With Liberty and Education for All

HOW DOES A NATION DEFINE ITSELF? What are its mores and values? And with what cultural codes does it inform its worldview, enabling it to decide which direction to take as a polity?

In the United States, not too many generations ago, questions such as these were easily decided, if they were asked at all. This was the acknowledged America: Eurocentric-Norman Rockwell-apple pie. These were the tenets of Americana, reinforced in the classroom. There are signs, however, that this is changing.

The New York City public school system is a prime example of the shift. Its student population includes 359,903 African Americans; 321,476 Hispanics; 186,512 whites; and 69,356 students from other ethnic groups. Whites comprise just 20 percent of the public school population.

The changing demographics of education will have a major effect on all aspects of public policy in the years ahead. Look at the faces of children now entering kindergarten and their primary school years: They are every color of the rainbow. These children speak with many accents, have different needs, and are ushering in an entirely new set of realities.

The social tremors caused by rapidly changing racial and ethnic demographics in the United States can most easily be tracked through the public school systems in our large cities. Blacks and Hispanics comprise the majority of students being educated in urban public schools in the East. Hispanics and Asians are, or soon will be, the majority of students attending public schools in California, where whites make up only 40 percent of the public school population. As more children enter the public school system and eventually leave to replace an aging, predominantly white adult workforce, education is not only critical to minority advancement, but to the stability of the country itself.

The social influences of education are central to understanding the education reform debate. No matter the issue -- be it prayer, sex education, or censorship -- the classroom has been the laboratory for social experiments in this country. Unfortunately, public education is often a political football tossed between taxpayers, politicians, and the courts.

As the most tangible evidence of a nation's commitment to a way of life, public education is the first line of defense of our national security. When that commitment is threatened or altered, the disruption that follows will ultimately affect the entire social order.

Race is a prime example. The landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown vs. Board Of Education, outlawing segregation in public schools, constituted a major crisis in the social order in the South. Desegregation battles in the mid-'50s and early '60s in places such as Little Rock, Arkansas and Oxford, Mississippi, and the battles in Boston around the issue of busing in the early and mid-'70s, were school issues with ramifications far beyond the classroom. What was at stake then and now are values.

In 1990, public education, for better or worse, is a major purveyor of values in the country. As such, it is vulnerable to the actions and reactions of society's most important institutions: church, government, family, and other social groups.

Values derived from different races, ethnicities, cultures, histories, and experiences in this country must somehow be taught to children. And the curricula used in public school classrooms are the key to how well these different strands are woven together and taught to children from diverse backgrounds -- all toward the purpose of creating good citizens, critical thinking beings, and active participants in a still very young democracy. But before this process can be legitimately done, the record must be set straight.

IN NOVEMBER 1987, NEW YORK STATE Education Commissioner Thomas Sobol convened the Task Force on Minorities: Equity and Excellence. This multiracial task force was asked to examine the education department's curriculum and instructional materials to see if they adequately reflected the diverse student population. In July 1989, the task force's findings were published in a report, A Curriculum of Inclusion.

According to the report, "The various contributions of the African Americans, the Asian Americans, the Puerto Rican/Latinos and the Native Americans have been systematically distorted, marginalized, or omitted." It continued, "European culture is likened to the master of a house ruling over a dinner, he himself firmly established at the the table and all other cultures being given some distance down the table from master, who has invited others through his beneficence." A curriculum of inclusion, stated the report, "is seen as serving, the interests of all children from all cultures: children from minority cultures will have higher self-esteem and self-respect, while children from European cultures will have a less arrogant perspective of being part of the group that has 'done it all.'"

Needless to say, the report caused an uproar. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal, "Curriculum of Diversion," derided the report's call for cultural inclusion by saying, "If schools spend their resources fretting over the worth of Western culture, it's likely that children will be more woefully unknowledgeable in the basics than they already are."

The New York Board of Regents, to its credit, took the report's findings to heart and authorized a review, and if necessary a revision, of New York state's elementary and secondary curricula. Still, Commissioner Sobol felt compelled to justify and explain the Board of Regents' decision: "Our population is becoming increasingly diverse -- ethnically, culturally, and linguistically. By the year 2000, one of every three New Yorkers will be what we now call a 'minority.' About 90,000 people annually emigrate to New York state from other countries. New York state is home to some 40,000 Native Americans belonging to eight tribes or nations ...

