m. c. escher “night and day”

M. C. Escher “Night and Day”M. C. Escher “Night and Day”

Education as a Complex Adaptive System: Contingencies and Continuity in Educational

History

John R. Shoup, Ph.D.And

Susan Clark Studer, Ph.D.

California Baptist University

Organization for Educational Historians

2010 Annual Conference

September 17-18, 2010

Agenda• Brief Overview of Complexity Science

• Brief Overview of Contingency and Continuity in the American Educational System

• Implications for Education

• Q & A

In 2002, the U. S. Department of Education commissioned the Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy to examine how complexity science is being used “with special attention to implications for its use in understanding and influencing the complexities of our educational system”

(Sanders & McCabe, 2003, p. 5).

The challenges of the 21st century will require new ways of thinking about and understanding the complex, interconnected and rapidly changing world in which we live and work. And the new field of complexity science is providing the insights we need to push our thinking in new directions.

Sanders and McCabe, 2003, p. 5

In the last twenty years, rapid advances in high-speed computing and computer graphics have created a revolution in the scientific understanding of complex systems. We now have the ability to move beyond the old paradigm; to look at whole systems; to study the interactions of many independent variables and to explore the underlying principles, structure and dynamics of complex physical, biological and social systems.

Sanders and McCabe, 2003, p.5

"I think the next century will be the century of

complexity."

Stephen Hawking

This study is based on face-to-face conversations with more than 1,500 chief executive officers worldwide. (p. 1)

“Today’s complexity is only expected to rise, and more than half of CEOs doubt their ability to manage it”

(p. 8)

IBM (2010). Capitalizing on Complexity: Insights from the Global Chief Executive Officer Study. Somers, NY: IBM Global Business Services.

Scientists have recently discovered that various complex systems have an underlying architecture governed by shared organizing principles.

(Barabasi & Bonabeau, 2003, p. 50).

How How Successful Successful

Leaders ThinkLeaders Think

By Roger By Roger MartinMartin

June 2007 (60-June 2007 (60-67)67)

““We look for lessons in the actions of We look for lessons in the actions of great leaders. We should instead be great leaders. We should instead be

examining what goes on in their examining what goes on in their heads-particularly the way they heads-particularly the way they creatively build on the tensions creatively build on the tensions

among conflicting ideas.”among conflicting ideas.”(p. 65)

“We often don’t know what to do with

fundamentally opposing models. Our first

impulse is usually to determine which is ‘right’ and, by the

process of elimination, which is ‘wrong’.” (p. 62)

“Integrative thinkers don’t mind a messy

problem. In fact, they welcome complexity, because that’s where

the best answers come from.” (p.66)

1Determining

Salience

Focus only on obviously

relevant features

Seek less obvious but potentially relevant factors

2 Analyzing Causality

Consider one way, linear

relationships between

variables, in which more of

A produces more of B

Consider multidirectional and non linear relationships

among variables

Envisioning the Decision Architecture

Break problems into

pieces and work on them separately or sequentially

See problems as a whole, examining

how the parts fit together

and how decisions effect one another

Achieving Resolution

Make either-or choices; settle for best available options

Creatively resolve tensions among

opposing ideas;

generate innovative outcomes

Conventional Thinkers

Integrative Thinkers

(p. 65)

Kliebard (2002) states “The term pendulum swing has become the most widely used characterization of thisphenomenon, implying, of course, that educational reform is nothing but a seriesof backward and forward movements with, in the end, everything remaining in place. Whatever the merits of pendulum swing as the controlling metaphor for the course ofeducational reform, it reflects a profounddisillusionment with the enterprise” (p. 1).

Often education reform is naively characterized as the newest fad in a series of fads and summarily dismissed.

Such limited explanations are consistent with the traditional, rational and linear models of framing change in what are, in essence, complex and dynamic systems.

Unfortunately, such perspectives distort the true nature of reform, limit the ability to anticipate or forecast educational reform and often sabotage reform efforts before they even have a chance to accomplish their intended effect.

According to Cusick (1992), “Schools are never sufficiently individualized, equal, excellent or efficient. So education’s reform mill never lacks grist” (p. 179).

