After several years under NCLB, leaders in education have yet to see much evidence that the legislation will cause failing schools in marginalized school communities to turn their schools around (Brady, 2003; Schemo, 2007). Nonetheless, turning back to the way education used to occur in the U. S. before NCLB is not an option. In the mix, turbulence, and stress of change, emerging careers will definitely help formulate the new paradigm, and those who embrace the innovation and unpredictability in education today will lead with success and fulfillment (Fowler, 2004). Educational leaders need a paradigm of education that allows anxiety about change to be contained by directive leadership while moving an organization into the ‘space for creativity’ opened up by providing freedom of expression, encouraging risk, and controlling fear (Stacey, 1996).
The field of education sits among the middle of all other fields connected by a network of diverse interests. Boundary conversations between other fields as they struggle for resources and try to move their interests into dominant positions impact the field of education. Education also benefits from this impact as ideas and concepts cross the boundaries from other fields into education. Evolutionary biology and social science have provided intriguing concepts of complexity and sociocultural capital that have crossed during my pursuit of literature related to the notion of capital in successful schools (Lareau, 2003; Levin, 2002; Swartz, 1997).
“The theoretical lens of capital is useful in understanding how communal practices become both resources for student participation in…activities and a means for accessing additional resources that afford…learning” (Seiler & Elmesky, 2007, p. 404) while the science of complexity highlights the multidimensional nature of complex adaptive systems, such as schools, coexisting in biological and ecological systems while interacting, coadapting, and coevolving with myriad other complex adaptive systems such as social classes, businesses, communities, cities, etc. (Stacey, 1996). “Leadership and educational researchers equally argue there is tremendous potential for the metaphorical significance of complexity science in organizational dynamics” (Gilstrap, 2005, p. 56).
As education searches for a new paradigm, educators would be well-served to remember that a paradigm is a socially shared set of beliefs which both informs and constrains educational practice (Church, 2005; Fincher & Tenenberg, 2006). Developing new theory will more than likely only be a futile search to find a system that gives us a tool to accurately predict behavior that will turn around a failing school. Compiling lists of principles and practices will only give us unsustainable, general rules without any power to predict how they will manifest in unsuccessful schools (Marzano, Waters, & McNulty, 2005). The science of complexity highlights the ideal that “prediction isn’t the essence of science. The essence is comprehension and explanation” (Waldrop, 1992, p. 255). Further, theories such as critical theories, including feminism and postmodernism, address cultural reproduction and biases that marginalize certain groups but do not allow enough for local contexts and the overall complexity of education to be important factors beyond the general characteristics of marginalized groups. A social constructivist view of education sees educators co-constructing their identity in education and their understanding of the identity of others in the school community in an iterative process with others in the school community co-constructing their identity and the identity of the educators in the same fashion (Nasir & Hand, 2006; Stacey, 1996).
In complex adaptive systems such as education, the organism or entity continually evolves becoming increasingly more complex, or “ratcheting up” its complexity based on previous states in which it has existed to make successive generations a better fit with the environment (Heylighen, 2002; Stacey, 1996; Waldrop, 1992). In Policy Studies for Educational Leaders (2004), Fowler outlines major periods of educational policy in the United States. The public became dissatisfied with public education, crystallized around “A Nation at Risk” in 1983. Other countries were narrowing the economic gap with the U. S. A global market was surfacing and the world seemed to be “shrinking.” The emergence of these issues that threatened U.S. domination were blamed on the failure of U. S. public schools.
From this uncertainty and dissatisfaction, three reforms are currently taking place. The first type of reform is to complete, restore, or update the Common School through curriculum alignment, inclusion, increased graduation requirements, longer school day/year, new technology, school finance reform, state/national standards and tests, and systemic reform. The second type of reform is to professionalize teaching through authentic assessment, differentiated staffing, increased teacher salaries, new teacher induction programs, peer evaluation, site-based decision making, teacher mentoring, teacher teams, and an emphasis on elimination of the factory model of teaching which does not allow for children to become critical, creative thinkers. The third type of reforms is to privatize/marketize education with charter schools, open enrollment, magnet schools, merit pay, privatization, and vouchers.
