EducationNews.org

Tammy-Lynne Moore

Michael F. Shaughnessy
Senior Columnist EdNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University

Dr. Rochester is a Distinguished Teaching Professor for the University of Missouri – St. Louis. He is also an International Relations Specialist and has written a variety of books on International Law and Organization as well as Education. His most well known book is Class Warfare: Besieged Schools, Bewildered Parents, Betrayed Kids and the Attack on Excellence, published by Encounter books. In this interview, he discusses his most recent work and the impact that his book has had on American education.

1.What research are you currently working on? What are you currently writing?

I wear two hats, one a professor of political science specializing in international relations and the other a professional educator interested in pedagogical issues generally, of the sort that prompted my recent Class Warfare book.

Most recently, I have been wearing the former hat, having just completed a book on U.S. foreign policy based on extensive research, entitled U.S. Foreign Policy in the 21^st Century (Westview Press) due out in November of this year.

I explore the difficult foreign policy choices that confront the US today in a post-Cold War environment that is arguably more complex, if not more dangerous, than the Cold War system.

There are a number of "dilemmas" I examine, such as how is it possible for the US to enjoy (in the words of many commentators) a degree of dominance over its nearest rivals not seen since the Roman Empire, yet to be an apparently helpless hegemony failing in so many foreign policy endeavors, not just in Iraq but virtually all over the globe?

And how can the US perform (in the words of some observers) the role of "sheriff of the posse" in support of world order when the posse is often scared or uncooperative or both, and trying to bypass the posse then invites charges of being an outlaw or rogue state or at least a "bully"?

Looking at several different foreign policy perspectives (neo-conservatism, liberal internationalism, and realism), I weigh the pros and cons of each approach, and ask if there is any clear road the US should take, other than the usual bromide that we should be more willing to "talk" and be more "multilateralist" (what I call the Rodney King "can't we just all get along?" school of foreign policy).

While working on this book, I have not allowed it to prevent me from pursuing my ongoing interest in educational issues (e.g., I have been asked to review the Michigan social studies standards this summer).

2. How are schools besieged, parents bewildered, students betrayed, and excellence attacked?

There is what I have called a "pack pedagogy" phenomenon nationwide, that is, a whole series of fads that have found their way into schools around the country – inventive spelling, whole language, fuzzy math,multiple intelligences theory, cooperative learning, full inclusion, and the systematic, relentless attack on gifted education, honors courses, AP, and any other merit-based ability-grouping – all driven by a well-intentioned but misplaced, misguided obsession with the bottom, with lowest-common-denominator education and a Lake Wobegon culture, what E.D. Hirsch has called "educational populism" and what the former asst superintendent for instruction in my own school district once called her commitment to "mass excellence" (which I had to remind her was an oxymoron).

3) How has your life changed since the publication of Class Warfare?

I have received tons of email, mostly from teachers who found the book resonating with them. I had my fifteen seconds of celebrity, appearing on C-SPAN BookNotes and being interviewed by many national media.

I have been invited to speak at the Brookings Institution and other venues. But I still do what I have always done – attend my local school board meetings and continue to fight in the trenches for what I think is needed in education.

4.What is the Great American Education War and who is winning?

The war, which in some ways has been going on for centuries and certainly throughout the 20^th century (as Diane Ravitch and others have documented) but which has really heated up of late, pits "progressive" educators (relabeled "constructivists" in their latest incarnation) against traditionalists.

The main axis of conflict is over how students learn – the progressives tend to promote student-centered, active learning while the traditionalists tend to promote teacher-centered direct instruction, although the distinctions are not as clear-cut as this may suggests. As for who is winning, the tide has turned recently against the progressives, as whole-language reading pedagogy has been pretty much repudiated (thanks to scientific studies from NIH and other respected research organizations), grammar has made a comeback in schools (thanks to its appearance on the SAT exam), computation skills have also made a comeback (thanks to college math professors calling attention to the basic math weaknesses of their students), and testing and accountability pressures have mounted with No Child Left Behind and state testing regimens (thanks to general public, bipartisan recognition that schools were failing).

However, the war goes on, as there has been a bit of a backlash against NCLB, and the progressive movement remains well entrenched in schools of education ready to fight another day.

5. What's wrong with "progressive education" in today's schools?

It reminds me of the ad in the Chris Farley movie "Tommy Boy" – "If at first you don't succeed, lower the standard." See what I had to say in answer to your second question. That is, progressives are so concerned about what they call "equity and diversity" that they are willing to sacrifice academic excellence to get there.

Take multiple intelligences theory, for example. It basically says that if a child cannot read, write, count, think, or perform other such academic skills, no problem, maybe the kid can dance or dribble a basketball (what Howard Gardner has called "kinesthetic bodily intelligence," which he and his followers insist should be accorded co-equal status with the three r's.

The biggest problem with progressives is they do not take their own good advice. Progressives actually have many good ideas, but, like a child with a new toy, they go berserk and do not understand the concept of balance.

A progressive educator once quoted F. Scott Fitzgerald's line that "the measure of a first-rate mind is to hold two competing ideas in one's head and still function." I told the progressive educator that I agreed with Fitzgerald, and I said: "Let's try it for a moment. Let's commit ourselves to promoting in our schools creativity AND rigor, higher-order skills AND memorization of facts and basic skills, active learning AND direct instruction."

In other words, I am willing to meet progressives halfway in arguing we should blend the best of BOTH progressive and traditional education, but I have found few progressives capable and willing to do so, since they do not believe in balance.

If they would not ridicule traditional education so much, I would not criticize them as much as I do.

6) Thanks to technology, the world is much more connected than in the past.How does this affect international relations and future citizens?What should public schools be teaching their students?