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

• Complexity theory reveals that history cannot be help repeat itself, on some scale.

• The values (strange attractors) and patterns that shaped the past at work in the future.

By James Gleick (1987)

Chaos: Making a New Science

By Robert Birnbaum (1991)

How Colleges Work:

The Cybernetics of Academic Organization and

Leadership

By Margaret J. Wheatley (1999)

Leadership and the New Science

By Keith Morrison (2002)

School Leadership and Complexity

Theory

How Nature Works: The Science Of Self Organized Criticality

By Per Bak (1996)

Ubiquity: The Science of History--or Why the World is Simpler Than We Think

By Mark Buchanan (2001)

Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos

By Mitchell Waldrop (1992)

Managing the Unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity

By Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe (2001)

Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences: Foundations and Applications

Edited by L. Douglas Kiel and Euel Elliot (1997)

The Edge of Organization: Chaos and Complexity Theories of Formal Social Systems

By Russ Marion (1999)

Chaos (Indeterminism)

Causality is meaningless

Unpredictability

Uncertainty

Complete irrationality

Disorder (Anti-linear)

Evolutionary change

Causality is indeterminate

Limited Predictability

Limited certainty

Bounded rationality

Complexity (Non-linear)

Determinism

Linked causes andeffects

Predictability

Total certainty

Complete rationality

Order (Linear)

Geyer, Robert & Samir Rihani (2000). Complexity and the Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century.

The Comparative Theme of Complexity Theory

Complex Structures

Nonlinear Processes

Linear Processes

Simple Structures

Playground

Classroom

Public Schools

Private Schools

Thermostat- Office Complex

Thermostat- Single Dwelling

¤National Business

¤Small Businesses

¤International Business

⌂Suburbs

⌂Rural Towns

Peaceful Demonstration

Federal Govt.

State Govt.

Local Govt.

Factors Influencing Degree of Complexity

Number of Internal and External Demands

Organizational Size and Layers

Amount of Feedback

Speed of Feedback

⌂Urban Cities

Characteristics of all Nonlinear Systems

• Strange Attractors

• Cybernetics / Feedback

• Homeostasis / Equilibrium / Change

• Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions

• Symmetry Across Scales (Fractals)

• Emergence

• Self-Organized Criticality

Simple Complexity

72°74°

70°Strange Attractor

Cybernetics / Feedback

Homeostasis

Thermostat

Learning

Student Expectations / Needs

Teacher Expectations / Needs

Staff Expectations / Needs

Parent Expectations / Needs

Community Expectations / Needs

•Metz, Mary Haywood (1978). Classroom and Corridors. •Pauly, Edward (1991). The Classroom Crucible: What Really Works,

What Doesn’t, And Why. •Powell, Farrar and Cohen (1985). The Shopping Mall High School.•Theodore Sizer (1984). Horace’s Compromise.

Learning

Student Expectations / Needs

Teacher Expectations / Needs

Staff Expectations / Needs

Parent Expectations / Needs

Community Expectations / Needs

Sources of Expectations and Demands in Educational Context

– Spouse– Children– Adversaries– Confidants– Neighbors– Friends

– Teachers– Students– Parents– Superiors– Board Members– Community– State– Federal

According to Cusick (1992), “Schools are never sufficiently individualized, equal, excellent or efficient. So education’s reform mill never lacks grist” (p. 179).

Excellence

Equality / AccessibilityEfficiency

Choice / Liberty

Non Negotiables

Features of Complexity

Strange Attractors – (Dynamic Attractors and Repellors) Recursive patterns that maintain homeostasis or equilibrium in the system.

Dominant values in the system are the strange attractors in complex social environments.

Features of ComplexityAll systems are dynamic and possess self-correcting

and referencing feedback loops

Cybernetics = steersman

Volume and rate of Feedback has grown exponentially

Systems grow in the direction of heeded feedback

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. (French Proverb)

“the more things change, the more they

remain the same.”

Emerging Homeostasis

Change is necessary for continuity

Complexity theory legitimizes reforms as reiterations or patterns of dominant values education. The French proverb “the more things change, the more they remain the same” explains why reform in public education is cyclical, continuously sought and why external parties play such a critical role.

