The Urban School

A Factory for Failure

Ray C. Rist, Christian Karner, Christian Karner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351302142
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Americans worry continually about their schools with frequent discussions of the "crisis" in American education, of the "failures" of the public school systems, and of the inability of schools to meet the current challenges of contemporary life. Such concerns date back at least to the nineteenth century. A thread that weaves its way through the critiques of American elementary and secondary schools is that the educational system is not serving its children well, that more should be done to enhance achievement and higher performance. These critiques first began when the United States was industrializing and were later amplified when the Soviets and Japan were thought to be grinding down the competitive position of America. At the start of the twenty-first century, as we discuss globalization and maintaining our leadership position in the world economy, they are being heard again.

The Urban School: A Factory for Failure challenges these assumptions about American education. Indeed, a basic premise of the book is that the American school system is working quite well-doing exactly what is expected of it. To wit, that the schools in the United States affirm, reflect, and reinforce the social inequalities that exist in the social structures of the society. Stated differently, the schools are not great engines for equalizing the existing social inequalities. Rather, they work to reinforce the social class differences that we have had in the past and continue to have in more pronounced ways at present.

Rist uses both sociological and anthropological methods to examine life in one segregated African-American school in the mid-western United States. A classroom of some thirty children were followed from their first day of kindergarten through the second grade. Detailed accounts of the day-by-day process of sorting, stratifying, and separating the children by social class backgrounds demonstrates the means of ensuring that both the poor and middle-class students soon learned their appropriate place in the social hierarchy of the school. Instructional time, discipline, and teacher attention all varied by social class of the students, with those at the bottom of the ladder consistently receiving few positive rewards and many negative sanctions.

When The Urban School was first published in 1973, the National School Boards Association called it one of the ten most influential books on American education for the year. It remains essential reading for educators, sociologists, and economists.

1 The System H and the School I

Individual classrooms in any school do not exist in a social, cultural, or political vacuum. They are tied in innumerable ways to the teachers and activities of other classrooms, to administrators and their policies as well as to the larger school system of which they are one small unit. Though it has been in vogue for some time to tell “horror stories” of what children face in schools, particularly in urban schools, there has been scant attention paid to the nature of the school or to the system in which such abuse occurs. By ignoring these two additional levels of influence on the child and focusing exclusively on the classroom, some recent studies leave unexplicated the bureaucratic, cultural, and political properties of the schooling process. What follows in this chapter is an attempt first to elucidate important aspects of the school system which impinge on the classroom situation and then to focus somewhat more specifically on the social and cultural milieu of a single school. By this gradual tunneling process, one can arrive at a study of individual classrooms within the context of larger system properties.

Parti: The System

A New Majority

As has occurred in a number of other northern cities, St. Louis has experienced not only a decline in population, but a dramatic shift in the composition of that population. In the twenty years between 1950 and 1970, for example, St. Louis lost more than 190,000 residents (from approximately 850,000 to 660,000). What these gross figures do not indicate is the profound change in the racial background of the resi-dents during this same time. The white population dropped from 702,000 to 376,000 and the black population rose from 154,000 to 291,000. Whites left the city of St. Louis during these two decades at the rate of 16,320 per year while the blacks moved in at the rate of 6,855.

These demographic shifts have been reflected in the schools. The percentage of white students in the public schools declined during these two decades from 78 percent to 36 percent, with a corresponding shift in black enrollments from 22 percent to 64 percent. By 1970, St. Louis ranked fifth in the nation in percentage of black students.¹ In 1970, there were just over 117,000 students in the St. Louis public schools, with a black-white distribution of approximately 75,000 to 42,000. Of the nearly 75,000 black students, over 33,000 came from homes supported by the public welfare program of Aid to Dependent Children (ADC).

