The Lone Star Foundation Conference
Public Education Reform in Texas: Comprehensive Progress Report
Austin, Texas - December 7-8, 2000

CURRICULUM EQUITY in the CLASSROOM

I. Abstract

II. History and Definitions of Educational Equity

The belief that today’s civil rights battlefield is waged in our nation’s public school classrooms is widely held by parents, educators, legislators, sociologists and attorneys. Until present, educational equity has been fought in courts that sought to create student populations within schools that represented their communities and equalize funding between schools. Over the past decades, courts, educators, parents and legislators have worked to address the problem of "how" students are schooled to achieve educational equity.

There is a growing recognition that "how" students are educated has less to do with educational equity and success than the "what" students are offered to learn in the classroom - curriculum.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) was the first organization to advance the idea of curriculum equity by calling for public schools to give high-level academic instruction to all students. In 1991, the Council’s Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics urged schools to offer high-level math courses to all students and specifically urged schools to offer high-level math courses to minority students, as well as to students without previous educational success. This call was buttressed by encouragement from the U.S. Department of Education for public schools to provide "Algebra for All." In April 2000, the NCTM revised its 1989 Principles and Standards for School Mathematics; this document reiterated the council’s vision that educational equity must combine equal access with academically rigorous curriculum for all students.

The Council’s standards added a new dimension to the concept of educational equity and gave impetus to changing the focus of school reform from "how" students learn to the "what" students should learn. And in the past several years, curriculum and the opportunity for rigorous, challenging academics have emerged at the apex of public concerns about public schools and educational equity.

III. Educational Equity in Texas

Today, states throughout the nation are struggling to introduce educational equity by equalizing financial resources for all schools. Texas began earnest efforts to provide financial equity with the state system of public schools almost two decades ago. Decisions rendered by the Supreme Court of Texas in a series known as the "Edgewood Cases" stimulated the state to develop a system of school finance that ensures all school districts have the resources to provide an "accredited education." Although the court stated that equal funding is not required, the court ruled that the state must ensure that all school districts receive "approximate" funding.

Far-seeing state legislators pushed the concept of educational equity beyond school finance to the arena of classroom learning with Senate Bill 7 in 1994. This legislation created a school accountability system that set closing the achievement gap between student groups - academic equity - as its primary goal. Unique among states, Texas requires public schools to focus on equalizing the educational performance of all students.

Over the past decade Texas has introduced education policies to help advance performance equity within public schools. In 1996, the State Board of Education adopted new curriculum standards for public schools and expectations for mathematics were based on the 1989 standards developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

The state has introduced classroom instruction, described as "best practice," that educators contend improve student learning and especially benefit minority students. These "best practices" are designed to replace "traditional" academic curriculum and instruction that many educators believe disadvantage minority students - who are unable, according to the conventional wisdom of educators, unable to learn "traditional" academic curriculum in the "traditional" classroom setting. Texas has made a systemic effort to encourage public schools to use:

"Discovery or constructivist" learning (students determine what knowledge and skills are meaningful to acquire);

Cooperative instruction (students teach their peers instead of receiving instruction from the teacher);

Student-centered or student-directed classrooms (the teacher acts as facilitator instead of providing direct instruction);

Performance-based ("authentic") assessment that de-emphasizes correct answers (as a replacement for objective, standardized testing); and

"Hands-on" instruction that focuses on everyday applications (instead of theoretical, conceptual knowledge).

The instructional reforms, by their nature, change how students are taught as well as what students are taught. Teaching methods define and delineate curriculum and goals for classroom learning.

III. Pursuit of Educational Equity through Instructional Modifications

"Best practice" curriculum and instruction have been implemented widely in Texas but are most prevalent in schools with high concentrations of minority students. Federal education programs (such as Title I funds) and National Science Foundation programs (such as the Statewide Systemic Initiative) promote the use of instructional modifications and "best practice" curriculum by making funds contingent on the implementation.

"Best practices" in classroom instruction have been introduced to public schools through instructional guidelines published by the Texas Education Agency, state educator development centers, and education region centers. They have been reinforced through courses taught to prospective teachers in professional preparation programs, certification requirements issued by the State Board for Education Certification, and the state’s recommended evaluation program for public school teachers.

