Standardization,
Defensive Teaching, and
the Problems of Control
By: Linda M. McNeil
Presented by: Jessica Mendoza
For: Dr. Winslade
Factorización de una diferencia de
cuadrados
La factorización de una diferencia de cuadrados es un producto de binomios
conjugados, en los cuales el término común es la raíz cuadrada del minuendo y
los términos simétricos se obtienen mediante la raíz cuadrada del sustraendo.
Ejemplo
Solución
x2 1
 .
Factorizar la diferencia
4 9
2
x
1
x2
 el minuendo es
En
, y el sustraendo es
4 9
4
1
.
9
Extrayendo raíz cuadrada al minuendo y al sustraendo, se obtiene
la factorización deseada. Observe:
x 2 1  x 1  x 1 
      
4 9  2 3  2 3 
La Prueba (1 minuto)
 Factoriza la diferencia
64x2 – y2
Standardization
 Reduces the quality and quantity of what is taught and
learned in schools.
 Reduces the scope and quality of course content.
 Diminished the role of teachers.
 Distance students from active learning.
Most Importantly…
“Over the long term,
standardization creates inequities,
widening the gap between the
quality of education for poor and
minority youth and that of more
privileged kids.”
This chapter…
 Documents the immediate educational
costs of curriculum, teaching and children
when the controls were first introduced.
 It analyzes their growing power to damage
the education of all children, but
particularly those who are African
American and Latino.
…but it was not intentional
 This research began as a search for organizational models of
schooling that provided structural support for authentic,
engaged teaching and learning.
 It was intended to document the ways that curriculum and
learning are constructed and made meaningful in schools
whose organizational structure subordinates the credentialing
function and other procedural and behavioral controls of
teaching and learning.
 Magnet schools proved to be schools where teachers and
students, free of the constraints of the state textbook adoption
list and from state and local rules governing curriculum , coconstructed rich academic environments in a multiracial setting.
However…
 As the controls were imposed, and the regulations
increasingly standardized, the quality of teaching and learning
at even these exemplary schools (Magnet) began to suffer.
 The practice of teaching shifted away from intellectual activity
toward dispensing packaged fragments of information sent
from an upper level of the bureaucracy.
 Students’ contributions, as thinkers with personal stories and
life experiences were silenced or severally circumscribed in
order to cover generic “curriculum” and “pacing.”
Let’s remember…
 The standards were implemented from the
top of the state bureaucracy, through the
district bureaucracies, and subsequently
imposed on schools… “reforms.”
 In the name of “objectivity” they relied on
numerical indicators.
 Used “accountability” shift the power
governing public education.
Controlling Myths
 “Bring up the bottom”
 Aimed at the lowest levels of performance.
 “good schools” will not be affected.
 If affected, it must have been a not so “good” school
 Same for teachers, if affected, they must have been
“weak” or “bad” teachers.
The truth is…
 Standardization undermines
academic standards and seriously
limits opportunities for children to
learn to a “High Standard.”
And…
 When they are used in “accountability systems,”
individuals and cumulative student test scores are used
as indirect measures of teacher work, principals’
“performance,” and even of the overall quality of the
school.
 Such practices are questionable and prompting serious
scrutiny of the possible missuses of the student tests.
Additionally…
 The “high stakes” to the students, not
only use their tests to regulate an
entire system, but to make decisions
about them…Promotion, graduation,
classes, etc.
Critical Scholarship
 Analysis of the technical mechanisms for transforming
the power relations within schools and reordering the
power relations that govern the larger role of school in
society.
 Critical cultural studies
 Political economy of schools
 Critical analysis of pedagogy
But there is still gaps…
 A theory that builds from what goes on inside schools.
 Issues of power and power inequities.
 Analysis of factors inside schools:
 Racist and class-based resourcing:
 Control over resources
 Teacher preparation
 Administrative authority
 Programmatic components:
 Kindergarten availability
 Alternative programs
Critical Scholarship
 Gives us a lens for going beyond the appearance, analysis
of how these standardizing forces play out through the
systems of schooling; starting from:
 Political forces shaping policies
 Bureaucratic systems enacting the polices
 What children are taught
 Students’ experiences in the classrooms
Again…
 “Standardization” equates sameness
with equity in ways that mask
pervasive and continuing inequalities.
Defensive Teaching and the
Contradictions of Control
 Ironies of American education: free public education
equates factory assembly lines like model to reduce cost
per child and assure millions of children with diplomas
or credentials.
 This means: tightly organized, highly routinized, and
geared for the production of uniform products.
 While, educating children is : complex, inefficient,
peculiar, uncertain, and open-ended.
Historically…
 Educating children and running large scale
institutions, have been seen as separate domains.
Nurturing
individual children
and equipping
them with new
knowledge and
skills.
VS
.
Treating masses of
students through
regularized
requirements of the
credentialing
process.
So, tension…
 Shapes the quality of what is taught and learned in
schools.
When the schools’ organizations
become centered on managing and
controlling, teachers and students
take schools less seriously.”
“
 “Teachers
and students fall into a ritual of
teaching and learning that tends toward
minimal standards and minimal effort.”
Setting off a vicious Cycle.
 While, administrators increase attention in
managing teachers and students instead of
supporting their instructional efforts.
Teachers…
 Teach a course content termed school
knowledge, which serves credentialing
function, but does not provide rich
knowledge or opportunities to build
their own understanding of the
subject.
Defensive Teaching
 Teachers who…
 Comply with course requirements
 Reduce requirements to minimal participation and
resistance
 Ask little to their students
 And use strategies to silence students’ questions or
(inefficient) discussions: omission, mystifying, fragmentation,
and defensive simplification .
 Omission: omit topics difficult to understand or
contemporary topics that would invite discussion; such
discussions might be seen as threatening teachers’
authority.
 Mystifying; making content seem extremely important,
but beyond students’ understanding.
 Fragmentation: disembodying the curriculum in order to
separate culture, interests and prior knowledge of
students. Knowledge transmitted for school purposes,
limiting cultural understanding and practical knowledge.
 Defensive Simplification: When students’ lose interest,
teachers simplify the course content demanding little
from students.
 Taking notes, copying lists, filling blanks, reading one to
two pages…etc.
Contradictions of Control
 Theorical ground for understanding the complex
relationships between school organizations and
what is taught and learned.
 Potential for authentic teaching and learning.
 Breaking the cycle of lowering expectations
 Administrative structure was organized not to
enforce rules and credentialing procedures, but
to support teaching.
What was found?
 In a supportive environment, teachers will
work alone and collaboratively to develop
complex and up-to-date curricula , that
they will tackle complex and controversial
topics essential to their students’
understandings, that they will struggle to
find ways to make learning possible for all
students.