Published Monday, May 10, 2004
Merrow Headlines Askwith Forum
Panel Travels Through Education History
Special to The Appian

The educational pendulum is still in full swing. Using his film, "The Merrow Report: In Schools We Trust," to help take the long view of the history of American education at a recent Askwith Forum, education journalist John Merrow, Ed.D. 1973, showed how the United States has moved from reform to reform without empirically discovering what actually works in the classroom, or why.

The video was one of several "shared readings" assigned to the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) student body this year.

Following the film, the panel - which included the current and former HGSE deans - quickly bridged the interim between the 1996 video and today's educational landscape.

In Schools We Trust walked through the history of education from Horace Mann's caring treks by horse and carriage through Massachusetts to survey the state of education, to John Dewey's "progressivism," seeking to change the regimented rows of desks and "dictation" format of classrooms from the European model to a system of "active learning".

It chronicled the vocational education movement that was designed to turn out an American workforce, to the system of "factory schools" modeled on the assembly-line approach (herding students en masse from classroom to classroom, and teacher to teacher for different subjects).

Next, the film traveled from Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty," the first federal education act and nationwide Headstart, to the shocking impact of "Sputnik" in 1959 when the Russians pulled ahead in the space race, to the disconcerting impact of the Reagan administration's report, "America: A Nation at Risk" being doomed by "rising mediocrity"; from George H. W. Bush's "summit on education" to the 1996 call of alarm by big business and philanthropist Walter Annenberg's half-million dollar donation to public schools; from twelve cents of every dollar earmarked for education in the 1960s to a paltry six cents today, and the current bussing and voucher controversies.

After the film, HGSE Dean Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, an educational historian who appeared prominently in the video, interjected the 2004 questions posed around the country of the legacy of Brown vs. Board of Education that turns 50 this month, and George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" Act. The dean said she "believes in standards," but she lamented "all this testing."

Harking back to Dewey, former HGSE dean Theodore Sizer, who now heads the Coalition for Essential Schools, was so stymied by the fact that 90 percent of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, supported what is so clearly an imposition of national will on local school districts - that he described it a "breakdown in our social contract."

Former HGSE dean Patricia Albjerg Graham did not mince words either and characterized the state of education "a tragedy of American democracy" for, she noted, the children who need the best schools have the worst, and those who already have economic advantages have the best schools.

"We know enough to create good elementary schools," she said. "[We] don't need more fancy policy-makers, but more trained people to go back INTO the schools."

Panelist and HGSE Professor Julie Reuben lamented the unfulfilled promises of Brown and asked whether the status quo operates in effect as a rejection of the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Students in the audience asked questions about the ways in which HGSE was best preparing educators for a country of diverse learners. One doctoral student in the Learning and Teaching program noted the absence of any faculty members of color on the panel itself, to which Lagemann replied that professorial diversity was an issue that the senior faculty had discussed in a recent meeting.

A graduating masters student asked whether the panelists really thought the principle that "every child can learn" was something that could be taught to someone whose core belief was to the contrary. And, if so, how could you teach such a thing to someone who did not believe it?

Audience member Deborah Meier, the MacArthur award-winning educator who recently wrote her own book In Schools We Trust, asked the panel about the purpose of American education. Should there be a direct connection between academic subjects and jobs?

Lagemann had a quick anecdotal response from her conversation with a Chicago gang leader who had graduated from high school. He said to Lagemann, "Don't tell students they need an education to get a job. Who's going to hire me?"

The story reminded the audience that, while building students' skills is one important aspect of an educator's job, changing society will require far more.