Currently, legislators are borrowing from all three reform efforts, sometimes selecting concepts and practices that contradict each other. The new paradigm that is forming is also being influenced by reform in other countries as well. Reform is going to transition over several decades, more than any of our careers, and we will grapple with continuous change. Teaching will not be fully professionalized because of the general public belief to know as much as educational experts. The new paradigm will have facets of the Common School and marketization including mandatory testing, vouchers or open enrollment, etc. (Fowler, 2004). This conglomeration of contradictory policy and politicking fomented in 2002 when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) set goals for universal proficiency for all students. NCLB pushed anxiety levels past urgency to panic resulting in no emergent creativity. Instead, a scramble occurred in education for cookie-cutter recipes, and cheating and other unethical behaviors were used by educators to avoid federal and state consequences for not meeting proficiency goals (Barr & Parrett, 2007).
Schools throughout time and in the U. S. “were established as much for moral and social reasons as for academic instruction” (Noddings, 2006, p. 3) with the belief that “a thorough and efficient education would enable all students to fulfill their role as a citizen; to participate fully in society and in the life of their community; and to appreciate art, music, and literature” (Verstegen, 2006, p. 63). U. S. schools began to move away from preparing responsible citizenry during the 1900’s when “access for all” occurred simultaneous to administrative progressivism that saw education as a means to reproduce the division of labor for social efficiency (Rury, 2005; U. S. Department of Education, 1998). Now, with the focus on “proficiency for all” under the guise of social justice, the education system continues to serve three primary functions reinforced by NCLB’s limited definition of “proficiency” to minimal standards in reading and math: conservation of the American cultural heritage, socialization into a cultural tradition, and cultural reproduction of existing socioeconomic classes (Swartz, 1997).
Educators used to be viewed as the “experts” in regards to how schools were run. Now the public, policymakers, and courts are active in educational reform efforts. The result so far has been the setting of the achievement bar by courts and legislation at “minimally adequate” while forcing accountability by displaying “dismal records publicly” (Walk, 1998, p. 2; Henig, Hula, Orr, & Pedescleaux, 1999; Verstegen, 2006). Proponents claim NCLB “has suddenly focused the spotlight on the effectiveness of America’s schools in teaching the children of poverty” (Barr & Parrett, 2007, p. 10). In the end, NCLB simply focuses on the consequences of failure instead of offering meaningful, sustainable reform that requires change in state and national political jurisdictions, social policy, and economic opportunity for marginalized populations including those in poverty (Henig, Hula, Orr, & Pedescleaux, 1999; Machtinger, 2007).
While “setting high standards for performance is a first step” (U. S. Department of Education, 1998, p. 5), NCLB jumped straight to accountability and left standards up to individual states with each state defining “proficient” differently. NCLB further required schools to describe how they will build capacity (Abrego, Rubin, & Sutterby, 2006). Brown (2007) describes the shortsightedness of this approach:
From a capacity standpoint, simply implementing standards will not address key pedagogical and structural issues…the influence of non-academic factors such as socio-economic status on student performance raise concerns as to whether articulating content and performance standards is the best approach to improve student performance…As more policy-makers structure the entire education system as a basic service, the goals of such a system become simply providing students with a limited set of skills for the job market…Anything beyond that is the responsibility of the consumer. (p. 639, 640, 659)
The lack of complexity in approaching education as “a basic service…providing students with a limited set of skills” is particularly limiting to low socioeconomic (SES)/ marginalized groups who have less capital to invest in realizing success and learning beyond the basic skills prescribed by the legislation of NCLB (Brown, 2007).