Gittell and Hollander (1968) suggest that an important indicator of a school system’s willingness to innovate in the face of changes in the composition of the student body, and, more fundamentally, changes in the very character of the community, is whether the school system will allow independent study and evaluation of its policies and practices. These authors aver that a willingness to allow studies of the systern and the ways in which innovation can be introduced to meet changing school conditions is an important indicator of the openness and concern of those in decision-making positions. In a comparative study of six urban school systems, they conclude that New York City was the system most supportive of independent study and St. Louis the least.²

With almost complete lack of recognition of outside reports and studies, the St. Louis Board of Education has relied heavily on studies by individual Board members and staff studies internally commissioned. In the area of school integration, for example, Gittell and Hollander (1968, p. 10) note:

Staff studies led to the present integration policy, adopted in 1964, which, though it emphasizes the neighborhood schools, provides bus-sing from core schools to reduce overcrowding. A1964 study by a community group has been largely ignored by the board. . .. The board in St. Louis has neither encouraged or sponsored independent researchers or community groups.

More recently a Community Study Conference, which was organized by citizens in 1969, submitted a study containing 107 recommendations for the Board to consider. In response to the report, the chairman of the Board commented (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 18,1970):

Why, there’s absolutely no unanimity of opinion in this report. It contradicts itself. The recommendations are too short to be helpful. I just don’t think there is an awful lot to it.

A second unidentified Board member noted:

I frankly don’t think they’re [the recommendations] worth a damn. And I sincerely doubt whether it will provide us with much guidance. I’m sick and tired of getting blasted by people who make it seem as if we’ve never considered any of these things before.

Another possible indicator of a school system’s willingness to respond to its new majority would be the extent of programs specifically initiated for the recently arrived students. Of particular importance in gauging the sensitivity of the school system would be those programs begun before the rise of black militancy in the mid-1960s. Since the advent of urban violence and protest, the bandwagon of school pro-grams for black and low-income students, financed primarily by the Federal government, has traveled into every corner of the land. But what of the years before the mid-1960s? The census data clearly indicate that the shift from white to black was in full motion, but at the time school systems were facing less external pressure for innovation and response to these changes. Examples may be found again in the six urban districts studied by Gittell and Hollander (1968), who rated response (or lack of it) on a continuum from an attempt at continual innovation to a mere perpetuation of the status quo. Three school systems —Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York—all gave evidence of seeking to keep abreast at least in some degree with the changes in the schools. One might note, for example, that Detroit was the first of the Great City Schools in 1959, or that Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York all had more than 1,000 volunteers working in the schools before 1963. Balti-more, Chicago, and St. Louis had not established volunteer programs in any way comparable to these.

Though St. Louis as a school system had not taken many definitive steps toward innovation and modification in the face of the change in pupil composition, there was one program initiated in the city schools which received considerable national publicity. This was the Banneker District Project, founded and directed by Dr. Samuel Shepard from its inception during the 1957-1958 academic year. As District Superintendent of the Banneker District, one of six districts in the city school system, Dr. Shepard initiated a program with the principle objective of raising the performance levels of students through increased teacher motivation, parental assistance, and student participation in learning activities. Shepard called for between-school competition within the district, both academic and athletic, as well as frequent meetings of teachers and administrators with parents and community leaders. The results of the program showed positive increases in the achievement scores of the children in reading, arithmetic, and language. Though recently some doubt has been expressed about the long-term effects of this program on student performance (Semmel, 1967; Doyle, 1969), it cannot be denied that when it was begun in 1957, it was one of the most innovative and creative projects for urban poor students in the nation. It is perhaps significant however, that none of the money necessary for this program was provided by the St. Louis school system, but instead, was granted by the Federal government.

Decision Making in the System

The urban school systems studied by Gittell and Hollander varied considerably in their responses to the vast influx of black students. The reason for this variability can be seen in two factors; the distribution of decision-making authority in the systems, and the pressure for participation by community, parents, and teachers. In St. Louis, as opposed to New York City, for example, the call for “community control” of public schools has been both faint and sporadic, because, it appears, the white community believes it already has control of the schools and the black community is not organized to challenge that white control. (In a school system with a black student population of 64 percent, three of the ten board of education members are black; the superintendent of schools is white.) Furthermore, such groups as the teachers, the local black organization supporting civil rights, the few vocal white liberals, and the organized business community have not actively sought to upset the status quo.