IV. Adverse Consequences of Instructional Modifications for Minority Students

Although introduced with best intentions, the instructional modifications introduced to Texas classrooms and especially to classrooms with high minority student concentrations have failed to stimulate significant improvements in minority student achievement. Modifications have also failed to show any success in reducing the achievement gap in Texas on most measures of student achievement, especially on measures of high school learning, school completion and college readiness.

While instructional reforms show no evidence of benefiting minority students, there is concomitant evidence suggesting that reforms disadvantage the academic achievement of all students, especially students with the highest academic potential.

While TAAS test results report significant gains in minimum achievement of all students, with dramatic gains for minority students in elementary and middle schools of Texas, there is evidence that minority students have:

Not increased high school completion (according to data produced by the National Center for Education Statistics [see Appendix #1] and the Intercultural Development Research Association of San Antonio [see Appendix #2]);

Not improved academic achievement in high school or academic preparedness for college (according to TEA reports of end of year course exams such as Algebra, TASP scores produced by the Texas Higher Education Board [see Appendix #3], Advanced Placement Course exams and SAT scores issued by The College Board [see Appendix #4, #5, #6], and ACT scores issued by The ACT [see Appendix #7, #8 and #9]);

Not reduced the achievement gap (according to the same reports identified by the preceding statement [see Appendix #3-10]); and

Not significantly changed the percentage of minority student enrolled in or completing college although the absolute numbers of minority freshman have slightly increased (according to a report released by the Higher Education Coordinating Board [see Appendix #11 and #12]).

 

V. Evidence Suggestive of Curriculum Inequity

While studies of student outcomes reveal wide and unremitting differences between Anglo and minority students - differences that strongly suggest curriculum inequities - comparative studies of student grading lend additional credence to the problem.

As required by law, the Texas Education Agency conducts biennial studies of the correlation between course performance and TAAS scores. A sampling of student grades assigned by teachers and corresponding scores of grade 8 mathematics TAAS, grade 8 social studies TAAS, grade 3 reading TAAS, and the End-of-Course Algebra 1 Test reveals significant grade inflation. A shockingly high percentage of students failed state tests but were given passing grades - up to 30%. Grade inflation - and the practice of assigning passing grades to failing students - was most pronounced for minority students and students in urban schools with a high concentration of minority students.

The inescapable conclusion that must be drawn from the studies of grade correlations is that schools set lower academic standards and provide less rigorous academic curriculum for minority students.

This conclusion appears to be borne out by a study of TASP (the state’s test of college readiness) published in October 1999. The Relationship of the Texas High School Curriculum to College Readiness reveals that Black and Hispanic students, taking advanced high school courses specifically designed as college preparatory, are less well prepared for passing the TASP exam than Anglo students taking the same courses.

Findings of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board seem corroborated by ACT reports. Annual analyses of ACT scores and test-takers indicate that students who take "core" high school courses - four years or more of English courses, three or more years of mathematics, three or more years of social sciences and three or more years of natural science - have wide differences in ACT scores across the different subject areas according to race.

In mathematics for example, the ACT scores for the graduating class of 2000 in Texas - all of whom took the core or more courses - showed significant difference between student groups.

17.9 for African American/Black students

18.9 for Mexican American/Chicano students

19.9 for Puerto Rican/Hispanic students

22.1 for Caucasian American/White students

24.0 for Asian/Pacific American students

Unless one is willing to believe that minority students are unable to attain the same educational success as their Anglo counterparts, these findings suggest courses taken by many minority students in Texas Public Schools are less academically rigorous than courses offered in schools or classrooms with high concentrations of Anglo students.

VI. What Research Says About Instructional Modifications and Curriculum

The U. S. Department of Education is responsible for the two most comprehensive studies of the outcomes of progressive instructional practices and the components necessary for educational success to date. Both research projects conclusively identify the importance of curriculum and the specific instructional methods most effective for minority students.

The first study, Project Follow Through, indicts instructional modifications introduced for minority students and identifies the adverse impact of progressive instructional methods on all students - most particularly for minority students. Project Follow Through was the world’s longest, largest and most expensive educational experiment ever conducted. Beginning in 1967 and concluding in mid-1995, the study compared 10,000 students from kindergarten through third grade with an equivalent number of students engaged as controls - it involved over 180 school districts - cost over a billion dollars and examined 22 different instructional programs. The purpose of Project Follow Through was to identify the most effective educational models for disadvantaged children.