When education policy and practices take off too much in one direction, another reform will come along to bring it back to the center; and when that reform takes policy and practice too far off center another reform will bring it back to center.

Similar to a thermostat, when a social policy fluctuates in any direction at the expense of other social policies, reform triggers appropriate adjustments or corrections to the system for the desired equilibrium.

The homeostasis of the American educational system appears to hover around four basic and often competing beliefs and values consistent with a democratic society (Marshall, 1991; Cusik, 1992; Stout, Tallerico and Scribner, 1994).

Continuous reform around the “meta-values” maintains a relative homeostasis that allows a public school system to effectively educate while accommodating the diverse values and beliefs surrounding education.

Butterfly

Effect

Sensitive

Dependence on Initial Conditions

Strategic small changes can have a big effect and creative transformative contingencies.

Contingencies

• 1848 – Egg-crate school, Grade-level placement, Bell Schedule – Imprint is such that future reforms are constrained (Tyack, 1974)

• Factory model still prevalent – Superintendent

Sergiovanni (1994) astutely posits that changing the metaphor changes the theory and practice

Contingencies

1917Smith-Hughes Act

1968 – Bilingual Education Act1972 – Title IX1975 - EACHA

1867doe

1979DOE

1983Nation at Risk

2002NCLB

1965ESEA

NDEA acknowledged how close to crossing the once very distinct and taboo-like line of no federal involvement in education it was moving. Section 101 declares:

The Congress reaffirms the principle and declares that the States and local communities have and must retain control over and primary responsibility for public education. The national interest requires, however, that the Federal Government give assistance to education for programs which are important to our defense.

To meet the present educational emergency requires additional effort at all levels of government. It is therefore the purpose of this Act to provide substantial assistance in various forms to individuals, and to States and their subdivisions, in order to insure trained manpower of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the national defense needs of the United States.

Section 102 of NDEA makes explicit, lest there be any ambiguity from Section 101, that federal government was not taking control of education.

Nothing contained in this Act shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution or school system.

(p. 58)

McGuinn (2006) documents that with ESEA “an important threshold had been crossed and an important federal role in education policy cemented” (p. 33) and the establishment of a “crucial beachhead to those who sought to further increase the federal role in education policy” (p. 37).

Senator John Williams of Delaware announced on the day the Senate passed ESEA,

This bill, which is a sham on its face, is merely the beginning. It contains within it the seeds of the first Federal education system which will be nurtured by its supporters in the years to come long after the current excuse of aiding the poverty stricken is forgotten. The tragedy of this legislation is that it plays on the honest desire of people across the country to assist the needy, now that the approaches used through the years have been thoroughly discredited. The needy are being used as a wedge to open the floodgates, and you may be absolutely certain that the flood of Federal control is ready to sweep the land. (Congressional Record, Vol 3, April 9, 1965, p. 7710)

Representative Howard Smith expressed similar concerns when he lamented,

We apparently have come to the end of the road so far as local control over education in public facilities is concerned. I abhor that. There is nothing dearer to the American home than the neighborhood school, where you have your PTA and your different organizations, and all take a vital role in the school and have control of it. I hate to see that tradition destroyed and control removed from the little neighborhood in the country and located in the bureaucracy of Washington, but I think I see the handwriting on the wall. This is the day that the bureaucrats in the Education Department have looked forward to and have fought for a good many years. (Congressional Record, Vol. 3, March 24, 1965, p. 5729)

Congressman John Rhodes stated that the bill “advertised as an attack upon the problems of educationally deprived children, is, instead, an assault upon State and local control of education” (Congressional Record, Vol. 3, March 24, 1965, p. 5766).

Senator Wayne Morse readily acknowledged at the time that ESEA was a legitimate victory that allowed for federal involvement in elementary and secondary schools “through the back door” (Congressional Record, Vol 3, April 7, 1965, p. 7317).

Gladwell (2002) Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.–A rainy day or new student can alter classroom dynamics significantly.

