To follow, reject, or flip the script: Managing instructional tension in an era of high-stakes accountability

Stillman, Jamy, & Anderson, Lauren (2011). To follow, reject, or flip the script: Managing instructional tension in an era of high-stakes accountability. Language Arts, 89(1), 22-37.

This article portrayed a problem that I face daily in my practice as a literacy teacher educator: the tension between what I as a teacher educator believe is good literacy instruction, and thus feel obligated to emphasize in my literacy methods courses, and the realities of the urban field placements where our students experience practica and student teaching. As was true for this article’s authors, my own beliefs about good literacy instruction involve making literacy accessible to ALL students by building on their prior knowledge, interests, and strengths, and by providing multiple opportunities for meaningful, authentic reading and writing. I want the preservice teachers I work with to implement student-centered, meaning-based instruction. At the same time, the teacher education program in which I work places preservice teachers in urban school settings, which in our metropolitan area, as was true in the California schools described in the article, means that a scripted, mandated program is in place, and preservice teachers face firsthand the pressures to maintain program fidelity and increase test scores that are characteristic of such school contexts these days. It is particularly an acute problem in my own metropolitan area, where a large urban school district where we place many preservice teachers has recently lost state accreditation.

So, like the authors of the article here, if I teach preservice teachers in a way that is congruent with my own beliefs and principles, I am automatically setting them up for conflict when they enter their urban field placement sites and try to implement the assignments I ask of them in my courses. The authors of this article suggest ways to try to bridge the gap and help preservice teachers implement what they call “principled” literacy instruction within the demands of mandated, scripted programs. I have tried most of the ways discussed in the article, but I am still not satisfied. One of the suggestions given here is to require preservice teachers to plan and implement an integrated unit—that is, a unit that integrates social studies with language arts. That is a compromise I have made myself, when it was clear that my preservice teachers were not going to be given time within highly scripted language arts/literacy programs to design or enact any kind of instruction at all. Because social studies is not emphasized in high-stakes testing, it is a safer place for cooperating teachers to allow preservice teachers to test their instructional wings. Stillman and Anderson propose that authentic understandings gained through such an integrated social studies unit could then carry over into the more scripted language arts/literacy instruction. I certainly hope so, but wonder to what extent that would actually occur?

The article resonated with me because it raised issues I struggle with all the time, but in some ways it was disappointing because no really new solutions were proposed. Yes, there are many ways we can teach preservice teachers to sort of “sneak” meaningful, student-centered reading and writing instruction into the scripted programs that they will be forced to implement in the schools even though many of them know that such programs make for unsatisfying teaching because they don’t really reach the students. I wonder, though, if that is the best we can do. My heart hurts for my preservice teachers when they come back from field experiences demoralized, conflicted, and disillusioned. Is there really nothing we can do to actually change things? In the school district where the preservice teachers I work with are placed, the past decade has seen at least four different mandated programs adopted in quick succession. Yet test scores remain low, and the district has lost its accreditation. Obviously the scripted programs are not the remedy they have been touted to be, but they continue to be adopted. It seems that it would be worthwhile to at least try more student-centered approaches, and see if it would make any difference.

I may be an incurable optimist, but I insist upon believing that most of the preservice teachers I work with care about helping ALL children develop the literacy strengths that they will need to succeed in life. I also insist upon believing that most teacher educators care deeply about good literacy instruction, and we want teachers to have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will enable them to help children. And even with all the pressures placed upon them, I insist on believing that most school administrators want the children in their care to learn. What then, will it take to bridge all of the tensions and realize that we all really should be focused on the same thing?