Since there is little pressure for more direct citizen participation in the affairs of the schools, the St. Louis system has been slow to respond to change. Although there is no prospect for effective community control of the schools, the school system itself has taken steps to decentralize its operations through the creation of six district superintendent positions. Until 1967 these district superintendents administered only grades kindergarten through eight, but the responsibility has now been expanded to include high schools as well. Though the creation of these six posts was touted as a means of bringing decision making in the schools closer to the needs of students, the vision has not been realized. Restricted in budgetary and policy considerations to the status of minor powers, the six district superintendents must also comply with curriculum dictates of the central administration. It is for this reason that all classrooms in the city at the same grade level are using the same curriculum. Likewise, the district superintendents lack authority to modify instructional procedures, for all teachers in the elementary schools are required to teach a specified number of minutes of each subject; for instance, 250 minutes a week of reading, 135 of science, and 75 of spelling at the fourth grade level. In the face of such rigidity, it is testimony in favor of Dr. Shepard’s program that he has had the successes that he has. Though the district superintendents in St. Louis are organizationally in a position to have direct and signifi-cant influence on the classrooms of their districts, they appear in actuality to serve as a type of buffer zone between the central administration and the dissatisfactions of parents, teachers, and community leaders. Rather than possessing the necessary power to alter the conditions of their schools, they serve as an outer defense perimeter to guard the place where the real power in the school system lies—the center.

The center in St. Louis is the Board of Education. It is there that all major educational policy decisions are made and any changes in the system must originate. Thus the creation of a three-tier tracking system, the initiation of a proficiency and reading test which every student must pass to receive his high school diploma, the perpetuation of a racially separatist neighborhood school concept, and the resistance to alternative curriculum materials all result from decisions by the Board. In addition, the major administrative posts in the school system are filled by appointees of the Board. Such a situation effectively serves to dampen the enthusiasm of Board appointees for changes that do not have Board approval.

The major appointee of the Board is the Superintendent of Schools. His $25,000-a-year position carries no significant policy-making authority independent of the Board. He essentially functions as the operations manager for the school system. It is indicative of the Board’s determination to maintain control over decision making that it has chosen seven of the last eight superintendents from within the St. Louis system. By thus avoiding the uncertainty of dealing with outsiders, the Board insures that its appointees will be “safe.”

As suggested earlier, the other determinant of a school system’s response to a large influx of black students is the degree participation of parents, teachers, and community. In St. Louis the teachers have spent much energy fighting among themselves over such questions as who was to serve as the bargaining agent in contract negotiations, whether blacks or whites were to control the teacher organizations, and whether to define their activities as unionist or professional. When they have turned their attention to the Board, the paramount issues have been salaries and fringe benefits. Proposals for improving the teaching situation (other than occasional statements in favor of lower class size) have been noticeably absent. Sjoberg et al. (1966) have suggested that this movement away from an identification with or commitment to the clients in a service-centered bureaucracy comes from an attempt to create an appropriate “professional” image. Maintaining social distance from the client is protection against accusations of “overidentifying” with his desires and claims, overidentification being viewed as an unprofessional indulgence.

With teachers in a city directing few of their energies toward restruc-turing the school system to allow more flexibility in curriculum, class-room activities, and community participation, one might turn to the parents and community as sources of dialogue and change. But again, in St. Louis there has been little movement on the part of parents to seek an active role in the education of their children. Doyle (1969) suggests the following:

. . . One must recognize that militancy has never been strong in St. Louis. The St. Louis Negro is Southern in style—polite, acquiescent, and, until recently, knew his place. Furthermore, the city has a second-generation Negro elite which exercises its own control over less advantaged blacks while enjoying a comfortable niche with both the white elite and the politicians. The Negro elite—as well as the white community—has demonstrated that militancy doesn’t pay.

