian culture, emphasizes the importance of innate ability. In Asia, the differences in innate endowment among human beings arc not denied, but their significance as a controlling factor is de-emphasized. This greater emphasis on expectations and effort an lead to greater achievement. Resilience. One outcome of the focus on risk factors in social aid ethnic groups is the absence of a systematic understanding of the diverse skills and talents in urban students. Expanding on the notions introduced and described by Roland Tharp and Ernesto Bernal, Linda Winfield in her paper, "Developing Resilience in Youth in Urban America," challenges educators to identify the positive coping and resilience of poor African American children and their families. Winfield introduces a body of research which provides an alternative to current conceptualizations of "risk" and describes individual variation in human responses to risk factors, stress, and adversity. She explains four major processes which categorize the knowledge base on the development of resilience: (I) reduction of negative outcomes by altering either the risk or the child's exposure to risk; (2) reduction of the negative reactions to risk exposure; (3) establishment and maintenance of self-esteem; (4) provision of opportunities for success. The second group of papers establishes connections between the themes of the Urban Learner Framework as developed by Tharp, Bernal, Lee, and Winfield and the functions of formal schooling. These connections must he understood and systemically institutionalized for current restructuring proposals to effect necessary c :hanges leading to improved academic success for urban students. Brief summaries of the papers follow. Curriculum, instruction and assessment. Beau Fly Jones identifies two factors which contribute to lower student outcomes in urban and rural cultures: (1) concepts of intelligence, and (2) an absence of a rigorous curriculum. In th:_ paper "Linking Students to the 21st Century," Jones suggests that educators do not believe that all students can learn, or that intelligence can be modified. In addition, assessment instruments and the assessment process limit expectations. A core curriculum that includes algebra, two languages, problem solving, the capability of working independently and collaboratively, entrepreneurship, and a value for diversity is proposed. Jones emphasizes that the most important instructional strategy for urban teachers is the capability to help students link new information to their strengths, prior knowledge, and their cultural experience. She concludes that assessment should not be an add-on, but integrated with curriculum and instruction. iii Staff development. The goals of staff and professional development are described by Yvette Jackson as support for enhancing the learning process for staff and students. In her paper, "Redesigning the 'Vision' through Staff and Professional Development," staff development focuses on the educator as a guide for students. Professional development focuses on the educator as the learner. To create environments where teachers are supported to nurture the potential of all children, staff development must include multicultural education, brain-based approaches, interdisciplinary education, and enrichment. Jackson recommends that professional development include personal leadership and collaboration skills. School environment. In a paper entitled "Tne Interconnections between Classroom, Cultural, and Natural System Ecologies: Understanding the Deep Characteristics of Culture as a Basis of Teacher Decisionmaking in Urban Settings," C. A. Bowers provides mechanisms for understanding the "deep characteristics" of culture as a basis for teacher decisionmaking in urban settings. Using the metaphor of an "ecology," Bowers describes the classroom as the interaction of message exchanges which constitute communication and learning in urban classrooms. This classroom ecology, he suggests, reflects a larger cultural ecology that includes economic, political, and social patterns. Bowers recommends that bringing together the background knowledge for teacher decisionmaking with knowledge of the students' primary culture should be the focus of teacher education programs. Areas for integrating the formal curriculum and informal student experiences essential in the culturally responsive classroom include: the metaphorical nature of language and thought, the nature of primary socialization and communicAon, the influence of patterns of relationships and learning, and the balance between solidarity and power in the classroom. Management. Writing in his paper, "The Researching and Inquiring Manager: Responding to the Urban Learner; Working toward Culturally Appropriate Education," James Lytle proposes that urban principals and middle-management, give support to staff engaged in action research to contribute to the design of culturally appropriate and demonstrably effective educational organizations. Research and inquiry which focuses on students and how they experience schooling are described. Lytle proposes seminars on race and education, shadowing studies, and pairing principals to observe each other. He suggests that these strategies develop characteristics of a learning-to-learn organization. A thorough understanding of educational change must guide the implementation of the Urban Learner Framework. Systemic change is founded on new assumptions about urban learners and how they learn. It may require, for some individuals, a change in their underlying belief structures. Fully implementing the New Vision is dependent on planning for long-term, multi-year, comprehensive change that affects all levels of the educational system in both policy and practice. Leadership is critical to realizing the New Vision of the Urban Learner and supportive mandates, namely, clear policy directives as well as the time and opportunities to learn new information and skills, arc warranted. iv A NEW VISION OF THE URBAN LEARNER Eric J. Cooper National Urban Alliance for Effective Education at Teachers College, Columbia University There is an urgent need to address urban school education. Given the changing demographics in this and establish schools that work for country, there is a need to move beyond the rhetoric of reform to identity and minority students. It is estimated that, by the year 2000, one out of every three Americans will be non-white, that one out of every five students in the nation's public schools will be non-white (Hodgkinson, 1988; Boyer, of 1987). There is also a need finally to move beyond what have been traditionally identified as "the drivers educational reform," i.e., standardized tests and curricula that promote memorization rather than reasoning, to for the urban learner (New York Times, more practical suggestions for improving educational experiences October 16, 1992; Cooper & Sherk, 1989). Traditional approaches continue to force teachers to teach to tests that isolate skills into a mind-dump of and confusion for the child, rather than to develop a pathway which can lead to student thoughtfulness they mindfulness (Perkins, 