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John Diamond is a sociologist of education who focuses on how race, ethnicity, and social class intersect with school practices and policies to shape children's educational opportunities and outcomes. His recent research includes a four-year study of urban school leadership; an examination of the implications of social class for African-American parents' educational participation; a study of race, social class, and student achievement in suburban schools; and a study of the development and diffusion of teachers' expectations of students. In this interview, Diamond discusses his observations and strategies for supporting urban schools. Q: In your opinion, who or what is ultimately responsible for fostering a more equitable learning environment for all urban schoolchildren, regardless of economic background and race? Whom do you believe has the most impact on student outcomes—policymakers, school administrators, or teachers? A: I would argue that all of these stakeholder groups play important roles. In my research, I have studied the implementation of educational policies, leadership practices within schools as organizations, and instructional changes among teachers. Policymakers need to craft policies that help equalize the resources available to schools, encourage the development of learning environments that hold high expectations for all students, and have teacher and administrator accountability. Administrators need to create the conditions within which teachers can be creative and have the resources that they need to facilitate student learning and positive outcomes. Finally, teachers need to maintain high expectations for all students, respond to students’ needs without seeing differences as deficits, have strong knowledge of the material they teach, and have the ability to relate well to their students. Teachers are likely in the most important position to impact students’ outcomes, but they cannot do it alone. The conditions within which individual teachers can be successful need to be established in combination with the work of other teachers, administrators, and policymakers. Q: During your recent high-stakes-accountability research in the Chicago system, you found that schools respond in very different ways to policy compliance, depending upon their accountability status. Low-performing or "probation" schools focused their efforts more narrowly on improving the test performance of only certain students, within benchmark grades and in certain subject areas, and high-performing schools focused more broadly on enhancing the performance of all students, regardless of grade level and across all subject areas. Considering these findings, what are some first steps that probation schools should take to shift and broaden their approach to policy compliance? A: I think it might be important to consider another question, namely, how can the policies be structured so that they do not create incentives that lead teachers and administrators in low-performing schools to "game" the system? Standards-based reforms should include clearly defined high standards for students, a curriculum that is aligned to the standards, regular assessment to track students’ progress, and capacity building—something that is often overlooked or given limited attention in current models. As many test-based accountability policies are currently designed, schools are asked to do substantially more without being given significantly more resources. And, when they are given external support, it is often not very good. Without additional resources for professional development focused on instructional practices, among other things, probation schools will be hard-pressed to respond successfully to current policy mandates. Policymakers need to create standards-based reform policies that contain more resources for capacity building within schools that have struggled and, perhaps, create policies that are less punitive in their consequences for schools, teachers, and students. This is not to say that some probation schools will not come into compliance under the current approaches. Probation schools can engage in the kinds of strategies I’ve discussed in my research: focusing on certain students, grade levels, and subject areas that might directly impact the school's probation status. The schools I studied in Chicago made it off of the probation list, but they did this at the expense of some students who were marginalized by the schools’ efforts. For instance, the lowest-performing students got the least attention, and teachers in non-benchmark grades received less professional development, suggesting that their students were less likely to benefit from instructional changes. So, in this way, policy compliance might come at the expense of real, substantive change. The goal should not be "compliance" with current policies, whatever these might be, but long-term steady progress that enhances student learning. Policy compliance should be a part of a school’s longer-term strategy for instructional improvement. The particulars of policies change, but schools need to always have a sense of the direction in which they are moving and adapt the policies to their long-term vision of success. Obviously, school leaders—teachers and administrators—play a critical role in creating this vision. Schools need to shift the responsibility for student performance from students and families to teachers and administrators. Focusing on the problems with children and families takes the responsibility away from the educators and may lead teachers to reduce their own sense of responsibility for student learning. School leaders need to take the lead in this process. One way to address this issue is to focus on the school’s discourse about students. The formal and informal discourse among adults in the school needs to emphasize the important role that teachers can play in shaping students’ outcomes. When teachers focus on instructional practices—what is and is not working in their classrooms—and on how to best meet students’ needs, they are far more likely to see progress than if they do not feel personally and collectively responsible for student learning and success. This emphasis on the importance of teachers’ work should be reinforced in formal settings—staff meetings, professional development meetings, grade-level or department meetings—as well as informal settings—teachers’ lounges, hallway