"We cannot understand our complex society without understanding the history and culture of its major ethnic and cultural components. We face a paradox: Only through understanding our diverse roots and branches can we fully comprehend the whole. Only by accommodating our differences can we become one society. Only by exploring our human variations can we apprehend our common humanity."

New York City is in the process of establishing a curriculum of inclusion. The plan in the Big Apple is twofold: It seeks to be both multicultural and multiethnic. The difference is critical. "Multiethnic specifically deals with different ethnic enclaves," Herb Boyd, a consultant with the New York City Board of Education, told Sojourners. "Multicultural extends beyond ethnic groups to include gender, the handicapped, gays and lesbians, and feminists."

The process is lengthy, tedious, and highly political. Boyd, who is black, is trying to develop lesson plans with a strong African-American presence in the social studies unit. The goal, according to Boyd, is to highlight aspects of black culture.

Boyd and his colleagues have developed a two-step plan. The first step lays out black history from Africa up until the Reconstruction period. The second step examines Reconstruction up until the civil rights era.

Boyd, who has been at work on the project for three years, is only one of several consultants and advisers from a variety of ethnicities. There are also experts in Chinese history, Native American history, Latin American history, Jewish history, and Irish history. Using primary sources to represent each group's history is essential, according to Boyd, because it is much easier to defend in terms of accuracy and relevance.

Each group of experts came up with an overview, which then was examined by outside experts. Department heads, teachers, and parents are all part of the refining process. The final authority is the New York City public schools chancellor.

The curriculum being planned in New York City is designed to aid teachers in the classroom. "Teachers are less prepared to teach about ethnic enclaves, let alone American history," said Boyd. "Having a document outlining various groups' histories will enable them to work along with textbooks." The curriculum now being constructed in New York City is also designed to be flexible so teachers can adapt lessons to their class composition.

THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION in California is the acknowledged leader in incorporating cultural diversity into school curricula. The department has developed a model called Education for Cultural Inclusion (ECI). This model also focuses on teachers and other education professionals.

"Staffs are the focus for training because, traditionally, it has been the education professional who is the culture carrier," according to Dr. Minta Palmer Brown, manager of the Cultural Inclusion Office of the California State Department of Education. "Throughout various 'reform movements,' programs have been found to be no better than their implementors."

Brown, too, is quick to distinguish between education for cultural inclusion and multicultural education. "Multicultural education has not been successful in bringing Americans together. The focus on ethnic studies or global education has only served to foster misperceptions regarding pluralism, diversity, and culture," according to Brown. "The culture of the United States is being taught as a collection of fragments rather than as unifying complementary elements. Education for Cultural Inclusion is predicated on the understanding that this culture is a unique, multifaceted entity, characterized by cultural diversity."

Several African-American organizations around the country have focused considerable energy on cultural inclusion in school curricula. In Portland, Oregon public schools, African-American Baseline Essays, a curriculum supplement for teachers, examines the experiences of ethnic groups in each academic discipline. Essays was introduced to Portland by noted black psychologist Asa G. Hilliard III of Georgia State University in 1981.

How different is a culturally inclusive curriculum? You learn how instrumental the Chinese were in building up this country's railway system; that without Native Americans the Pilgrims could not have survived in the New World; that Africa is the birthplace of science and mathematics; that in the 15th century, Europeans began to edit out of the history books the contributions of Africans to world history.

It is startling to realize the accomplishments of African Americans in this country that never made the standard historical record. Consider this: A slave, Onesimus, developed the concept of vaccination against smallpox in Boston in 1721 by describing to his owner his own inoculation against the disease in Africa, who in turn informed city doctors.

Ever hear the term "the real McCoy"? It stems from the numerous inventions of Elijah McCoy, a Canadian born to runaway slaves. McCoy invented the ironing board and lawn sprinkler. His most popular invention was the lubricating cup, which revolutionized the machine industry.

Garrett A. Morgan invented the gas mask, the safety helmet, and the prototype for the traffic light. And Archie Alexander designed Washington, DC's Tidal Basin and Whitehurst Freeway.

