Ron Brandt describes himself as both a natural enthusiast and a natural skeptic when it comes to innovations in education. Those two traits have served him well during his 19 years as a major shaper of ASCD's publications program. Because Ron Brandt retires from ASCD this month, Education Update took this opportunity to solicit his personal perspectives on major education trends. In what important ways, we asked him, are educators' concerns different today than they were in 1978, when he joined ASCD's staff?
"There's a much stronger emphasis now on student achievement," Brandt says. "When I started at ASCD, many educators were making an effort to individualize instruction,' by which we meant trying to adapt to individual differences. We took for granted that there were big differences in ability among students, and that it was to be expected that some students would learn much more than others."
Those assumptions may still be true, but today "our rhetoric puts far more emphasis on every student meeting high standards," Brandt observes. "Some people even say all students should meet the same high standards. It's not fully clear what that means—but we are raising expectations, as we should."
The changing relationship between schools and their communities is another major trend in education, Brandt says. "Parent involvement has always been important, and so has the idea that public schools serve society as a whole." But today, when people have choices about almost every aspect of their lives, more parents are demanding that schools do things their way. "Some people argue, in fact, that if schools did a better job of responding to individual preferences, it would serve society's interests in the long run, while others—especially most educators—want to stick with the idea of the common school." How, and to whom, edu restructuring and teaming.
"Look at the health profession. Even with all their problems, they do pretty well because they don't expect the same person to do everything. In most schools, our model is still the general practitioner. But we're beginning to see something different, I think: better relations between teachers and administrators, faculties doing collaborative action research, teachers forming networks and professional communities."
The Push to Diversify
In recent years, Brandt has been a key player in efforts to build bridges between progressive educators and religious traditionalists, two groups who tend to see the world very differently.
From this work, "I've learned that when you directly approach someone who's your political, ideological enemy as a fellow human being—not as a bad person'—you can develop a relationship that leads to better mutual understanding," he says. "You can be friends' with someone whose ideology is utterly different." Such relationships can be cultivated in local communities, Brandt says, and they would make conflicts over reform less contentious. "Still," he quickly adds, "we must not mistake civility for agreement or even acceptance. The deep, underlying differences remain, even with all the good will in the world. And they won't be resolved easily."
It is possible to find common ground among people with very different values, Brandt says, but finding a real resolution of deep differences will, he believes, require more diversification of school offerings. "I think the idea of the required one best way' school just won't work in the modern world," he says.
He cites the example of Savannah Oaks Elementary School in Verona, Wisc., which comprises three schools-within-a-school: one that offers a "regular" program, one that is more progressive, and one that is traditionalist. "That school represents the current state of American public education," Brandt says. "A relatively small number of teachers and parents want a back to basics' approach, and about the same proportion want the opposite. Most are probably somewhere in the middle." Providing all three options in the same building, as Savannah Oaks does, is one solution, but logistically difficult. Besides, Brandt adds, educators who tried to offer all three programs would face the challenge posed by "parents who want it all one way—their way."
Although he endorses school systems' efforts to provide more options, Brandt recognizes that some people believe diversification is at odds with yet another current trend: the widespread movement toward standards-based reform. Standards, which tend to be set at the state level, send the implied message: "Everybody get in line"—and thus would seem to enforce conformity. Yet, Brandt notes, advocates of standards-based reform argue that standards actually make diversification possible, because they provide a common measure by which all schools can be held accountable, regardless of how widely schools differ.
We typically resolve school conflicts that stem from cultural differences through the political process, so we have a "winner takes all" philosophy, Brandt says. But education doesn't have to be provided on a one-size-fits-all basis. Instead, "we should begin to think about ways to deliberately provide options," he suggests, so educators can meet more parents' needs and build greater support for public schools.