1992). These approaches have been the subject of much discussion and debate, yet (especially in the urban community) often cloud the ability of educators to identify a clear direction for instructional change, causing many eventually to steer off into an instructional dead end (Levine & Cooper, 1991; Idol & Jones, 1991). This dead end may be partially reflected by the following data: Eighty percent of the knowledge students are exposed to comes from textbooks marked by many flaws (Bernstein, 1987). A New York public school system discovered that 80 percent of the materials in grades 3 to 12 were inappropriately matched to the needs of their students (Sirois & Davis, 1985). Students often spend more time engaged in workbook activities than in instructional activities with their teachers (Osborn & Stein, 1985). In an analysis of elementary and secondary instruction, less than one percent of instructional time was devoted to students responding to teacher and student questioning that demanded open responses involving reasoning or opinions. Usual student responses were based solely on informational answers to the teacher's questions (Goodlad, 1984). Most Chapter 1 programs for students are based on 30-minute pull-out programs with a focus on low- level learning scripts rather than on appropriate cognitive tasks (Hiebert, Colt, Catto, & Gury, 1992; Cooper & Sherk, 1989). Urban students spend more time on basic drill and practice skills than on instruction promoting higher order thinking (Cooper & Sherk, 1989; Hiebert, et al., 1992). If we are to sustain change in urban systems, we need to move beyond instruction that limits students' academic experiences to the use of poorly developed material, that engages them in seat work that may be improperly designed for their academic needs, or that forces them to attend to a series of activities geared to elicit the simple regurgitation of facts and figures. Implications of the above data indicate that 'educators need to rethink both how urban classrooms in this country are managed and how they are organized for instruction. A likely beginning is with the child. It is at this reference point that cognitive research has made the most has made many strides in describing progress in the past 20 years (Glaser, 1983). Although cognitive research what the learner does when he or she reads, plays chess, solves puzzles, or attempts to solve mathematical problems (Fredericksen, 1983), we have only begun to translate such principles of information-processing into wide-scale classroom practice (Idol & Jones, 1991). Despite all the school reform, restructuring, and educational change which have been proposed since the publication of A Nation at Risk, (1983), very little has translated into systemic change for urban students (Cooper & Sherk, 1989; Cooper & Levine, in press). In fact, the urban communities described by Jonathon Kozol's Savage Inequalities (1991), continue to expand into what he has described as "death zones" for urban students. Graphically illustrated by Kozol, these zones are life-threatening to children because of the violence, despair, and pollution which encompasses them. Vision for Urban School Reform Due to the diverse needs of students in urban environments educators, parents, business and community leaders must expand the vision of what should be done in urban classrooms. Rather than focusin-, on the traditional approaches, this vision needs to highlight what students have in common, as well as address the patterns of thinking by which people from different cultures, backgrounds, skill levels, exposures, and languages learn to learn in a nourishing environment. This should be the ultimate goal of education. Such learning environments can be the source for a new vision of instructional reform. This reform brings together: research on cognition, an understanding of how students engage themselves in the learning process, the delivery of instruction necessary for diverse populations, the initiation of instructional conversations to connect the home and school, and the use of rich resources which can be more appropriately earmarked for those children most in need. The proposals for this new vision consolidate guarantees of student competency with support to extend learning to the limits of every child's potential (see work of Piaget, \'ygotsky, and Feuerstein). To move toward this vision requires a recognition that no one approach to reform will be a panacea for the nation's urban schools and communities. Yet there are specific organizational and instructional arrangements that have proven successful in educating urban disadvantaged students. Eubanks and Levine (1987) have reported that: "such arrangements emphasize provision of educational assistance to improve performance through tutoring before school, during lunch, or after school, utilization of trained teachers aide in cognitive theories, reductions of non essential time in coursework which does not link with cognitive and interdisciplinary instruction, and formation of smaller in -class groups for low achievers than for other students..." (p. 22). I Hebert, Colt, Catto, and Gury (1992) suggest that Chapter 1 programs should provide more intensixe instruction for students in the first year of schooling, and they also suggest "reorganization of the curriculum and instruction of preschool through grade five, provide family support programs and a school site facilitator to work with teachers on implementation of change" (p. 546). Other researchers such as Bloom (198$) and Corner (1987) describe the importance of linking the home and school in a partnership based on instruction (e.g., graded homework which has been shown to improve student achievement: programs which allow students to spend two years with the same teacher, offsetting the discontinuity in the lives of many low-income children; social programs which are carried out by parents and teachers working collaboratively; and the use of programs that develop automaticity in reading through home and school cooperation). These, and other approaches which are well reported in the research literature must be applied in a cohesive and coordinated manner, if we ever can hotv to achieve systemic reforms in urban schools. Predictable obstacles, such as tests and textbooks which lead to fragmented instruction and repetitive drill and practice; school realities that stress classroom order and passive learning; student and teacher compromises that trade obedience for understanding instruction; low-level learning scripts for low achievers and teacher preferences for easy-to tea' h lessons; must also be addressed if we arc to witness systemic change (Levine & Cooper, 1991). To reach systemic reform in urban communities, it is recognized that many interrelated criteria will ha% e to be addressed. A framework developed by Research for Better Schools (1992) is student-centered and illustrates such intervening factors as school environment, culture, management, staff development, curriculum, instruction and assessment. These factors provide a lens for viewing the school and student as a complex unit of a broader learning community. 2