In some ways the more things change, the more they stay the same. We still need in K-12 to teach the basics – to provide a strong foundation of knowledge and skills. American students still need to learn about and understand the workings of their own political system before they can analyze others well.

However, clearly it is more important than ever to expose kids to other cultures and foreign languages. Tom Friedman's The World Is Flat makes a compelling argument about this.

7.In your view, how are class and excellence clashing in schools and how might we solve it?

I discuss the "clash between equity and excellence" in chapter 3 of Class Warfare. I do not believe these are necessarily mutually exclusive goals, but unfortunately, as I have indicated earlier, progressives are making it so. I have always asked in my school district: "Please help me understand the following: what is unfair, unequal, inequitable, inegalitarian, immoral, and unjust about giving those students who have demonstrated the capacity and willingness to do advanced work the fullest opportunity to do so?"

Public schools must provide these opportunities for excellence – in the form of gifted education, honors courses, and AP – no less than private schools. Yet we now see an "AP for all" ethos, where what was once conceived as the ultimate, most difficult academic challenge a school district had to offer is now somehow considered doable by almost every kid in the building, which of course is absurd.

In honors courses, as in my school district of Clayton, African-American children are now admitted into high school honors courses not based on merit but skin color, since the district's diversity beancounters insist on seeing more black students admitted into these courses even if the high school staff has judged them not ready for honors.

The solution, of course, is to do what it takes in K-8 to prepare these young people to position themselves to make it into high school honors on their own, not to provide them with a crutch that makes a mockery of the honors designation.

And so the dumbing down of education is going on everywhere. I should add that we have rightly gotten rid of the old-style "tracking" programs where one set of students in a school took an entirely different curriculum from the rest of the students and never saw them during the school day; this has wisely been replaced by subject-by-subject ability-grouping, at least in most high schools. But the problem is that, in our desire to completely eliminate the last vestiges of tracking, we have overcorrected for those excessively elitist, exclusivist practices by lowering admission standards into honors and making it excessively inclusionist in many cases or eliminating honors altogether.

8. How do constructivist classrooms and textbooks hurt student learning?

They are too airy and loosey-goosey. They also are pretentious. We have completely turned our k-16 education systems upside down – thanks to progressives, kindergartners are now supposed to be doing "critical thinking" while we in higher education have to clean up after them and take time to teach the basics – where to put a comma, how to write a complete sentence, who was Lenin, etc etc.

9. Student populations and educational setups vary greatly when comparing the United States to countries producing top-scoring students.What lessons should be learned from these countries and are we set up to adapt our educational system?

I have one anecdote to tell. I just returned from a trip to China as a member of an American Political Science Association delegation. We visited one university in which we were told that, in response to the common criticism China hears that its schools are too regimented and demanding, Chinese universities are beginning to adopt what they called a "happy curriculum" (less homework, less stress, etc.)

Many of us on the delegation – college professors who see all too well the lazy, inferior products of American public schools – cautioned the Chinese about this, as we told them that many of our students are "too happy."

Just as the Chinese have lots to learn from us, in terms of moving away from pure rote education and encouraging creativity, we have much to learn from them, in terms of their work ethic and use of drill and practice to turn out world-class students in math and other subjects.

10. How can we control international violence through international institutions such as schools?

Schools can certainly help teach good values and citizenship, including tolerance and respect for diverse views. The best definition I ever heard of education was "learning to cope with ambiguity."

But I worry about excessive use of schools to teach character education and conflict resolution skills, since these can distract from time on task on academics. Ultimately the family must be relied on to teach basic values.

Schools should be wary of usurping that function, especially when many values these days are somewhat contentious, as between liberals and conservatives.

11.How are texts littered with graphics contributing to the demise of American excellence?

Another anecdote: a couple years ago I was attending a meeting of college textbook authors, all of whom were lamenting the absurd deluge of visuals (cartoons, photos, graphs, maps, and other images) that now overwhelm the written word in so many textbooks, as publishers insist that the current "MTV" generation loves pictures and cannot handle dense text.

One of my colleagues at the meeting plaintively asked, "What's next? Pop-ups? A box of crayons at the back of the book?" How much further can we go in dumbing down these books? It is amazing. Most students do not even bother looking at this stuff, yet we are told it has to be in a book for it to sell. Obviously, some graphs and other visuals are fine and useful, but once again we do this in excess.

12. How would extending the school day/year really help American students compete internationally in excellence?

It might help but only if we use time better than we do at present. I am especially wary of block scheduling, which I think is often used to show movies, allow kids to do homework in school who do not have home support systems that support homework at home, and otherwise wastes time.

13) What impact has "mainstreaming " or inclusion had on the educational process?

There was an excellent article in the June 25, 2007 issue of the Wall Street Journal, "Mainstreaming Trend Tests Classroom Goals," which rightly noted that mainstreaming often plays havoc with classroom discipline and routines, hurts the majority of children in the class, and – in particular – damages efforts to attract and retain highly talented people to the teaching profession, since these people do not see themselves as babysitters, daycare workers, and disciplinarians.

The issue is not whether to serve the severely (learning or physically) disabled children – obviously they deserve tons of resources targeted at them – but how best to do it in a way that serves both their needs and the needs of the majority of children.

14) What question have we neglected to ask?

Why is there such resistance to excellence and so much support for mediocrity in the K-12 world? Is the problem the schools of education? The teacher unions? The state education bureaucracies? Parents? Some combination?

Even in my own school district of Clayton, which is arguably the best in the state of Missouri and sends lots of kids to Ivy League schools and produces lots of National Merit Scholars, and is world-class in many ways and does many wonderful things, one must fight for excellence and the maintenance of standards.

15) What research needs to be done in American education?

We still do not know fully what "works" and, especially, what works best to close the achievement "gap" between black and white children in America.

Published July 12, 2007