By Malcolm Gladwell (2002)

The Tipping Point

Fractals – Symmetry of Irregularity Across Scales - Exploring Fractals-Nature World of Fractals

Features of ComplexityStrange attractors are mirrored throughout the system at

different scales.

What is attended to and how it is attended to will be mirrored throughout the institution (i.e., indicants of excellence, gossip vs. confidences; harsh vs. gentle, gossip vs. confidences; harsh vs. gentle).

Behavior in classroom is a microcosm of rules of engagement in the faculty lounge, faculty meetings, etc.

David and his sling shot (practice with animals prepared him for Goliath).

Features of ComplexityEmergence of Patterns (form, storm,

norm, perform).

Systems grow in the direction of feedback.

Application: Adopt a non-linear orientation – look for multiple causes, patterns and outside the box. Even the evolution of the rational model was in a historical context.

Features of ComplexityProblems are symptoms usually with a 5th

why – Root Cause. (Solutions are problems waiting to happen)

Know your defining values that provide the equilibrium to the system

Recursive patterns – 80/20 rule, anticipate/forecast vs. react.

Self-Organized CriticalityBak (1996) illustrates self-organized criticality through the metaphor of a sand pile.

Artwork by Elaine Wiesenfeld (from Bak, 1996, p. 2)

Variables are relational.

Application: Plan for best, prepare for the worse.

Origin of Dominant Values•The official beginning of the American educational system is located in the values that led to the founding of the country (the beginning can be found even earlier in history, but for the sake of brevity, this history will begin with the earliest European settlements).

•The values are codified in the founding documents of the country.

•The imprinting of the values found in the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution drives the emerging educational system and are as a result, cohesively mirrored through out the educational system.

Origin of Dominant Values•The pursuit of individual liberties and better life is what brought people to a new continent.

•Excellence, •equality and •individual freedom

were the founding and defining principles of the emerging nation.

•The values of excellence, equality and choice would imprint themselves in one form or another in everything that would follow in the forming of the United States. In the settlers’ quest for a better life based upon principles of liberty, conditions eventually emerged for independence to be declared on July 4, 1776.

Declaration of Independence – 1776

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….

Preamble

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America….”

The Constitution of the United States of America - 1787

The values of

–excellence,

–equality,

–choice and

–efficiency serve as the strange attractors to keep

the system in a constant state of change to maintain stability among competing values.

United States Department of Education

Mission is to ensure equal access to

education and to promote educational

excellence throughout the nation.

Date Original NameReligious Affiliation Name Today

1636 Harvard College Congregational Same

1693 College of William and Mary Anglican College of William and Mary

1701Collegiate School at New Haven Congregational Yale

1740 The College of Philadelphia Nonsectarian University of Pennsylvania

1746 College of New Jersey Presbyterian Princeton

1754 King's College Nonsectarian Columbia University

1764 College of Rhode Island Baptist Brown University

1766 Queen's College Dutch Reformed Rutgers University

1769 Dartmouth College Congregational Same

*Table created from dates and names cited by Lucas, 1994.

Commitment to excellence and individualism (choice) evident by nine IHE prior to 1776

Colonial Period ca. 1600-1776

Latin Grammar School• The first Latin Grammar School was established in Boston in 1635.

These schools were originally designed for only sons of certain social classes who were destined for leadership positions in church, state or courts. The study of Latin and Greek and their literatures was blended with the religious denominationalism coming from the heritage of the Protestant Reformation. The only pupils who were even considered for these schools were the male students who belonged to a certain class bracket. Girls were not considered for these schools because all of the world leaders and important "persons" were males from the upper class brackets.

Colonial Period ca. 1600-1776Massachusetts Education Laws of 1642 and 1647

• The Law of 1642 required that parents and master see to it that their children knew the principles of religion and the capital laws of the commonwealth.

• The Law of 1647, also known as the Old Deluder Satan Act, was born out of this above-mentioned parental negligence. It was at this point in our nation's educational history that formal schooling as we know it became more desirable.

– The Law of 1647 required that towns of fifty families hire a schoolmaster who would teach children to read and write. Towns of a hundred families must have a grammar schoolmaster who could prepare children to attend Harvard College.

