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Is teaching possible in your school?

Explore the significance of contextual factors on teaching effectiveness, historical roots, and future trends in education. Discover the dynamics of the Updraft-Downdraft phenomenon and the challenges faced by schools in achieving high achievement.

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Is teaching possible in your school?

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  1. Is teaching possible in your school? “Teachers can’t out-teach their context.” - Joe Murphy

  2. “Teaching is very much a factor of the conditions that enable or disable effective teaching. Context has the greatest power in inhibiting good teaching, or in freeing good teaching. No, context alone does not make a poor teacher better, but context can stop good teachers from doing their best to educate all students.” - Updraft-Downdraft, pp 14-15

  3. How’s the weather in YOUR school? “Leaders, if you don’t understand the change nature of forces outside the school, most of the interventions you choose will be problematic.” - Joe Murphy, 2001

  4. “Carefully constructed historical inquiry may well provide us with the most powerful guides available.” - Shulman, 1984 Historical Roots

  5. “Public Schools” are PUBLIC Political Forces HISTORY GOALS Economic Forces HISTORY Social Forces

  6. “The blueprint for the comprehensive model of secondary education emerged from the social, political, and economic developments that took place during the quarter century following the release in 1893 of the famous Committee of Ten Report.” - Wraga, 1994 The Comprehensive High School(1890-????)

  7. 1890-1920: Preparing for Industrialization “For most Americans, the battle over high school was not one of the classics versus the modern sciences but one of academic culture versus practical training — the well-known confrontation between those who wanted to prepare for college and those who wanted to prepare for life.” - Herbst, 1996, page 115

  8. 1893: The Committee of Ten Goal: “There was to be no difference between them. What the colleges required and what life demanded were not, in the Committee’s view, different or contradictory.” - Sizer, 1964

  9. 1918: Cardinal Principals of Secondary Education Goal: “To produce individuals who were trained for a specific role in society. High schools would fit the young for their niches in that structure.” - Murphy et al, 2001

  10. The Cardinal Principals won the battle, and the comprehensive high school was institutionalized. “In aged group batches, students study for defined periods of time, earn Carnegie units for each hour of study and, upon earning a specified number of units, receive a diploma. It is a notion of education dictated by seat time.” - Levine, 2001

  11. “Schools do change, but they seem to change only when the gap between schools and society is extreme and at the same time the demand for formal education is growing. In 1892, the pressures that inevitably affected education clearly were great; change was inevitable.” - Sizer, 1964

  12. 1980s: Another Shift “We are living a huge shift — a 100 year historical cycle that will result in the virtual elimination of the comprehensive high school as we know it today.” - Murphy et al, 2001

  13. The Committee of Ten Returns “The theme of the 1980s rang clear and loud: Bring the academic standards of students graduating from American high schools back to that of 90 years ago, the years of the Committee of Ten report.” - Herbst, 1996

  14. With TEETH! Standards, Assessment & Accountability School Reports for principals, school leaders and instructional specialists.

  15. “Updraft-Downdraft” ALL Political Forces HISTORY Economic Forces Updraft-Downdraft HISTORY Social Forces SOME

  16. The Updraft-Downdraft Phenomenon “The unevenness could not have been resolved by simply hiring ‘smarter’ teachers. Many of the smarted, best-educated of these teachers felt that ‘really to teach’ would be going ‘against’ expectations at their school, not fulfilling them.” - McNeil, 1968

  17. “Teachers and students operate in context of a wind shear – one force a clear updraft that drives high achievement, the other a strong downdraft that actually drives low achievement. This wind shear flows through every crack and crevice of secondary schools and classrooms. Some students ride the updraft to success, while others plummet predictably into an undertow of low achievement.” - Updraft-Downdraft, p. 16 Updraft-Downdraft

  18. HIGH ACHIEVEMENT COLLEGE Common Goal System Capacity Achievement Essential Parental Pressure Experienced Teachers Updraft-Downdraft TRADITIONAL GENERAL ALTERNATIVE ORDER CREDENTIALS Negotiation Defensive Teaching School Knowledge Disengagement Low Expectations Low Achievement DIPLOMA LOW ACHIEVEMENT

  19. HIGH ACHIEVEMENT QUALITY WORK COLLEGE POST-SECONDARY Common Goal System Capacity Achievement Essential Parental Pressure Experienced Teachers TRADITIONAL Updraft-Downdraft GENERAL ALTERNATIVE ORDER CREDENTIALS Negotiation Defensive Teaching School Knowledge Disengagement Low Expectations Low Achievement DIPLOMA LOW ACHIEVEMENT

  20. Where can you find evidence of “Updraft-Downdraft” dynamics? Everywhere!

  21. “The differentiated curriculum conforms to larger social purpose – preparing students for different futures.” - Oakes & Lipton, 1995 Research

  22. Parents I have a marginal interest in other kids and only after I’m assured that mine have what they need. That is perhaps not the ‘right’ attitude, but I think it is the one that prevails. Until you can convince me that this can be a win-win, nothing will change and you won’t get my vote. - Parent

  23. Schools “Students have the opportunity to select courses comparable to individual abilities, talents, and career goals. The guidance department and the administration reserve the right to change a student’s schedule based on past academic performance and standardized testing results and to accommodate the needs of the student body.” - High School Course Selection Catalog

  24. States “Each day is designated and proclaimed by the Governor as Arbor Day shall be also known as Bird Day, and it shall be the duty of every teacher in the public schools, to devote, together with their pupils, at least two hours of such school day to the study of birds, trees, and general conservation of resources; and it shall be the duty of all district superintendents to see to it that the requirements of this act are complied with.” - State of Pennsylvania School Code, Effective 7/10/70

  25. Media

  26. Newspapers

  27. The Lesson of Updraft-Downdraft? The Power of Context: “The lesson of the Power of Context is that we are more than just sensitive to changes in context. We’re exquisitely sensitive to them.” - The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, 2000

  28. Do you need to improve conditions to support learning and teaching in your school?

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