Learning, Curriculum and Life Politics: the selected works of Ivor F. Goodson
Long Waves of Educational Reform
The new standards and testing regimes act to underline the residential patterns of segregation with new patterns of academic ‘segregation’. Overall patterns of inequality are thereby underwritten by the new regimes of schooling. What was once a ‘Jewel in the Crown’ comprehensive high school for all, becomes a dumping ground for the socially disadvantaged, a transformation underwritten by, and accompanied by, a rhetoric of standards.
At Durant School, the ‘commitment to developing alternatives to the traditional patterns, which failed to educate the disadvantaged, also unraveled in the face of standards-based reform. So, if Sheldon was facing its most ‘troubled period’ in the conjuncture, Durant faced a ‘fight for survival’. The fight for survival focused on defending the school as a learner-centred environment. The new testing regime demanded exacting compliance with the state’s definition of curriculum and content standards in five areas of subject knowledge. This deprived the school of space to follow a learner-centred policy, focusing on project-based multi-disciplinary study.
The students who wanted to graduate had to pass the state tests. This meant that the focus on learner-centred curriculum had to be replaced by preparation for the externally delivered test. Durant’s teachers were caught between defending their learner-centred beliefs and fulfilling the students’ requirement to pass the state subject tests.
One teacher described the effect of the high-stakes state tests on his professional self:
So the [state tests] are coming and I think it’s a damn shame that that sense of autonomy, that ability to create your curriculum with high standards has to be thrown out every place by something that I think is artificial. It takes out the creativity of teaching and you’re teaching to the test. Just the thought that I’m doing this is totally counter to what I believe, it really is, but you know I’m a captive… You’re selling your soul to the devil.
Another staff member also described the effects on his professional self:
What it is, is it’s a taking away of my professional judgment and autonomy as a teacher. I was trained at good colleges for both my bachelor’s and my master’s degrees. I was interned by a brilliant teacher at my old high school as a matter of fact. I spent years learning how to teach, learning why kids learn how they learn, what I can do to help that happen. And suddenly the state says no, none of that means anything. None of that means anything at all. We’re going to tell you what to teach. Essentially tell you how to teach it, although they would deny that. They are telling us how to teach it. And then they’re telling me what the outcomes need to be. And to me that’s saying all right, why don’t we just get a videotape in here of somebody and they can do it, because it ignores so much about kids.
Another echoed those sentiments:
We’re trying to do two things at once with graduation by demonstration and still cover all our bases for the possibility that the kids will have to take the [state exams] and it’s killing everybody. Like it’s just too confusing and too much work. And it makes it really hard for the kids to use this school as it was intended, to explore things that they’re interested in because they’re spending so much time focusing on other things.