– Efficiency cannot but be a factor in the system

Wealth of Nations - 1776• Smith argues that the education of youth

is a worthwhile enterprise requiring minimal level of governmental involvement (primarily in the form of financial subsidies) with individuals choosing the quality, and even religious message, of the school experience. While Smith was ultimately appealing to a market model of education as more efficient and effective means for achieving success, he legitimized the value of individual choice (liberty of conscience) in pursuing educational means.

Early American Period ca. 1776-1840

The Land Ordinance of 1785 and Northwest Ordinance of 1787

• Land Ordinance Act of 1785 required that the territory outside the original 13 colonies be divided and sold into townships of six miles square and be made available for public sale as long as “there shall be reserved the lot N 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools, within the said township”.

• Two years later came the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. This ordinance provided land in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions for settlement. (It eventually broke into five states: Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Illinois). Of particular interest is Article 3 of the ordinance, which reads in part:

Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

Lancaster / Monitorial Instruction 1806• The first monitorial school on U.S. soil was

opened in New York City in 1806 and quickly spread to other cities (Cubberly, 1922). In a factory like settings, hundreds of students could learn their spelling, arithmetic, reading and catechisms with factory like precision under one teacher and with one book (Lancaster, 1805). Education for the masses was now seen has affordable and the issue of classroom size would continue plaque a public system of education without unlimited resources.

• Whole scale efficiency

The Yale Report of 1828

• Should the traditional curriculum of higher education continue? Up to this point the rigid classical curriculum of higher education had resisted change. Then, as now, institutions of higher learning were more resistant to change than were elementary and secondary schools. The strength of the conservative view was centered at Yale University. The Yale Report of 1828 was written to rebut critics who were challenging the classical curriculum.

Immigration Give me your tired,

your poor,

your huddled masses yearning to breath free.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.“The New Colossus,” by the nineteenth-century American Poet Emma Lazarus.

Immigration

Source: Derived from Table 1 in U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 2000, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, forthcoming

Irish Potato Famine 1845 -1849

The Catholic DebateBy 1840, nearly half of New York City residents were foreign born. Many were Irish Catholics, who were generally poor and desperate for an education. Yet in New York, they found that the public schools, while free and open to all, were effectively, Protestant…

Bishop John Hughes launched a protest. A forty-three-year-old Irish immigrant known as “Dagger John,” Hughes was fierce and uncompromising. He proclaimed, “We are unwilling to pay taxes for the purpose of destroying our religion in the minds of our children…”

These children deserved their own schools, Bishop Hughes believed. He demanded that the New York Public School Society, the Protestant civic leaders in charge of education, make city funds available for Catholic schools. Controversy over the use of the Protestant Bible in the public schools escalated nationwide. In Pennsylvania in 1843, a Catholic church was burned to the ground and thirteen people were killed in a conflict known as the Philadelphia Bible riots.

The Catholic Debate

(http://www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/photo_gallery/photo2.html)

1848 The first egg-crate school– each room would accommodate 56 students

Common School Period ca. 1840-1880

Horace Mann• Horace Mann felt that a common school

would be the "great equalizer." Poverty would most assuredly disappear as a broadened popular intelligence tapped new treasures of natural and material wealth. He felt that through education crime would decline sharply as would a host of moral vices like violence and fraud. In sum, there was no end to the social good which might be derived from a common school (8, Cremin).

Common School Period ca. 1840-1880

The Morrill Act of 1862

• The Morrill Act of 1862, the Land Grant College Act was a major boost to higher education in America. The grant was originally set up to establish institutions is each state that would educate people in agriculture, home economics, mechanical arts, and other professions that were practical at the time. The land-grant act was introducedby a congressman from Vermont named Justin Smith Morrill.

He envisioned the financing of agricultural and mechanical education. He wanted to assure that education would be available to those in all social classes.

Progressive Period ca. 1880-1920

The NEA Committee of Ten - 1892

• The National Education Association appointed a Committee of Ten to establish a standard curriculum. This committee was composed mostly of educators and was chaired by Charles Eliot, the president of Harvard University. Eliot led the committee to two major recommendations. The first was earlier entry of some subjects. The second was the teaching of subjects for both college-bound and terminal students.

