SCHOOLS generally don't try to fail. Perhaps there are a few ill-intentioned educators out there, but common sense and experience suggest that most teachers and administrators want their schools to succeed. Amazingly, though, education policy-makers in New York are advocating a tough-on-crime approach to education that flies in the face of this apparently straightforward idea that educators want to educate. Administrators should give up on this foolishly punitive strategy and pursue policy options that encourage success instead of those that punish failure.
Some officials in New York are proposing to apply New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's Compstat program of "shock therapy" for lax police precincts to the school system. Compstat - short for computer statistics - uses data analysis to identify precincts that aren't performing. Supervisors then put pressure on these offices to shape up - or else. Intimidation, punishment and unpleasant confrontation are core techniques in this approach.
Proponents credit the Compstat program with improving the performance of the New York police force, increasing efficiency and decreasing crime. By extension, they argue, a similar program could shape up schools that currently aren't succeeding. Quantitative evidence - such as teacher and administrator evaluations, standardized test scores, graduation rates and attendance data - could be used to identify weak points in the education system. Supervisors could then get aggressive and discipline officials from these less-than-successful schools. According to "A 911 Approach to Rescuing Schools," The New York Times, April 22, "Principals, some may argue, could be scolded in front of their peers for surges in student tardiness, teacher absences and trips to the nurse's office. Or superintendents could be called on the carpet if on of the schools in their district had dirty floors, a high suspension rate or a low percentage of students in uniforms."
This punishment-centered rhetoric may make people feel better about failing schools. It appeals to the visceral feeling that doing something is better than nothing, no matter what that something is. But if we scrutinize the content of that "something," we see that it has nearly no hope of fixing the real, underlying problems in education.
Unsuccessful education doesn't occur because principals or superintendents are trying to fail. Schools are under-performing mainly because they're overcrowded and outdated, because they have too few teachers for too many kids and because the teachers they do have are ill-trained to teach.
But even worse than being ineffective, these punitive approaches to educational policy prevent struggling schools from recovering. Punishing schools that aren't performing only will make it harder for them to succeed. Reprimanding principals and taking away funding aren't going to fix the problems. They're just going to make them worse. A tough-on-crime approach to education reform is counterproductive.
Of course, the impulse to turn to these methods is understandable. Educational policymakers get frustrated when schools don't perform. The easiest response is to get mean and displace blame onto supposedly under-performing individuals. If things aren't going well, it's not a fault of the system, it's just that someone isn't trying. But this is passing the buck; in many cases, it's deeper institutional flaws that cause the school to fail.
It's the same with education on an individual level. If a frustrated teacher is having a hard time teaching an individual student a certain concept, the easy response is to just crack a whip and punish the kid if he or she doesn't suddenly perform. But while belligerent, curt, unpleasant approaches may be easier, they don't work. The harder but more productive response is to figure out why a student isn't succeeding and address that through a patient, constructive approach.
School systems should use this same solution at the macro level as well as at the individual one. Instead of wondering why schools don't succeed with poor facilities, inadequately trained teachers and paltry funding, and then punishing them for not making miracles happen, we should encourage them for small victories.
Policymakers should approach educational reforms with patience and a positive attitude, viewing principals and superintendents as allies instead of villains. Schools should be encouraged for succeeding, not punished for failing. Giving up on educators and giving in to the urge to punish will only make our schools fail more.
(Bryan Maxwell's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at bmaxwell@cavalierdaily.com.)
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