Possible Downsides with “No Excuses” Policies in Some Charter Schools

In this thought-provoking article in Educational Researcher, Joan Goodman (University of Pennsylvania) examines the “rule-oriented” environment characteristic of the inner-city schools run by certain Charter Management Organizations (CMOs). “A conspicuous feature of the regulated environment,” says Goodman, “is an insistence on continuous compliance to pervasive rules that shadow children throughout the day”, as well as a single-minded focus on high test scores and college success. 

Goodman gives these school credit for creating a safe climate for learning, in stark contrast to most urban schools. She also commends the schools for creating a supportive climate in which teachers and administrators believe in and care for students and put in long hours to back up their conviction that all students can achieve at high levels. And she acknowledges that students in some CMO schools are getting significantly higher test scores than those attending district schools. 

“But these accomplishments come with a downside,” says Goodman. “One would not consider a competitive runner successful, for example, if he or she won a match but acquired an anxiety disorder from the stress of training, or a student worthy of honor if he or she cheated his or her way to success.” She examines four commonalities of the CMO schools she studied with an eye to their long-range effects on students:

• Pervasive monitoring – This is driven by the belief that every minute counts and students can’t afford to waste time chatting with peers or being off-task. “Compounding the emphasis on using time productively is the division of academic instruction into tiny subunits,” says Goodman. “The clock’s tick becomes an extension of the instructor’s monitoring.” Three minutes to copy instructions from the board, another three minutes to read the passage, five minutes for discussion, all to ensure continuous learning. Because children are never 100 percent compliant, rewards and sanctions are administered on a regular basis. In Mastery Charter elementary schools, green and blue are good, purple is a warning, yellow is a privilege denied, and red is a phone call home. In Mastery middle schools, there are merit and demerit cards. After six offenses, students get a three-hour in-school detention. Classes are rated on a 5-4-3-2-1 scale on participation, body language, and adherence to the classrooms rules. Rewards in some schools include field trips and access to special events as well as acknowledgement in assemblies. Punishments can include public confessionals, wearing a different color shirt, and not being allowed to speak to peers or be spoken to. 

“This laser focus on behavioral compliance through the continuous ministration of sanctions and rewards may or may not be necessary to preserve an educational environment suitable for learning,” says Goodman. “What students clearly learn is never to lose sight of adult expectations, never to be distracted from what they are expected to do by what they might want to do. Children’s initiative is suppressed in favor of conformity, autonomy in favor of heteronomy. The goal is to meet performance criteria, while internal interests remain unexpressed and unexplored. Presumably, they can await the acquisition of foundational skills when there is time to “waste.” 

• Sweating the small stuff – This approach is based on the “broken window” theory of law enforcement, which holds that busting people for little stuff will make it less likely that they will do more serious stuff. Many CMO schools are aggressive in disciplining students for minor offenses like talking quietly to a neighbor in the classroom or hallway, slouching while sitting or standing, gazing into space, having one’s feet next to rather than under the desk, wearing jewelry, leaving one’s desk momentarily, or wearing brown rather than black socks. “Behaviors not problematic in themselves are off-limits because authorities believe they might escalate into a behavior that leads to another behavior that threatens the learning environment,” says Goodman. “It could be called the harbinger theory of discipline.” 

“Children as young as 5 and 6 are expected to follow these standards all day,” she says. “And they do. But are they reasonable expectations? If good posture is important to health, it should be practiced and acquired as a habit with that end in mind, but is it a proven necessity for learning? And violations of the rules result in a penalty, not merely a reminder… To protect the dignity of the child, does there not have to be some evidence that what is prohibited or demanded at school is clearly relevant to the educational project, or can an adult do anything to a child for the sake of order?” (Goodman acknowledges that none of the CMO schools use physical punishment.)

• Attributing independent agency to children – The CMO schools Goodman studied are strong advocates of children making the right choice. “Repeatedly one hears teachers commenting on the poor choice a child made as an explanation for the penalty to follow,” she says. “The initial problem with this language is the restricted use of the word choice. Genuine choice implies the opportunity to weigh options without threat and to make selections from alternatives with impunity; in school, it might be choosing a subject on which to speak, a book to read, a topic to investigate, or sides and arguments to debate. When choosing becomes a matter of right and wrong decision-making, it is coercion – choice under threat… The invitation to choose is merely a smokescreen, obscuring the demand for submission. The teacher’s power, and the child’s dependency on his or her judgments, makes independent thought all but impossible… [T]he CMOs curb exposure to options and genuine deliberation in their effort to control students’ actions; the verbal emphasis on choice disguises the mind control they try to exert… Rules and incentives… do not generate moral will; they are a substitute for them.” 

• Preventing authenticity – Students in the CMO schools Goodman studied seem compliant with the rules and consequences, but she wonders about what is happening to students’ sense of themselves. “Although one might assume frequent teacher approval, merit badges, and monetary rewards boost self-confidence and self-esteem,” she says, “when approval is so highly contingent on following orders, it can have the reverse impact. By registering disapproval for so much of what students may want to express, and denying them autonomy, the CMOs may be contributing to an impoverished view of self… If independent strivings are disregarded or negated, if one’s self-worth becomes contingent on living as expected by others, then it dissolves when one fails in those efforts. Alone, measuring up to external standards does not yield self-esteem, although approval is a spur to it. That approval is most effective when directed, in part, to supporting a student’s burgeoning self-identity and not exclusively focused on what one wants him or her to do and become… One can hardly be authentic, that is, true to oneself, in the absence of an articulated internalized view of the self.” 

Goodman asked students in several CMO schools how they felt about the restrictions and most said that without them, they would act badly: “I would break the computers… climb up the wall… knock over tables and chairs… rip books.” They said that “bad” kids like them needed to be controlled. Through the tactics described above, says Goodman, “the schools subdue discordant impulses and keep students narrowly focused on the tests that are believed to be gateways for their futures. Although the CMOs may successfully deliver higher student scores, the success comes with significant costs.” 

Goodman’s main concern is students finding “a genuine, rather than an imposed, identity; of formulating and pursuing ends other than conforming and not misbehaving; of learning to trust themselves rather than willingly relinquishing agency. Rules can indeed be protective, as the students testify, but alone, rules do not offer worthwhile ends or the means to pursue them; indeed, unrelenting stringency may quell desires and shrink aspirations. Perhaps obedience creates conditions for accepting instruction, yet it can be dangerous, as when one fails to resist negative models.” 

“Charter Management Organizations and the Regulated Environment: Is It Worth the Price?” by Joan Goodman in Educational Researcher, March 2013 (Vol. 42, #2, p. 89-96), 

http://edr.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/02/22/0013189X12470856; Goodman can be reached at joang@gse.upenn.edu. 

From the Marshall Memo #482