The Article

Philip Cusick, chairperson of the Department of Educational Administration, and colleague Jennifer Borman, a research and development specialist with the Education Alliance at Brown University, chronicle in this article efforts at systemic reform in Michigan. They focus on that part of the overall effort directed at the language arts curriculum.

Findings

The story of language arts reform in Michigan begins in 1993 when the state legislature mandated an academic core curriculum that would include language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science. The task of drafting the new standards fell on the Michigan Department of Education (MDE). However, the researchers point out that the MDE’s one K-12 language arts coordinator could not manage the language arts component alone. Thus, “the door opened to a small and already-associated set of people with decided ideas about language arts and who were eager to extend their ideas into more schools via a state-endorsed program.” Before long, the process included more than 200 language arts professionals who were organized into grade-level task forces. The plan was to develop the standards and benchmarks, have them approved by the state, demonstrate their worth in four school districts, and integrate them into Michigan’s 567 school districts. The researchers describe the standards that emerged as based on a constructivist approach. The standards avoided terms such as “the student will know.” Rather, they sought to have students “understand, explore, view, use, develop, monitor.” The standards, for example, required students to not merely read books, but "interact" with literature and to “explore the constraints and possibilities ... of texts.” With the standards written, the researchers then chronicle a series of confrontations and problems. In 1994, Republicans won majorities in the legislature and the state Board of Education. The new board majority had its own reform agenda, including dismantling the MDE and relaxing teacher certification. The board members disparaged the standards for such things as vagueness, offering no concrete recommendations about what students should know, and for giving no hint as to how teachers would know when their goals were met. As a result of board reaction and public comment, several changes were made. For example, the title for Standard 3 was changed from “Diversity and Culture” to simply “Literature” to dilute its multicultural thrust and “to assure critics that the students would read books.” Yet the researchers found that while the board suggested and pushed the alterations, it “did not change the central ideas.” The board merely "accepted" the standards, rather than "approved" them. The board also decided to suggest instead of mandate all of the curricular changes. Some of the lessons from the process include the ability of the MDE to do its work in the face of shifting – even hostile – politics, and the role teachers had in joining and doing the project’s work and legitimizing the reforms to critics. The authors argue that while the state educational system remains loosely linked, democratic and contentious, the language arts effort “heightened the mutual awareness and interdependence of the system's separate parts and so served the purposes of systemic reform.”

What It Means To You

The state is a critical player in K-12 education by developing standards and frameworks. How well have the language arts reform efforts translated to your district’s schools? Did the complicated process lead to clear benchmarks for your teachers? Has the contentious effort led to better language arts instruction and learning in your schools?

For More Information

Cusick, P.A. & Borman, J. (2002). Reform of and by the system: A case study of a state's effort at curricular and systemic reform. Teachers College Record, 104(4), 765-786.

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