Project Follow Through showed that the de-emphasis of traditional academic content and the diminished direct instruction from teachers resulting from "best practice" causes lower standardized test scores for all students and lowers the scores of disadvantaged children greatest.

The second study published by the U.S. Department of Education offers parallel findings. Answers in the Tool Box, published in June 1999, shakes the basic tenets of educational theories regarding the education of minority students. Research by a senior analyst for the department indicates that students from the lowest socio-economic groups who were enrolled in the most academically intense high school courses earn bachelor’s degrees at a higher rate than a majority of students from the top socio-economic group. This longitudinal study followed a national sample of students from the time they were in 10^{th grade in 1980 until age 30 in 1993 and asked the question "What factor contributes most to the completion of a bachelor’s degree?"}

Clifford Adelman found that what a student studies has greater signficance in predicting educational success than eleven other factors, including socio-economic status and level of parental education. As succinctly stated by Carol Jago’s report in the American School Board Journal in April 2000 - "It’s the Curriculum, Stupid." Intense, concentrated academic curriculum and the opportunity to take advanced academic curriculum, have the strongest impact on educational success.

^{VII. What Experience in Texas Says about Effective Curriculum and Instruction for Minority Students}

^{An example of a nationally recognized and nationally replicated effective educational program - that defies the wisdom of "best practice" is the Texas Prefreshman Engineering Program (TexPREP).}

^{TexPREP began in 1979 at The University of Texas at San Antonio. It has been conducted as an eight week, summer mathematics-based academic enrichment program for middle school and high school students interested in science, engineering, and other mathematics-related careers. Since 1979, it has been replicated throughout Texas. Currently, it operates in 16 Texas cities on 25 community and senior college campuses. Since 1997, it has been replicated in eight other states on nine college campuses as Proyecto Access.}

^{The focus of the program is the development of abstract reasoning skills and mathematical problem solving skills. The program combines mathematical learning experiences with mathematical applications in Engineering, Physics, and computer science. A daily career awareness component of visiting scientists and engineers many of whom are women and minority and other professionals enables participants to learn about technological opportunities.}

^{The program staff has developed a PREP start-up kit, which includes an operational manual and a complete written curriculum covering three summers.}

^{In a well-structured academic setting, the students are given class assignments, projects, and examinations. They are expected to maintain a 75+ average to stay in the program. A normal retention rate during a given summer is 85% to 90%. Program teaching faculty include college professors, premiere middle school and high school teachers, and graduate students. Support services include guidance from undergraduate engineering and science majors who serve as program assistant mentors and from counseling graduate students. High school students from low-income families who have completed three summers of PREP and whose wages are paid by the local Workforce Development Board summer youth program serve as peer tutors. Low income participants fourteen years or older may be eligible to receive stipends from the local Workforce Development Board summer youth program and free lunches through the Summer Food Service Program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Texas Department of Human Services.}

^{TexPREP is a partnership of at least 200 local, state, and national public and private sector agencies including the State of Texas, NASA, Sid W. Richardson Foundation, Texas Educational Agency, Texas Department of Human Services, Texas Department of Transportation, local Workforce Development Boards, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, 25 community and senior college campuses and local school districts, and other collaborators. TexPREP charges no tuition or fees. Financial contributions and in-kind manpower and facilities contributions from these agencies meet all program expenses.}

^{Some objectives of PREP include improvement of the high school graduation rate, the college entrance rate, and the college graduation rate particularly in science and engineering. Special efforts are dedicated to the recruitment of women and minority students.}

^{Over 18,000 middle and high school students have completed at least one summer of TexPREP. 81% have been minority and 54% have been women. Each site maintains a database on all program participants and conducts an annual follow-up of them until they complete college. In the 1999 follow-up survey, responses were received from 3,828 of 7,756 college age former participants.}

^{The high school graduation rate is 99.9%.}

^{92% are college students (2,200) or college graduates (1,307).}

^{The college graduation rate of college attendees is 90%.}

^{77% of the senior college graduates are minority.}

^{53% of the senior college graduates are engineering, mathematics, or science majors.}

^{71% of the engineering and science graduates are minority.}

^{86% of the college students (1,948) and graduates (1,062) attended Texas colleges.}

^{2000 TexPREP served approximately 3,000 students, while 2000 Proyecto Access served 900 more students, most of whom were minority.}

