The Seven Deadly Sins of Education

Education Grantmaker Lists
Seven Deadly Sins of Schools

Gates Foundation education director Tom Vander Ark has seen problem schools from the superintendent's desk. He nails his list of the seven deadliest sins to the door of troubled schools.

Mr. Vander Ark gave these remarks in accepting PEN's 2000 Crossing the River Jordan Award, on behalf of Bill & Melinda Gates, at the Public Education Network's 10^th Annual Conference, "Curriculum & Instruction: Communities Raising Educational Expectations."

Mr. Vander Ark is the executive director of education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (www.gatesfoundation.org).

As grantmakers in education, it's easy to be drawn into the pressing requests of the day.

Rilke's poem, "The Man Watching," is the poet's attempt to divert attention from the daily grind to the great struggles of the times:

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm
we would become strong too, and need not names
When we win it's with small things
And the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.

When I'm planning a staff meeting or thinking about the crush of email waiting for me, Rilke's words, "What fights with us is so great!" is a reminder to stay focused on the big picture and not be dragged down by the tyranny of the immediate.

A recent movie, "Keeping the Faith," about a rabbi, a priest, and their childhood girlfriend, was a vivid reminder of how difficult it is to innovate within large tradition-bound organizations and of the constraints that we often construct for ourselves. The priest's struggle with several of the seven deadly sins, caused me to consider the great struggles of the day in public education. So here's a brief attempt to define the "extraordinary and eternal" issues that don't bend easily but must be taken on by educational leaders and grantmakers:

Anonymity of large schools and dehumanizing systems. Big comprehensive high schools don't work for most students — especially economically disadvantaged students of color — yet we continue to build them. In light of high expectations for all students, growing diversity and the potential of new technology, there is simply no excuse to ignore the most conclusive evidence in the field: small schools foster achievement by all. It's simply criminal.

Imprudent use of standardized tests in student accountability systems. Quickly and poorly constructed accountability systems have created much needed urgency and focus, but at the expense of millions of students. Standardized tests can serve as an early warning system for schools, but denying diplomas based on a test score that has no correlation to standards is wrong and removes the focus from where it should be — on the quality of student work and strategies for improving that work.

Timidity in dealing with chronic failure. Some charter schools have failed — and that's the good news. That means the system is working. Thousands of public schools have been failing, sometimes for decades, with only superficial changes and rare closures. If an outside assessment indicates that there is a low probability of success of a self-directed improvement strategy, these schools should be closed, not handed a plan of improvement, or issued "progressive intervention," not reconstituted, but simply closed. Incentives and support services for new schools should be created in their place.

Injustice of poverty and under-funded urban schools. The difference in funding levels between urban and suburban schools in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia is obscene. White students of privilege often attend schools with two or three times the per-pupil funding of schools populated by poor minority students. Now that nearly ever state has adopted high standards, it's time for new streamlined funding models that go beyond equity to adequacy — funding that is adequate to meet the specific challenges of each school.

Interference from school boards and unions in school operations rather than partnering in creating systems based on accountability, flexibility, and choice. The important role that school board members can have is that of portfolio manager, focusing on ensuring that every student has access to quality choices in education.

Obsolescence of structures, schedules, contracts, and policies that pit ineffective contrived choices such as social promotion against retention. We need to design new learning environments that hold learning, not time, constant and that take advantage of technology as learning tool not another lab subject.

Complacency while half of our urban students of color fail to graduate from high school. We know the attributes of good schools and we're beginning to understand some of the policies that will support them. There is simply no excuse for benign complacency. It's time for constructive outrage.

In an updated version of "The Cure at Troy," Seamus Heaney envisions a chorus observing the "heroes, victims, gods, and human beings all throwing their shapes:"

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

If we launched a crusade against the seven deadly sins in education it just may be that longed for time.

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