As I thought about the type of schools that might help some students the most, I remembered the brief experiment in my own city with M.E.S., More Effective Schools. This experiment sought to create the first, in effect, "magnet schools." Whereas the debate today focuses primarily on blaming ineffective teachers, in the 1960s the debate led to a War on Poverty before Vietnam. At the time, President Shanker's UFT aimed to help some of the most disadvantaged students with More Effective Schools.
The More Effective Schools program began in September 1964 with ten schools, the old M.E.S. These schools were created as laboratories for experimentation in helping some higher needs children. Class sizes were set at fifteen in pre-K and twenty-two in the later grades. There were teacher specialists (in speech, language, audiovisual and health, including psychiatry), team teaching heterogeneous grouping and more firm community relations and services. The program was expanded in 1965 with the addition of eleven more schools, the new M.E.S.
The experiment was a bold one. Eighteen of the twenty-one schools were former Special-Service Schools in which students were significantly below average in academic achievement. Teachers in the twenty-one M.E.S. were given a greater degree of latitude to make decisions and greater community participation was urged. The program became controversial by 1968 and U.F.T. president, Albert Shanker, had his hands full trying to maintain funding and keep the program alive. Short on cash, community districts wanted to shift Title I funds away from MES to other schools. By 1972, it seems the program became a court issue and, then, a nonentity. In one opinion I read, Shanker, himself, sacrificed the program and higher class size in return for higher teacher wages.
Shanker hoped to attract white, middle-class students to the MES by advertising lower class size and greater services. Indeed, he sent his own child to an M.E.S. pre-school. (I admire when reformers are willing to put their own children through their experiments; you don't see much of that today!) Some of the schools did include some mix of white and middle-class students. With the advent of the Black Power movement of the late 1960s, Shanker ran into conflict with the community-based Planning Council of Ocean Hill-Brownsville. Shanker's idea of greater community participation spun out of control as demands were made for community control. Community advocates demanded a black curriculum and unbiased teachers. MES was denounced as racist in its attempt to remake children into the "white" image of success. Ocean Hill-Brownsville decided not to sign onto the program.
On top of these troubles, MES faced less than complimentary evaluations by the Center for Urban Education, CUE. The 1967 statement noted that it was a "short-term" evaluation, not "definitive," as the schools had only been operating for a few years. The schools were commended for excellent school climate and community relations, but no significant difference was noted in the functioning of children. The biggest objection in the report seemed to be that teachers had not "revised techniques of instruction to obtain the presumed instructional advantages of the small class and the availability of specialized instruction. In view of this, the lack of academic progress is not surprising." The report further made note that the schools were elaborate and expensive "in terms of both money [$200/student] and professional time."
In another 1967 critique of MES, Ms. Gloria Channon (an elementary-school teacher who joined MES) notes that "Again and again the fault seems to lie not so much with the machinery as with the people using it, or afraid of using it, or ignorant of the ways in which it can be used." She sees the MES as a battlefield upon which the UFT, the B.o.E., civil-rights groups and a "fearful" white community contend. And, she discusses how terms such as "black power" are infused with "emotional meanings, they do not, in themselves, possess."
Channon criticizes rigid, uninspiring and sometimes quarrelsome teachers (including the poorly defined role of the "cluster" teacher) and administrators as well as insufficient funding (leading to sub-par libraries, for example). The author notes that "gimmicks" such as overhead projectors are used as substitutes for real change in curriculum. She criticizes the faith placed in guidance over necessary curriculum changes. The author notes, however, that students could make gains in reading and those gains might never be picked up on a standardized test. In her opinion, all too often, schools teach children that they are "dumb." In one of the comments I found most perceptive, she stated, "When our feelings contradict our words, he [the student] judges us, and if we are lucky, instead of fighting us, he will tune out our words--as we, tragically, tune out his feelings."
In 1968, another report by the C.U.E., using 15 "instruments" of measurement, including observations, surveys and test scores, basically slammed the schools again. As in the 1967 report, control schools were used. This time the study included 16 MES schools, seven control schools and seven specifically Special-Service Schools, making for a total of thirty. It was noted that MES schools had "instruction at different levels," and an environment perceived as positive by parents, observers and other participants, yet an underwhelming lack of academic success. According to the report, "This positive profile makes the lack of consistent progress in the academic areas disappointing."
It seems, and the reports even noted, the MES schools inspired passion by both supporters and detractors. MES became a point of contention for Shanker in new contract negotiations and subsequent striking along with class size and issues of discipline. The UFT issued a lengthy response questioning the 1967 C.U.E. report as a reflection of politics more than sound research. The UFT questioned the test scores used as well as the control group. The UFT noted that the MES schools should be compared solely to other Special-Service Schools, given the nature of the school populations. The studies were not longitudinal; they did not track the same set of students. (Indeed, one source, shows that for the 25% of students who stayed in the program, there was notable achievement). The report criticized the fact that the twenty-two of the thirty-seven observers came from the College of the City of New York, making "inbreeding of ideas" a real possibility. There was also no evidence in 1967 that any of the observers had experience in early childhood education.
Shanker had hoped at one time to expand the MES schools to three hundred. After the MES schools failed, Shanker briefly romanced the idea of charter schools in 1988. He became disillusioned here, however, realizing that charter schools might ultimately eat at the heart of pubic education, rather than help the neediest students.
Our current UFT tries in limited ways to romance reform. It has taken large grants from Eli Broad and partnered with Steve Barr to create its own charters. The last contract called for up to two-hundred PROSE schools as incubators for reform. The PROSE schools, however, seem a far cry from the bold vision put forth by Shanker's MES. But we do not know the full story, yet. From the little we know, however, the reforms promise to be as affordable as they are disappointing. One wonders if corporate reformers could ever jump on board with the big bucks for more meaningful, carefully planned, but entirely flexible, community-based reform in which the results would be judged by something more than stale test scores, percent of non-unionized workers, profit margin or degree of privatization. Then, how far we might be able to take our students and our society! It would truly be a public service.
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