[blind-democracy] FW: The ‘Broken Windows’ Approach to Teaching Is Breaking Our Schools, and Students of Color Are Harmed the Most

From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2020 21:43:58 -0400

From: Jeff Bryant <info@ind.media>
Sent: Friday, August 7, 2020 5:06 PM
To: miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: The ‘Broken Windows’ Approach to Teaching Is Breaking Our Schools, and
Students of Color Are Harmed the Most

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The ‘Broken Windows’ Approach to Teaching Is Breaking Our Schools, and
Students of Color Are Harmed the Most

By Victoria Theisen-Homer

In the fight for racial justice, teachers have a heavy job, for schools are
both microcosms of, and preparation for, society. Because teachers serve as
significant adult figures in children’s lives, their interactions with students
can shape students’ sense of self and the world around them, as well as their
engagement in school, personal efficacy, and academic achievement. Complex and
difficult racial dynamics impact these relationships, and as calls for justice
grow, it’s time to recognize this.

Systemic racism is sometimes blatant in our schools. For example, it is hard to
deny that segregation persists
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/nd-educational-inequality-html/gby2fp/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
, and that schools serving students of color receive less funding than mostly
white schools. In my home state of Arizona, for example, schools serving mostly
white students receive an average of $7,600 more per pupil than schools serving
students of color, a discrepancy
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/content-23-billion-AZ/gby2fr/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
  that increases to nearly $11,000 when controlling for neighborhood income.
Research also repeatedly reveals that Black students in particular are more
likely
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ool-discipline-race-racism-gao/gby2ft/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
to be subjected to disciplinary action, much of which removes them from
classrooms and schools. Sometimes this even leads students directly into
interactions with law enforcement
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/harms-american-school-children/gby2fw/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
,
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/harms-american-school-children/gby2fw/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
  hence the moniker school-to-prison pipeline. But there is a subtler form of
racism at play in many classrooms, one that expresses itself in the way
teachers (82 percent of whom are white nationwide
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/fulltext-ED566879-pdf/gby2fy/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
) form relationships with their students.

In my research on pre-service teacher education, I found that preparation
around race and relationships is both uneven and inequitable—with disturbing
implications for students of color.

A Tale of Two Schools

Let me set the scene for you. A tale of two schools, if you will, and the
teacher education programs operating out of these schools.

The first teacher education program sits in a century-old progressive
independent school on a pastoral hill in an affluent part of town. This place
seems so disconnected from the realities of the world beyond its walls that I
give it the pseudonym Xanadu. But it offers a privileged reality for the mostly
white and affluent students it serves. The teacher education program embedded
in Xanadu draws upon its unique setting to prepare teachers who can form what I
call reciprocal relationships with students, relationships that reinforce the
humanistic standard set out by philosophers like Martin Buber
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-read-buber-not-the-polls-html/gby2g1/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
.

At Xanadu, teacher candidates first engage in deep personal reflection about
who they are and why they have chosen to teach. They then learn about students
as whole people—with hopes, dreams, fears, and complex personal lives—and in
turn design responsive lessons around these students. These relationships
foster dialogue and critical thinking in response to both diverse texts and
current events, such as the Black Lives Matter protests. In these reciprocal
interactions, students have agency and become co-constructors of their learning
experience. The teacher candidates immersed at Xanadu learn to conceive of
classroom management as an extension of these relationships, unfolding in
gentle conversations with students, who are never removed from the classroom
for perceived behavioral infractions. Instead, there is more dialogue, in which
students are seen and heard and learn that their belonging in school and
society is unconditional. These students learn to become leaders.

Then there is the teacher education program that emerged out of a “no excuses”
charter school that I call Excellence Preparatory High School. Located in the
same metropolitan area, it is separated from Xanadu by a river and what seems
like a world. Occupying a large industrial building in a gentrifying
neighborhood, this school is grounded in the no excuses educational philosophy;
this philosophy essentially suggests that to close the “achievement gap” (a
term Ibram Kendi argues is inherently racist
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ievement-gap-is-a-racist-idea-/gby2g3/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
  because it establishes a racial hierarchy based on measures white elites deem
important), students of color from low-income backgrounds must be held to
unrelenting academic and behavioral standards, without exceptions. In this
program, teacher candidates learn to form relationships that are
unapologetically instrumental: teachers employ discrete moves to cultivate
“professional relationship capital” with students so students are more likely
to work hard and behave in line with school norms.

As part of my research, I embedded myself in both these schools to observe how
different theories of teaching and relationships play out in the real world. In
my new book,
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ips-Race-and-Teacher-Education/gby2g5/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
Learning to Connect: Relationships, Race, and Teacher Education, I recount
what it was like to see these two divergent approaches in action and what this
means for students, teachers, and society as a whole.

Broken Windows Teaching

No excuses teaching borrows from the “broken windows
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/1982-03-broken-windows-304465-/gby2g7/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
” theory of policing, which has been enacted in U.S. cities since the
mid-1980s. Simply stated, the theory holds that cracking down on minor
infractions (e.g., vandalism, as in the case of broken windows) leads to less
overall crime and safer, more peaceful communities. However, research sheds
doubt upon the efficacy of this approach
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/eview-broken-windows-policing-/gby2g9/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
, while the harms it has inflicted upon the communities where it was enacted
are clear. Broken windows policing, which transitioned into “stop and frisk
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/nd-frisk-and-how-it-went-wrong/gby2gc/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
,”
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/nd-frisk-and-how-it-went-wrong/gby2gc/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
  has led to the increased incarceration and criminalization of people of color
in low-income neighborhoods.