Progressive Period ca. 1880-1920

The NEA Committee of Ten

• The significance of the Committee of Ten was its contribution towards liberalizing the high school by offering alternatives to the Latin and Greek classic curricula and the belief that the same subjects would be equally beneficial to both academic and terminal students. The goal of high school was to prepare all students to do well in life, contributing to their own well-being and society's good, and to prepare some students for college.

Progressive Era ca. 1880-1920

John Dewey (1859-1952) Progressive /Pragmatic Education – (1896) Teaching Lab at U. of Chicago

Empirical approach / Child-centered

– 1905 – Binet – Intelligence Test –Testing movement – first to assess

placement to assessing achievement. (Used in WWI and WWII- selection) / 1916 – Lewis Terman (Stanford professor) refines Binet (Stanford-Binet IQ Test)

– 1912 – IQ coined by William Stern

– 1926 – First administration of the SAT developed by Carl Brigham / Henry Chauncey (originally worked for James Bryant Conant – President of Harvard

– 1948 ETS formed – Henry Chauncey President

Scientific management / Efficiency and meritocracy are the driving forces.

• Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) - Principles of Scientific Management (1911)

• What was transforming industry was good for schools

Frank and Lillian Gilbreth – Joined Taylor in 1907. (Cheaper by the Dozen –1949 by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, two of the twelve children of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth.)

1913 – Helen Todd – Factory Inspector

Of 500 children interviewed, 412 reported they “preferred factory labor to the monotony, humiliation and even sheer cruelty that they experienced in school.” (Kliebard, 1995, p. 6).

1918 – NEA’s Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education

The Cardinal Principles (Birth of Compreh. HS.) Seven goals of education -

Health, command of fundamentalprocesses, worthy home membership,vocational preparation, citizenship,worthy use of leisure time, and ethical character.

Modern Period ca. 1920-present1917 – Smith-Hughes Act (Vocational Act – Prosser)

1923 – Meyer v. Nebraska- English Language Only Instruction

1925 – Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and, 268 U. S. 510

Petitioners challenged Oregon’s Compulsory Education Act that required parents of children between the ages of eight and sixteen to send their child “to a public school for the period of time a public school shall be held during the current year.” The Society of Sisters operated schools that gave students moral training according to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. The act led to students withdrawing from the religious schools- costing it a portion of its income.

Modern Period ca. 1920-present

Prosser Resolution 1945-

It is the belief of this conference that…the vocational school of a community will be able better to prepare 20 percent of its youth of secondary school age for entrance upon desirable skilled occupations; and that the high school will continue to prepare 20 percent of its students for entrance to college. We do not believe the remaining 60 percent of our youth of secondary school age will receive the life adjustment training they need and to which they are entitled as American citizens – unless and until the administrators of public education with the assistance of the vocational education leaders formulate a similar program for this group.

~The Prosser Resolutions, Charles Prosser, 1945

1933-1941 – 8 years study (PEA) (Directed by Ralph Tyler)

•1944 – Servicemen Readjustments Act – (G.I. Bill)

•1947 – The President’s Commission on Higher Education

• 1954 Brown v. Board of Education – Topeka Kansas

"We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483. 495 (May 17, 1954)

1954 – Brown v. Board of EducationOn May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision that the "separate but equal" clause was unconstitutional because it violated the children's 14 amendment rights by separating them solely on the classification of the color of their skin. Chief Justice Warren delivered the court's opinion, stating that "segregated schools are not equal and cannot be made equal, and hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws.“ This ruling in favor of integration was one of the most significant strides America has taken in favor of civil liberties.

[ cf. Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 ]

Modern Period ca. 1920-present• 1957 – Sputnik

• 1958 – National Defense Education Act

The NDEA was instituted primarily to stimulate the advancement of education in science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages.