Yet militancy and participation are not synonymous. The Banneker District program of Dr. Shepard indicated that parents did participate in the activities of the schools when they believed that the schools were working for the benefit of their children. Mass meetings of parents and school personnel frequently attracted standing-room-only crowds, and hundreds signed a “Parent’s Pledge” indicating their willingness to follow the ten points suggested to aid the improvement of their children’s education.

For St. Louis, however, this has been the exception rather than the rule. And even this participation may have been more illusory than real, given the resistance of the system to inputs from outside the center. Signing of pledges and attendance at mass meetings may have become placebos to be given when there were no means for adequate treatment. Parents, community leaders, and teachers neither were nor are part of the decision-making apparatus of the St. Louis system and there is little indication that they are likely to become so in the near future. The choice appears to be one of participating on the conditions established by the Board or not participating at all. In either event, the center of power remains undisturbed.

Content with the tried and true, and seemingly impervious to pressures for change from the outside, the Board remains committed to approaches and philosophies that ignore the realities of the class-rooms. But ignoring such realities does not make them go away. New responses are imperative. The massive influx of tens of thousands of black people into the city has resulted in a black community within St. Louis of nearly one-third of a million persons. The word “within” is used advisedly, for the black community is very much separate from the white. Taeuber and Taeuber (1965) note that the residential segregation index for St. Louis at the time of the 1960 census was 90.5. [The higher the index (100 is maximum) the greater the residential separation of whites and blacks.] What this figure implies is that 905 of every 1,000 black families would have to be moved to achieve an equal distribution of blacks throughout the city. Residentially, St. Louis is a city of nearly complete apartheid.

Racial Isolation in the Schools

Since the St. Louis schools emphasize the neighborhood school concept, it is inevitable that schools will reflect the racial separation that is found in the community. Until the landmark school desegregation decision of the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Missouri law formally sanctioned the segregation of schools by race. St. Louis sought after this decision to desegregate its schools in a three-step program, but with little effect, as the neighbor-hood school concept insured the continuation of de facto segregation in the place of de jure segregation. In its directive to desegregate the schools, the Board instructed school officials to proceed in such a manner as to necessitate”... a minimum of boundary changes in order to relocate the smallest possible number of pupils.” In St. Louis it is not possible to have it both ways; the alternatives are to desegregate with major relocation of boundaries to cross segregated neighborhoods or to perpetuate the segregated pattern of neighborhood schools with a “minimum of boundary changes.” The school system has opted for the latter.

At the time of his report to the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 1967, Semmel (1967) found that approximately 90 percent of all black elementary school pupils attended racially segregated black schools.³ Only 30 of the 123 elementary schools in the city were inte-grated based on the figures Semmel analyzed, and of those 30, 19 were integrated by means of a bussing program designed to alleviate overcrowding in the black schools. Thus in a city system with 123 elementary schools, only 11 schools were integrated by residential integration. Semmel also notes that all 11 schools which were integrated at the time of his report were showing an increasing black enrollment, evidence of the black pressure on white residential areas. Of the 12 high schools in the city, three were integrated at the time.

As a result of the de jure system of segregation in the schools before 1954, there existed in the city a completely dual system of schools and faculties save for the upper positions of the school administration. Below the Board of Education and the Superintendent, all other professional staff were divided by race—each to deal with ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• The Urban School
• copy
• Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition: Class, Color, and Continuity in American Education
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The System H and the School I
• 2 Kindergarten: Beginning of the Journey
• 3 Kindergarten: Through Three Seasons
• 4 First Grade: The Pattern Remains
• 5 Second Grade: The Labels Are Added
• 6 Poor Kids and Public Schools
• Bibliography
• Index