In the “no excuses” program, it was easy to recognize the influence of the
broken windows theory on their approach to classroom management. Early no
excuses leaders were heavily influenced
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/te-about-no-excuses-discipline/gby2gf/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
  by this theory, believing that if teachers could “sweat the small stuff
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ty-schools-and-new-paternalism/gby2gh/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
” by regulating everything from the color of a student’s socks to their
posture and eye contact through classroom management “moves” and a series of
punishments (e.g., demerits, send-outs, suspensions, expulsions), they could
eliminate disorder and focus on instruction. This approach appeared to improve
students’ test scores, so no excuses education spread. But the problem with
treating students like perpetrators looking to break windows is that it strains
or severs their relationships with teachers, who are the enforcers of these
rules. When applying behaviorism, punishment is more effective when paired with
positive reinforcement.

This is why the no excuses teacher education program in my study created a
whole course on relationships and student investment. In this course, teacher
candidates were taught to intentionally emphasize “positive narration” to
affirm students for desired behaviors, integrate a school’s espoused character
traits
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/erall20purpose20of20education-/gby2gk/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
  into coursework with big and little celebrations when students demonstrate
these, and acquire “little nuggets” about students to work into their
conversations so that students feel seen by teachers. While disciplinary
actions are clearly sticks, these relational “moves” serve as
carrots—systematically dangling the promise of adult approval and connection to
induce student compliance. This program rarely asked their mostly white teacher
candidates to engage in self-reflection or discuss controversial and
potentially transformative events like politics and protests; but it did
advocate for planned conversations with students about the need to adopt the
“codes of the culture of power” so students could navigate school and society,
without questioning it. Students were never really given a voice, but the
illusion of one ensured that all the school windows remained intact.

Reckoning

The results of this research reveal a two-tiered system of education. Graduates
from the program at Xanadu went on to work at independent or suburban public
schools in affluent areas, carrying their tools for reciprocal relationship
development to mostly white students (a problematic phenomenon I discuss more
in the book). Meanwhile, the graduates of the no excuses program went to
Title-1 schools serving mostly students of color. The result was that white
students had their innate value reinforced by reciprocal interactions with
teachers, while students of color received instrumental interactions geared at
conditioning them to become obedient at all times, to navigate white supremacy
without challenging it.

While these two different programs may be somewhat idiosyncratic, vestiges of
these educational and relational approaches permeate U.S. schools. Across and
within schools, and even within classrooms, students of color are still much
more likely to be referred to behavioral discipline than white students; they
are more likely to be seen as perpetrators planning to “break windows” than
beautiful multifaceted human beings who deserve the agency to co-construct
their own educational experiences. This is an imbalance that is reflected in
society at large, as police officers buy someone like Dylann Roof Burger King
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ann-roof-burger-king-n-7645216/gby2gm/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
  after he murdered nine Black people, but kill Breonna Taylor
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/hmaud-arbery-justiceforbreonna/gby2gp/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
  during a no-knock drug search warrant at her apartment. The problem with the
“broken windows” theory is that compliance means nothing when the structures
themselves are so broken.

This is why education, too, is facing a reckoning. This reckoning has led KIPP
schools, one of the most prominent no excuses charter networks, to abandon
their motto “
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/a-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb-story-html/gby2gr/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
Work Hard. Be Nice.” because of its explicit emphasis on student compliance
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/a-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb-story-html/gby2gr/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
. But meaningful change will not happen within schools like this until they
reconsider how they structure student-teacher interactions. Because test scores
are not everything; in fact, some research
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/papers-w22502/gby2gt/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
  suggests that no excuses schools improve students’ scores, but not their life
outcomes. For a school system designed around a theory of policing to change,
it will require a lot more than abandoning a simple motto. It will require what
Jal Metha calls
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/vrkahlG5EopK0VkQyRF-EYynQelAec/gby2gw/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
  significant “unlearning.” The same is likely true for our society at large.

We cannot continue to promote the same unjust and oppressive educational
structures that have endured for centuries. We need to reimagine education and
recruit a more racially diverse teaching force
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/yxtuukkf/gby2gy/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
, such that all students have access to the kinds of meaningful, reciprocal,
and empowering relationships with teachers that allow them the agency to create
their own knowledge and use their voices. The kinds of relationships that can
help students learn to build a society where both windows and people remain
unbroken.

Victoria Theisen-Homer is an education scholar and author of Learning to
Connect: Relationships, Race, and Teacher Education
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ips-Race-and-Teacher-Education/gby2g5/669346774?h=gA8O-Xql-l-gSLw8PyiMUuYZkDHoeovbzuqHbDZDM3M>
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[blind-democracy] FW: The ‘Broken Windows’ Approach to Teaching Is Breaking Our Schools, and Students of Color Are Harmed the Most

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