Critics of culturally inclusive education say that it is not germane to teaching children the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic. But as important as what you teach is how you teach. An inclusive curriculum provides a sense of self-esteem and an accurate sense of history and culture. By seeing themselves represented in history books, by learning of accomplished heroes who look like them and who contributed in all areas of society -- math, science, religion, politics, industry, commerce, and the arts -- children will be encouraged to continue reading and learning, as they have a vested interest in wanting to contribute to the life and thought of this country.

"The development of the human spirit is important," said Dr. Egon Mermelstein, a professor in the Basic Sciences Department at the College of Aeronautics at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. "Teachers must emancipate children and free them to learn. Mutual respect, listening to each other, fostering a sense of community, and caring -- subject matter is the vehicle through which these values are communicated."

AS MORE STATES BECOME "majority minority" states, ensuring people of color a good education for placement in a competitive society is critical. But who will pay for the special needs of many poor minority children already in, or soon to be in, school? Drugs, illiteracy, teen pregnancy, violence, other social ills, and tightening budgets are forcing teachers and administrators to become surrogate parents, psychiatrists, and social workers.

"Kids have to deal with a lot more than I did growing up," Katie Baggott, a former elementary school teacher on New York City's Lower East Side, told Sojourners. "I've had kids who came into my class shaking because their dad was dragged off to jail the night before, really traumatic things."

Baggott, who taught from 1985 to 1989, recalled how one girl in her class wrote as an essay "a very matter-of-fact account of seeing a man shot while on her way to the store for some M&Ms candy." Many of the children in the school where Baggott taught spoke Spanish and lived in welfare hotels. Having nowhere to go after school, many were provided dinner as well as after-school programs.

"Our nation is at risk," lamented A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, a report released by the National Commission on Excellence in Education in 1983.

"America's position in the world may once have been reasonably secure with only a few exceptionally well-trained men and women. It is no longer ... A high level of shared education is essential to a free, democratic society and to the fostering of a common culture, especially in a country that prides itself on pluralism and individual freedom."

The crisis in education is inextricably linked to the status and quality of life afforded to minorities and immigrants in the United States. Although A Nation at Risk does not make this point outright, state officials can no longer ignore the obvious.

"Over the course of the next decade, our nation must better educate far more Americans, of all ages, to new kinds and higher levels of knowledge and skills than ever before," according to Educating America: State Strategies for Achieving the National Education Goals, a report released by the National Governors' Association. "We must do this with an increasingly diverse population, many of whom face substantial economic, social, or other barriers to learning, such as the effects of substance abuse, teen pregnancy, or inadequate health care."

The report is a follow-up to the six national goals for education outlined by the governors at the education summit held at the University of Virginia last year. The goals, to be realized by the year 2000, are ambitious and significant because they emphasize the point that education, primarily grades kindergarten through 12, cannot teach a child without the help of the wider community. Readiness for school; school completion; student achievement and citizenship; mathematics and science; adult literacy and lifelong learning; and safe, disciplined, and drug-free schools -- these goals signal a call for greater interdependence between public schools and other areas of life that directly affect a child's performance and attendance in school.

Harold L. Hodgkinson, an analyst with the Institute For Educational Leadership in Washington, DC, makes this point in The Same Client: The Demographics of Education and Service Delivery Systems, a study he authored in 1989. "While it is useful for educators at various levels to communicate, it is no longer enough for the urgent problems we face. Service organizations must begin to see their interdependence across functional lines," according to Hodgkinson. "It is painfully clear that a hungry, sick, or homeless child is by definition a poor learner, yet schools usually have no linkage to health or housing organizations outside those run by schools themselves."

The objectives for several of the national education goals are significant, as an ethic of caring is linked to the actual process of educating. Consider, for instance, the objectives for goal one, readiness for school:

• "All disadvantaged and disabled children will have access to high quality and developmentally appropriate preschool programs that help prepare children for school."
• "Every parent in America will be a child's first teacher and devote time each day helping his or her preschool child learn; parents will have access to the training and support they need.
• "Children will receive the nutrition and health care they need to arrive at school with healthy minds and bodies, and the number of low birthweight babies will be significantly reduced through enhanced prenatal health systems."

