RPIC ICS Implementation Digital Module 1: Know the History of Educational Marginalization

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1. Current Practices Based on Common Assumptions

Historically, schools have been designed to teach to a normed group of students. As depicted in Figure 1 below, school systems were initially designed to ‘Americanize’ students. As Pai and Adler (2006) stated, “there was constant pressure from society to promote the Americanization of immigrants [of color], and public schools carried out societal expectations by encouraging immigrants to abandon their heritage and conform to American ways.”¹ Within less than a century of public education, it was clear that in order to continue to grow as a democracy, all children must be educated. As a result, compulsory attendance laws were passed beginning in 1852. “By 1918, compulsory attendance through elementary school was the law in each of the [then] 48 states.”² In the early 1900s, “tracking seemed to be an efficient way to sort through growing numbers of students.”³ Such tracking was established across school settings, in addition to segregation by race, disability, class, language, etc. Assimilation to the normed group within our public schools was and remains the expectation. Therefore, when students were not able to assimilate to the norm, of white, non-disabled, and English-speaking students, the perception was that the child had deficits beyond what could be addressed in the core of teaching and learning.

Figure 1:  The History of Educational Marginalization

 

As the United States entered the Civil Rights period, Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) was significant in defining the “no such thing as separate but equal” standard.⁴ Such a decision forced legislation to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling of desegregating schools, often resulting in a perpetuation of segregation by including students who were African American in lower track classes. Once again, educators began developing programs for students who did not assimilate to a white normative. Such lower track options perpetuated the generational cycle of marginalization experienced by families living in poverty, of color, linguistically diverse, etc.

Figure 2:  The History of Educational Marginalization Continued

After Brown vs. Board of Education, many class-action lawsuits were filed, resulting in legislation aimed at addressing the lack of equal access to public schools across the United States (e.g., PL 94-142 for students with disabilities). In response to more than two centuries of a deficit-based system, such legislation followed by developing programs for specific groups of students in public schools across the country, reinforcing educational tracks by categories (special education, Title 1, ELL, etc.), as delineated in Figure 3 below.

Figure 3:  Program Model

Throughout our educational history, more and more students did not meet the normed expectations of the average student, forcing the construction of additional programs (see Figure 4 below). Such an educational design both created and perpetuated low achievement among students of color, students who are linguistically diverse, students with disabilities, and students of poverty, as these children were removed from general education for remediation “someplace else.”

Figure 4:  RtI Framework

Today, RtI is now the entry point to a reactionary system, as it is reinforced for educators to continue to teach an “illusory average.”⁵ Often such intervention programs are not designed on how each child learns, resulting in more and more students being removed from general education, more often as an attempt to increase achievement (see Figure 5 below). When students do not find success, they are often removed again. To this end, schools find that well over 50% of their student population are receiving their education from 30 minutes a day to a full day, outside of the core of teaching and learning.

Figure 5:  Programs and RtI Interventions

Seven assumptions that often perpetuate a deficit-based reactionary program model are:

1. We can better educate students who struggle if they are separated from their peers.
2. We can only provide individual attention and support in a setting or situation separate from rigor and relevance in the core of teaching and learning.
3. Staff are not able to teach a range of students.
4. Schools are incapable of changing to meet student needs.
5. The locus of student problems lies within the student; thus, we have no need to examine how the school response to the child or what can do differently to avoid student struggles.
6. Students are more different than alike.
7. Response to Intervention (RtI) requires schools to remove students from the core of teaching and learning for intervention opportunities.

Such practices reinforce the stereotype lift and stereotype threat research by Claude Steele in “Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us” (Steele, 2010).⁶ Based on such principles, the following are nine major problems are associated with the assumptions supporting “programs”, ability grouping, or tracked classrooms. These programs/interventions can include separate ESL or bilingual education programs, special education, Tier 2 or 3 interventions, intervention blocks, schools-within-schools, alternative schools, charter schools, and other ability grouping established for students considered at-risk.

First, separate programs blame and label the student and cause stereotype lifts and threats versus expecting the system to be responsible for student failure. According to Hattie (2011)⁷, labeling students has little to no impact on student achievement.

Second, separate programs perpetuate tracking of students of color and students of lower social class. The demographics of students enrolled in alternative programs, RtI interventions, special education, or at-risk programs are overrepresented by students of color and students of experiencing poverty.

Third, research on effective teaching shows that students in these programs often do not have access to high-quality teaching and learning. Separate programs often limit students’ opportunities for further education beyond high school.

Fourth, separate programs fragment a student’s day. The students who often need the most structure, routine, consistency, and predictability in their day are often the students who must leave in the middle of a class to attend a special program. Thus, the student removed is receiving the least comprehensive education, while students who are more capable of synthesizing information from a range of adults and environments actually receive the most cohesive educational opportunity.

Fifth, in separate programs there is a lack of transfer of educator and student knowledge and skills from the separate program back to the “local” setting (the classroom, the school, the community). Clearly, some of the most promising teaching strategies for the success of each student in integrated environments have derived from specialists in special education, gifted education, multicultural education, and reading who have discovered that their expertise can be used to the benefit of all students, not just a select few.