conversations. In one school that I studied when I directed the Distributed Leadership Study at Northwestern, a principal enlisted a set of teachers to help make sure that informal conversations in the teachers’ lounge and other informal contexts did not blame students and families for the students’ educational struggles. In my observations, I found that this strategy did influence the tenor of these conversations in important ways. Teachers need time to talk with each other about what is and is not working for their students. This is something that gets undermined by the threat of probation and reconstitution. In schools I have studied that demonstrated major, sustained improvements over several years, regular time was devoted to substantive conversations about instruction. In one school, weekly 90-minute meetings were a forum for discussions about instruction but also for bonding, laughter, and generally getting to know each other. By getting together on a regular basis, teachers learned from each other but also developed more trusting relationships—what we might talk about as social capital. These relationships are not unimportant. In an article in Sociology of Education, we report that when we asked teachers in Chicago about why they are influenced by others—why certain people emerge as formal and informal leaders—they reported that leaders’ styles of interaction and the nature of their relationships were often more important than their knowledge of particular issues, though knowledge remained important as well. This suggests that, if we seek change in teachers’ practices, leaders need to build positive relationships with teachers in order to facilitate the fruitful exchange of information. In order for schools and students to be successful, schools need to devise strategies that ensure that all students are exposed to the material on which they will be tested, exposed to the testing situation, and given strategies for being successful. Some successful schools have devised strategies for monitoring student mastery of important skills and for providing feedback from leaders to classroom teachers. One successful school I studied used a skill chart which aligns teachers’ lesson plans with district curriculum, state goals, and material tested on the high-stakes test. This sounds like the approach that many fear: teaching to the test. However, establishing this foundation does not limit what teachers can do in their classrooms. What is taught is not limited to the basic skills covered on tests but is extended to high-order, critical thinking skills and problem solving. These students are exposed to a challenging curriculum, and exorbitant amounts of instructional time are rarely devoted to test prep. But I would argue that preparing students for success on exams, particularly exams with implications for their futures, is not a bad thing in and of itself. It only becomes a problem when this is all that happens. School leaders need assistance in making sense of testing data and using it to help improve instruction. Advocates of high-stakes testing argue that schools will learn something important from testing data. However, the assumption that the data will be equally useful to all schools is not sound. In my work, I found that the highest-performing schools were also the schools that made the best use of the data. These schools repackaged the data in ways that helped teachers learn something meaningful from them and used this information to raise the level of discussion among teachers about student achievement. Lower-performing schools were less creative in their use of data and less likely to use data for instructional improvement. Therefore, if data is to be used to improve instruction, schools need to be provided with help in making sense of the data and using it to inform school instructional practices. Q: You argue that teachers’ expectations and sense of responsibility for students’ learning play a crucial role in students’ educational opportunities and outcomes. How can school leaders help to ensure that all students are given an equal playing field upon which to build a solid educational foundation? A: School leaders in individual buildings are in a difficult position. They cannot address the resource differences or the broader social processes that influence educational outcomes. However, within their buildings—and within the constraints that limit their options—I believe that school leaders need to focus on what their schools can do to address students’ needs, emphasize the important role that teachers’ practices play in contributing to students’ outcomes, and create a school context that challenges the notion that parents and students are to blame for negative outcomes. School leaders need to make sure that teachers have a strong sense that they are responsible for improving students’ outcomes and that they are capable of making positive changes, as I stated above. When students’ struggles are discussed, leaders—teachers and administrators—need to make sure that the discussion of solutions focuses on what schools can do. Q: What advice would you give to teachers in low-performing urban schools, whose jobs are at stake if student test performance remains low, in terms of their classroom approach and student focus? A: The way that these policies are written puts teachers in an awkward position. They are asked to make major changes in students’ outcomes and given few resources with which to make this happen. If it were as simple as wanting to make the changes, many teachers would have demonstrated success years ago. In response to the threat of losing one’s job, I would still suggest that schools and teachers focus on longer-term strategies for sustained improvement, rather than solely responding specifically to the details of any particular reform effort. In other words, responses to reform efforts should be made in the context of a longer-term vision of instructional improvement. Q: How can policymakers better support urban school systems and the families of students in these schools in achieving a more equitable and challenging learning atmosphere? A: By better supporting urban school systems. I would suggest that policymakers think about some of the following issues:
These issues underlie and exacerbate many of the problems we face as educators. For More Information
HGSE News, Harvard Graduate School of Education
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