The National Defense Education Act provided $887 million over four years for education that could support national security goals—especially training scientists. The act contained ten titles designed to improve the nation's schools:

Nuclear scientist Edward Teller claimed of the launch that the U.S. had lost “a battle more important and greater than Pearl Harbor.” (Cited by Wolfensberger, 2005)

March 24, 1958 March 31, 1958

“The Crisis in Education” that ran in March and April [1958]. “The schools are in terrible shape,” the editors opined. . . . Pointing to a lack of agreement on a national curriculum, the magazine concluded, “Most appalling, the standards of education are shockingly low.” (cited by Wolfensberger, 2005. p. 8).

President Lyndon B. Johnson is joined by his first teacher, Kate Deadrich Loney, for the signing of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) on the grounds of former Junction Elementary School in Johnson City, Texas. April 11, 1965. (Photo by Yoichi R. Okamoto/LBJ Library)

While the Johnson administration talked of annual expenditures exceeding $5 billion by 1969, ESEA actually receive less than $1.7 a year (about the cost of ten days of the Vietnam war). (Halperin, 1975. Educational Researcher, 4, 5-9)

1965 - The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation reauthorizes the

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the federal government’s largest investment in K-12 education. Title I of ESEA targets over $11 billion in financial assistance to schools educating low-income students. ESEA allocates almost another $10 billion for teacher recruitment and professional development, educational technology, after-school programs, and other purposes.9/29/05 -- Written Testimony of Kati Haycock, Director, the Education Trust before The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce: “Closing the Achievement Gap in America’s Public Schools: The No Child Left Behind Act”

1975 - The Education of All Handicapped Children Act

1972 – Title IX – Education Amendments

A Nation at Risk –April 1983

“Our nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughoutthe world….The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people….If any unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. . . . We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.”

1990 – Milwaukee Parental Choice Program

1991 – Minnesota Charter School Law – Over 4,100 charter schools in 40 states and DC educationg approximately 1.2 million students as of 9/2007.

The Goals 2000 Educate America Act (March 31, 1994) n March 31, 1994.

8 ambitious goals that focused on outputs versus inputs

By the year 2000, 1. All children in America will start school ready to learn. 2. The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent. 3. All students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging

subject matter including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics an government, economics, the arts, history, and geography, and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our nation's modern economy.

4. United States students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement. 5. Every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to

compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. 6. Every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence, and the unauthorized presence of

firearms and alcohol and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning. 7. The nation's teaching force will have access to programs for the continued improvement of their

professional skills and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all American students for the next century.

8. Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children."

January 8, 2002

Hamilton HS in Hamilton, OH

Nonlinear Perspective on the History of Education

Complexity science - the science of dynamic nonlinear systems, argues that educational policy reforms emerge and adapt (emergence) as reiterations (fractals) of precedents (sensitive dependency on initial conditions), timing (butterfly effect, self-organized criticality), competing voices (feedback) and competing values (strange attractors) to develop into a relatively homeostatic system (homeostasis and change).

Evaluating the history of educational reform through the lens of complexity science demonstrates how regular patterns of educational policies are not just “faddish” trends, but are necessary and inevitable to the American educational system.

This paper identifies 33 historical milestones determined to be indicative of major policy themes in the history of education and documents how the dominant values of excellence, equality, efficiency, and choice act as strange attractors to establish dynamic patterns of reform.

The paper utilizes complexity theory to illustrate the dynamic pattern of educational policies and suggests future reform patterns. This paper equips policymakers to treat reform and politics as an ongoing contest for values.

Each value seems to compete with the others in such a way that the over-all system maintains a sense of equilibrium. Continuous reform is needed to keep the dynamic system in balance. As more things change (reform), the more they stay the same (appropriate tension among the expression of the four values).

Selection and placement based upon . . . .