Other simplistic notions of NCLB fly in the face of how complex a task education has become. NCLB touts school choice as a tenet that will “save” education. Choice presumes “the creation and realignment of schools based on a market economy approach is the silver bullet which inequality in education can ultimately be reduced” (Portes, 2005, p. 174). Proponents of choice sing its praises without describing how competition will help schools find additional resources to provide a more rigorous curriculum or locate a new pool of high-quality teachers and administrators from which districts can recruit. At the same time, these efforts threaten to drain away higher SES students who will be able to take advantage of choice options while further damaging the school’s chances of making “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) toward proficiency standards (Portes, 2005).
“Reform efforts largely fail to acknowledge the relationship between the social, cultural, economic, and historical positions of the students, and how these factors influence classroom interactions and access to learning inside the school” (Seiler & Elmesky, 2007, p. 392). Nesbit (2006) warns,
Any pedagogy that ignores learners’ experiences and culture is a form of ideological imposition that reflects a particular balance of political and social power…a class perspective on teaching regards learners’ knowledge and experiences and their development of critical awareness as key parts of the curriculum itself. (p. 180)
Teaching should promote praxis, as students consider cultural and social practices and values, as well as a sense of agency in students as being actors within their school community, nation, and world who can make a difference in their own lives as well as the lives of other marginalized populations. AYP under NCLB places such high-stakes demands on ensuring every student is proficient in literacy and numeracy that schools are afraid to dedicate resources to the development of social and cultural capital and building capacity within the school community. Schools are worried that for want of a nail, the kingdom will be lost, but they may very well be shoeing the wrong horse. Lambert (2007) pleads, “Don’t limit the process of school improvement to focus on NCLB-type testing and assessment. That’s so crippling to everyone involved” (p. 2).
Indeed, schools which do not see a way out of the intense scrutiny generated by NCLB seem to abandon the efforts of past decades of educators and ignore the desire of democratic society to instill citizenship and democracy, good character and social conscience, critical thinking, commitment, and global awareness through a well-rounded American school experience. Schools have taken drastic measures to meet “minimum standards” of accountability by eliminating pull-out programs, lengthening the school day, etc., but at what cost to children (Barr & Parrett, 2007; Noddings, 2006; Schutz, 2006)? Student achievement is more than minimum standards; achievement is the dynamical interaction of “multiple measures of development and performance,” including “academic performance, resiliency, and equitable outcomes for all students” (Lambert, 2003, pp. 6-7). Dagget (2005) believes reform initiatives in successful schools encompass so much more than proficiency in math and reading. Such initiatives include a culture of efficacy, the use of data, relevance, a framework to organize curriculum, multiple pathways based on agency, high expectations with accountability for continuous improvement, professional development, parent and community involvement, safe and orderly schools, and leadership development.
Simplification of understanding leads to rules that turn into large-scale simplicities “mistaken as the way things really are” (Davis, Phelps, & Wells, 2004, p. 4). NCLB has simplified the definition of successful reform ultimately redesigning education to fail every school by 2014. Attempts to bring a market-competition model through inequitable funding levels, unequally distributed quality teachers, unfunded federal mandates of NCLB, and a “gauntlet” of technicalities while settling for minimum standards suggest failure may be the result open-market proponents are hoping for to give big business a slice of the “education pie” while keeping the marginalized populations of America in their place (Barr & Parrett, 2007; Church, 2005). Others believe “we cannot accomplish our academic goals without a purposeful and thoughtful focus on social development” (San Antonio, 2006, p. 39).
“Our public school systems were not designed to focus on struggling students—they were designed to serve those prepared and supported externally to achieve” (Barr & Parrett, 2007, p. 72). The history of American public education is very important because a look back lets us see a pattern of emergence over time. Now that educators are aware of it and can see the benefit emergence has had thus far in moving schools toward social justice, education needs to embrace emergence and let equity unfold. Further development of this new paradigm requires a closer look at sociocultural capital, capacity building, and the successful practices occurring in high-performing, high-poverty schools (HP2S) today.