The two objectives for goal two, school completion, raise similar concerns. The first objective is to reduce the dropout rate and raise to 75 percent the number of people who return to high school or receive their equivalency degree.

The second objective is reducing "the gap between American students from minority backgrounds and their nonminority counterparts." Reducing the gap means that socially disadvantaged children are put into a system -- not now in existence -- that sees the child as a whole being, not stigmatized by such socially destructive terms as "crack baby," "problem child," "juvenile delinquent," "homeless child," "welfare child," or "abused child."

Goal three, student achievement and citizenship, and goal four, adult literacy and lifelong learning, stress critical thinking, community service, personal responsibility, and effective communication (reading and writing). These objectives not only expand the nature of education but also how we must think about education -- specifically, its ultimate purpose. Toward what end are we teaching?

"It seems that the whole society got materialistic and the education system with it," according to Katie Baggott. "The main job of the educational system [now] is to have kids function at a job. There is not a lot of emphasis on exploration, intellectual and creative stimulation." As a result, Baggott believes "we downplay what a child may actually be capable of."

IT IS MY OWN SCHOOL EXPERIENCE while growing up in New York City that leads me to agree with Baggott's comment. At its best, education -- public or private -- is a system of caring relationships. At its worse, a parent and child simply take their chances.

I remember one particularly troubling occasion at I.S. 61, Leonardo da Vinci Intermediate School in Queens. I was in sixth grade, class 6C, an SP (special progress) class. One day, midway through the school year, the assistant principal walked into my homeroom class and told me that I was being transferred into 6N. I was to report to that class the next morning.

As I now write these words, I am getting angry all over again at how impersonal his message was and how public. When you are 10 years old and in the third-ranked class in the sixth grade, to be told suddenly in front of your classmates that you are being transferred into the 14th-ranked class is embarrassing. In the few seconds it took for my mind to absorb this bad news and the shock of it, the opinion of my classmates of me changed from "peer" (meaning somewhat smart) to "dumb."

The next morning I reported to class 6N. I told the teacher that I really did not belong there and that no one explained to me why I was being transferred. Had I been struggling in my subjects? The new homeroom teacher did not know me or my history. As a matter of fact, she did not know that I was to be in her class for the remainder of the school year until I showed up and told her.

The most painful part was the plummet in expectations for me by my teachers. I had no relationship with them or my classmates, or with the guidance counselor who was absent during this two-week nightmare and the administration that had arbitrarily removed me from one social group to another. Everything was different: expectations, requirements, friends, attitudes toward school and learning, values, and life chances. Although I was put back into class 6C after two weeks, no explanation was given to me except that a mistake had been made.

In her essay "An Ethic of Caring and Its Implications for Instructional Arrangements," Nel Noddings, professor of education at Stanford University, writes: "Teachers, like mothers, want to produce acceptable persons ... To shape such persons, teachers need not only intellectual capabilities but also a fund of knowledge about the particular persons with whom they are working. They cannot teach moral education as one might teach geometry or European history or English; that is, moral education cannot be formulated into a course of study or set of principles to be learned. Rather, each student must be guided toward an ethical life -- or an ethical ideal -- that is relationally constructed."

In 1990 freeing a child -- no matter what color, ethnicity, or culture -- to learn in an inclusive, caring, creative environment will entail coming to loggerheads with the values that are idolized in the wider society -- competition, exclusion, and unhealthy notions of power. Education cannot happen in a vacuum. The educational system is both an advocate and a recipient of values. No one teaches or learns for teaching or learning's sake alone. A point of view is involved.

The education reform debate is both necessary and complicated -- involving teacher salaries, respect for the teaching profession, school maintenance, neighborhood control, bilingual education, special education, and parent involvement. Reforms in any one of these areas are only as significant as the moral importance we attach to them. These various strands all help to create an environment in which a moral education can take place.

As we approach the 21st century, attempting to solve our education crisis within the framework of a system designed for the population of the America of a century ago is futile. We need to start over.

One teacher recently asserted: "What is needed first is a 'revolution in thinking.'" This is where education reform must begin.

Anthony A. Parker was assistant editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.