Sixth, separate programs result in some students receiving services while other students do not. Students who do not receive a formal label however do not receive services, or else we often default to other “options” (e.g., volunteer tutors, Title I), which continue to not meet the students’ individual learning needs in Tier 1.

Seventh, the data does not reflect that such programs are effective. That is, trend data across school districts reflects an increase in achievement gaps as students increase in age and are pulled-out of the core of teaching and learning.

Eighth, programs are not individualized. Teachers are often teaching to a normed group of students within ability grouped and segregated classroom or school environment.

Ninth, educators then spend an inordinate amount of time and resources deciding exactly for which program a student may qualify and what policies support or do not support students in which program. Reallocating staff and resources into excellent instruction for all students in integrated environments (Tier 1) will bring about a much greater return on our education investment.

 

2. Equitable Best Practices

Many well-meaning educators, who are often advocates for students who struggle in school, can become trapped in the enabling aspect of special programs. For example, there are a growing number of alternative schools across the country. To simply close down the alternative schools without changes in the local high school would not be productive for anyone involved. It is imperative to take a dual approach to change — that is, strive to meet the needs of students of all abilities while working proactively on creating a plan to intentionally interrupt practices that perpetuate marginalization. The federal government has recognized the problems with separate programs since the enactment of P.L. 94-142 (1975) and even during the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Act of 1997, as the Act states:

The education of children with disabilities can be made more effective by… coordinating this Act with other local, educational service agency, State, and Federal school improvement efforts in order to ensure that such children benefit from such efforts and that special education can become a service for such children rather than a place where they are sent [italics added for emphasis].

 

3. ‘Operationalizing’ Our Work

To avoid the problems of separate programs/services and to capitalize on these federal initiatives, schools must move from a reactionary model to a proactive, integrated, and comprehensive system of education. Programs are often set up for a specific student group by perceived ability and disability versus proactively providing instruction within Tier 1 based on identity relevant teaching and learning (see Cornerstone 2 for further discussion).

When educators meet the needs of students of all abilities by providing services within the core of teaching and learning, rather than by designing separate programs, tracks or classes; they set the stage for a broad range of children to learn together, while also setting the stage for teachers to share expertise and build on each other’s capacity. All educators are then better able to proactively meet the needs of students who typically fall further and further behind in separate programs and tracked classrooms. Essentially, building a system that is naturally supportive of Response to Intervention (RtI) legislation, in Tier 1 by “designing to the edges of our system versus the average.”

To initiate the discussion for this work, the School Leadership Team (SLT) or if you are a student – the student, completes the activity of “Drawing their Current Model” for three specific reasons:

1. All members of the SLT are better able to visualize how students may or may not be separated from the core of teaching and learning.
2. All members of the SLT and staff will have a common visual to return to when conversations occur that refer to the current practices.
3. All members of the SLT are better able to align their equity review data to current practices using such a visual.

The Process:  Use large adhesive paper and markers to draw your current model.

Step 1:  The team should select one member who will physically draw on large adhesive paper a symbolic or graphical representation of the “normed” group of students (those students who are receiving the most comprehensive education within Tier 1). Then, draw in other programs that represent unnatural proportions of students clustered for specialized supports somewhere else, other than Tier 1 or the general education classroom. Many teams begin with the programs with the largest number of students (e.g., the different special education program areas, early childhood, Tier 2 and 3 interventions, at-risk, linguistically diverse supports, gifted and talented, Advanced Placement, etc.).

Through the drawing, identify if such programs/practices are located outside of Tier 1 instruction (e.g., special education resource) or inside the general education structure (tracked by ability). Specifically, these may include programs within general education where students are clustered by perceived academic ability (e.g., programs for advanced learners, tracked classrooms for college and career, and when one 4th grade classroom supports students who are defined as struggling, the second 4th grade classroom supports students who are perceived to be average, and a third 4th classroom grade supports students who are defined as advanced).

Figure 6:  Sample Current Educational Structure

Step 2:  Determine which practices constitute a proactive way of serving students and which constitute a reactive way of serving students. The team should mark each bubble with a “P” for proactive or “R” for reactive. Proactive is defined as, “the first time the student is presented with new content in Tier 1.” Reactive is defined as, “the student had to fail first, meet specific criteria for service, and the support is offered in response to a failed attempt at teaching and learning in the Core (or Tier 1).”

4. Creating Our Plan for Cornerstone 1: Focus on Equity; School Digital Module 1/Step 1: Know the History of Educational Marginalization

In the next ICS Application, discuss and then delineate the current practices that must be interrupted, and discuss future recommendations of how to share the information in this Digital Module along with the steps necessary to ‘operationalize’ such recommendations.

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References:

1. Mondale, S. Pattpme, S. (2001). School: The Story of American Public Education.  Beacon Press, Boston.
2. Mondale, S. Pattpme, S. (2001). School: The Story of American Public Education.  Beacon Press, Boston.
3. Mondale, S. Pattpme, S. (2001). School: The Story of American Public Education.  Beacon Press, Boston.
4. Warren, E. & Supreme Court Of The United States. (1953) U.S. Reports: Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483.
5. Rose, D. (2010). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGLTJw0GSxk
6. Steele, C. (2010). “Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us”
7. Hattie, J. (2011). Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning. London: Routledge