• Frequently referenced in educational history texts for relative impact on the system or what they represented in the system

• Evaluated for primary and secondary values

• Degree of arbitrariness in what was selected and where placed

Excellence/Standards

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

1. 1635/1636 Boston Latin Grammar School /Harvard College

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

2. 1642/1647 – Massachusetts Education Laws

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

3. 1776 – Wealth of Nations

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

4. 1785/1787 – Land Ordinance and Northwest Ordinance

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

5. 1806 – Lancaster/Monitorial Instruction

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 – Yale Report

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

7. 1840-43 – Catholic School Wars / Philadelphia Bible Riots

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

7. 1840-43 – Catholic School Movement

8. 1848 – Grade Level Placement/Egg-Crate Schools

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

9. 1852 Compulsory Education

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

10. 1862 Morrill College Land Gran Act

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

2. 1642/1647 Massachusetts Education Laws

6. 1828 Yale Report

4. 1785/1787 Land Ordinance and Northwest Ordinance

5. 1806 Lancaster/Monitorial Instruction

8. 1848 Grade Level Placement/Egg-Crate Schools

11. 1892 NEA Committee of 10

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

12. 1894/1906 Carnegie Unit

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

13. c. 1900 John Dewey/Progressive Education

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

14. 1901 1st Community College

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

3. 1776 – Wealth of Nations7. 1840-43 – Catholic School Movement

15. 1911 Principles of Scientific Management

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

8. 1848 Grade Level Placement/Egg-Crate Schools9. 1852 Compulsory Education

16. 1916/1926 Stanford-BinetIQ Test/SAT

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

17. 1917 Smith-Hughes Act

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

18. 1918 NEA Cardinal Principles

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

19. 1925 Pierce v. Society of the Sisters

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

20. 1933-41 Eight Year Study

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

21. 1944 G.I. Bill

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

21. 1944 G.I. Bill 22. 1945 Prosser Resolution/Life Adjustment Movement

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

23. 1947 Truman Commission Report

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

24. Brown v. Board of Education

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

25. 1957/58 Sputnik/NDA

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

26. 1965 ESEA

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

26. 1965 ESEA

27. 1968 Bilingual Education Act

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

26. 1965 ESEA

28. 1972 Title IX

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

26. 1965 ESEA

28. 1972 Title IX

29. EAHCA

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

26. 1965 ESEA

28. 1972 Title IX

29. EAHCA

30. Nation at Risk

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

26. 1965 ESEA

28. 1972 Title IX

29. EAHCA

30. 1983 Nation at Risk

31. 1990/91 Milwaukee Choice/Charter School Movement

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

26. 1965 ESEA

28. 1972 Title IX

29. EAHCA

30. 1983 Nation at Risk

32. 1994 Goals 2000: Educate America Act

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

26. 1965 ESEA

28. 1972 Title IX

29. EAHCA

30. Nation at Risk

33. 2002 NCLB

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

26. 1965 ESEA

28. 1972 Title IX

29. EAHCA

30. Nation at Risk

33. 2002 NCLB

Efficiency/

Choice/Liberty

Equality/

Accessibility

6. 1828 Yale Report

26. 1965 ESEA

28. 1972 Title IX

29. EAHCA

30. Nation at Risk

33. 2002 NCLB

BUDGET

CYCLES

TECHNOLOGY

• Patterns reveal continuity

• Butterfly Effect / Self-organized Criticality reveal contingencies

The system, while complex and

emergent, there are simple rules at work at both the micro level and

the macro level.• Strange Attractors

• Feedback

• Homeostasis

• Fractals

• Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions

• Emergence

• Self-Organized Criticality

Excellence, efficiency and liberty – emphasis on efficiency

Excellence, efficiency and liberty

Equality and Excellence

Efficiency Regime

Equality Regime

Accountability Regime

Complexity theory . . . .

1. Normalizes the pendulum

A swinging pendulum is better than a static pendulum.

2. Calls for balance in future reform.

Temper the rate and extreme oscillations of the pendulum

1. Normalizes the pendulum2. Can temper the pendulum

3. Anticipates future reforms

Suggests where the pendulum will swing next

Accountability Regime

September 20, 2010

(p. 38)

2. Can temper the pendulum

3. Anticipates future reform

4. Legitimizes a variety of reforms.

Competing values

legitimize reformwithin the parameters

of the pendulum

Limitation?

Equality Excellence

Choice

Efficiency

Additional Implications/ Outcomes

Change from the Factory Metaphor to The Shopping Mall High School Metaphor (1985)

Growth of Charters/ Voucher Programs

Calls for Excellence

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