^{When San Antonio PREP first started twenty-two years ago at The University of Texas at San Antonio, the conventional wisdom of the day was that the program was doomed to failure because middle school and high school students would never want to spend eight weeks during the summer on a college campus in the study of mathematics and its applications.}

^{Furthermore, minority students would not succeed in this structured and disciplined environment. Indeed in 1979, an article was published in a San Antonio magazine concerning the establishment of an engineering program at UTSA. An anonymous member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board expressed his opposition to this program to wit: "The Mexican American community is not where engineers come from anyway." 22 years of operation have belied these assertions.}

^{Although 50% of PREP students have come from economically at risk circumstances, TexPREP has proved that under the guidance of competent and caring teachers, these students can acquire the necessary quality educational preparation to succeed in college. TexPREP scholars develop abstract reasoning skills and problem solving skills, which will become increasingly important in functioning and thriving in our future technological society.}

^{TexPREP offers the following lessons:}

^{If our people are going to be prepared to function in the mainstream of society and to become future leaders in our increasingly technological society, we must become advocates for an educational philosophy that stresses personal excellence and wholesome intellectual development, and become opponents of the philosophy that makes our children feel good for doing poor or mediocre work.}

^{We must condemn those educational programs and reforms that would substitute the mere acquisition of computer manipulative skills and access to the Internet for intellectual development. We must support programs which stress the acquisition of self-esteem through hard work, commitment, and achievement and oppose those that stress the acquisition of self-esteem as an end itself.}

^{Indeed, today some students are being victimized by dangerous educational philosophies, which claim to make learning easy and fun. Many years ago, hard work and persistence on the part of our students resulted in their acquisition of basic intellectual tools like reading, writing, and mathematics and their mastery in everyday applications. Today, with the current education fads, our students can’t read - instead stories and instructions are given on user-friendly videotapes; they can’t write an error free sentence unless they have access to spell checkers; and they can’t do basic computational work unless they have a calculator.}

^{In place of teaching, some get entertainment; in place of learning and understanding mathematics, they learn about the calculator applications of mathematics.}

^{Consequently, many of these students through no fault of their own, but rather the fault of our educational system, are doomed to enter dull, entry-level jobs with basic high tech applications.}

^{Rather than being our future educated productive leaders in our high tech society, their bosses and supervisors will be well-educated engineers and scientists who are imported from other countries. This prediction is already on its way to fulfillment.}

^{Some explanations of TexPREP success are the following:}

^{1. TexPREP is a well organized and highly structured mathematics based academic enrichment program, which stresses the development of abstract reasoning skills and problem solving skills. Technology is used as a tool for learning rather than allowing technology to determine the program content. A written curriculum developed by San Antonio PREP teachers and students is available to any prospective site which is interested in starting a PREP.}

^{2. TexPREP has high but reasonable expectations of its participants. The program attracts students who enjoy learning and has a zero tolerance for students who do not.}

^{3. The TexPREP staff consists of competent and caring teachers, program assistants, and administrators who have a strong commitment to student achievement, in particular, minorities.}

^{4. TexPREP is an inclusive program which welcomes both minorities and non-minorities. Tex PREP has refused to succumb to pressures of becoming an all minority program. TexPREP offers a wholesome interaction for hardworking students froom all ethnic backgrounds.}

^{5. TexPREP maintains a database on all of its graduates. Annual surveys gather information on the current status of its graduates. In particular, annual reports are issued which include the following information:}

^{(i) high school graduation rate;}

^{(ii) college entrance and major rate;}

^{(iii) college graduation and major rate.}

^{6. Each current sponsor and benefactor receives a copy of the annual report. Because of the program results, most sponsors and benefactors maintain their partnership with TexPREP and new sponsors are recruited.}

^{7. As appropriate, sponsors and benefactors receive diskettes and listings as authorized by our graduates to be used for recruitment opportunities in special programs, college entrance, and permanent or temporary employment.}

^{Let us examine the possible impact of TexPREP in the preparation of students for college work and professional careers.}

^{For example let us assume that 30,000 middle school and high school students could pursue at least one eight week summer of TexPREP annually. 15,000 would be first summer participants; the other 15,000 would be second and third summer participants.}

^{If the current success rate of TexPREP prevailed, 9,800 would graduate from college and 5,100 of these graduates would be awarded degrees in science or engineering areas.}

^{The annual cost of this effort would be approximately $50,000,000 and we will have prepared more of our own students for the future educated technological workforce and relying less on workforce importation. Moreover, we will have solved the problem of access for minorities to careers in science and engineering.}

VIII. Conclusion

The underpinnings of beliefs held by educators about educational equity are succinctly described by a 1994 publication of the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) of Austin, Texas. Equity in the Reform of Mathematics and Science Education enumerates the alleged deleterious affects of traditional academic curriculum and direct instruction on minority students - while candidly admitting the instructional modification recommended for minority students "…lacks a substantial empirical research base."

Most of the instruction and curriculum reform introduced to public schools in Texas and throughout the nation lack quantitative or replicable research identifying academic effectiveness. Few, perhaps, none of the special modifications introduced to capitalize on the "special learning needs of minorities" are based on solid empirical research. Unsurprisingly, these reforms have proven to be abject failures in improving academic learning. Capturing the imagination of many educators, "best practice" curriculum and instruction have been introduced to public schools to serve ideological rather than the practical purposes.

Many of today’s reforms are instructional modifications specifically targeted for schools with high concentrations of minority students. Because these instructional methods dilute academic content, curriculum for minority students is often less academically rigorous [see Appendix #13]. Because the academic achievement of minority students is more adversely affected than higher socio-economic students by instructional modifications, inequity results. Although well-intended, special instructional methods have caused curriculum inequity and a widening of the achievement gap between student groups in Texas and throughout the nation.

Efforts to improve the education of minority students in Texas - to achieve academic equity - require public schools to place more minority students in advanced academic studies and, simultaneously, to ensure these courses are of equal academic rigor as courses offered to Anglo students in affluent communities.

This effort must begin immediately, systematically, and aggressively. A report recently issued by the Higher Education Coordinating Board sounds the alarm for minority education in Texas. Closing the Gaps (2000) warns that public schools must perform the incredible task of doubling the number of minority students prepared for college if the state is to halt the widening educational and economic differences between Anglo, Black and Hispanic youth.

How do we improve student learning for all students? How can the achievement of minority students be raised - the achievement gap eliminated? The research is clear and the answer is - direct instruction, teacher-led classrooms, and intense, concentrated academics begun early in schooling. Research says academics or curriculum is the key. For Texans, the record of TexPREP offers a proven and effective model for improving all student learning, especially the learning of minority students.

If curriculum is the prescription for improving public schools, then curriculum equity must be the primary focus of education reform efforts. In Texas we are beginning to see a growing awareness among parents of minority students about the importance of curriculum for securing equal educational opportunity.

On November 1^{st, the lead story and top headline for the Austin American Statesman’s Metro section read "Group urges equity for black students" - the inside headline read "Group demands higher standards for minority students and fast." A coalition of parents from East Austin met with the Austin School Board to demand more minority students in gifted and talented and magnet programs, more minority students in advanced high school college preparatory academic courses, and an increased number of minority students taking college entrance tests. The efforts of minority parents in California to expand access to advanced academic courses in high schools suggests parents throughout the nation are taking the lead in advancing curriculum as the vehicle for educational equity.}

^{While curriculum equity must be established for all academic instruction, mathematics should be the first objective for reform today (since implementation of the state’s reading initiative is well underway).}

^{Research shows that the study of mathematics wields the greatest influence on a student’s educational future. How much mathematics a student takes or the highest course in mathematics is the strongest determinant in college entrance and baccalaureate success. When a student takes advanced mathematics courses (Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Pre-Calculus and Calculus) is equally important [see Appendix #14].}

^{In the knowledge-based economy, civil rights means equal opportunity for students to study curriculum of high academic standards from kindergarten to graduation. All students must be given the opportunity to enter skilled vocational programs and higher education with the academic knowledge and skills needed to succeed. Because access without the tools for success is an empty promise, we must ensure curriculum equity in every classroom of Texas Public Schools.}

Dr. Manuel Berriozabal Pre-Freshman Engineering Program
210-458-4496
University of Texas at San Antonio
Science Bldg., Rm 1.03.46
6900 N. Loop 1604 W.
San Antonio, TX 78249

Chris Patterson, Director of Education Policy
The Lone Star Foundation