Technocratic meta-research that aims to "prove" what history has told us for centuriesRothstein's Class and Schools compiles empirical, quantitative studies that have investigated effects on child learning in school to show that children enter school with significant differences in abilities and potentials. These differences are caused by various factors such as class, race, health status, home situation, and so on--all factors typically outside the domain of influence of the school. Essentially Rothstein shows that, because children spend much of their time outside of schools--in their homes and communities, schools cannot be expected to solve all problems (or at least cannot be faulted for not being able to do so). Rothstein's recommendations include moving some of the factors involved into the school or into the dominion of the state. For example, he suggests school health/vision clinics and increased supervision in before and after-school programs (and over the summer). Rothstein further suggests broader policy is needed to restructure the inequality outside of the school--for example, by providing stable, safe housing for low-SES communities.
I absolutely agree with Rothstein's conclusion: schools can't fix all problems. My two main problems with the work, and the reason for the one star rating, are (1) that Rothstein's logic is driven by
no evidence, and that he manages to mangle basic logical constructs of arguments, and (2) scientific quantitative ahistorical methods are not at all suited for the questions at hand.
In regard to (1): it is fairly well accepted in most other disciplines that focus on social phenomena--sociology, history, psychology, philosophy, others--that things never happen in a vacuum, that there are always relationships between what happens at home, at school, at work, in public and in private, in body and in mind, at the individual level and at the societal level. This is never something that has to be proven: it is always taken as a premise. Rothstein twists this logic on its head.
He vaguely accuses a "They" for expecting schools to fix all ills, without any proof--In Rothstein: "Americans have come to the conclusion that the achievement gap is the fault of `failing schools'" (p. 1)--additionally, monolithic conceptions such as this should be suspect to any critical reader.
Which brings me to (2): it seems that if one were really trying to show how forces intersected to shape child learning, one might be much better served by historical methods. The unequal structures that still shape American society today that have roots in colonial times, in slavery, in the unique construction of racism in the United States. Rothstein acknowledges that there is a deep connection between race and class in the United States, but leaves the nature unspoken. Instead, he attempts to quantify the correlation between race and class, essentially trying to extricate the effects of race from class by a number.
Historically this construction is absurd. It ignores the fact that race and class have an intricate, intertwined history in America as they do nowhere else. It is here that the racialization of slavery occurred, here that class formation emerged along lines of race because of the nature of racialized slavery. Scholars have written about how racialization, or the construction of race, occurred during American slavery (for example as shown by Ira Berlin, professor of history at UMD in his various works including Ira Berlin, Generations of captivity: A history of African-American slaves. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press). Splitting the two by a number cannot be done in general, but in particular here in the United States, where class formation occurred along racialized lines institutionalized in slavery. This not a simple problem of addition--race and class are not distinct in any way that can be quantified by a number (as a `correlation', or alleged overlap between the two separate phenomena).
There is certainly a place for quantitative work in assessing schools, curriculum, and even individuals. However, to draw lines from what little quantitative data can tell us to implications for how people should live their lives (i.e., in school from `before-school' programs through `after-school' programs, 6am-8pm) seems far-stretched if the problem is placed in historical/holistic perspective. Then, it becomes clear that a whole structuring of society is at play, and that transformations of such structurings have historically taken centuries of gradual change in all aspects of society.
For example, school segregation and inequality is not a new phenomenon discovered by the "reformers" nowadays who are allegedly trying to save schools. Schools have a long history of segregation in the United States: as old as this land has been colonized by English speaking settlers. From the very beginning (1600s) schools have been a mechanism of preservation (or enhancement) of the dominant culture. In the emergence of the common school (that occurred everywhere from the 1830s/40s in parts of the North through the 1870s in parts of the South), segregation was key to the organization and allocation of school resources and to dictating curriculum. Blacks, were, for example, encouraged towards schools of manual labor as women were trained to be good wives and white men continued on to Harvard et al (see, for example, Lawrence Cremin, American Education: The National Experience, New York, Harper & Row, 1980).
There are many other problems with the work: Rothstein speaks of 'averages' yet never shows us a distribution graph (what he means by 'averages' is distribution), he casually throws around the phrase 'black culture of underachievement' while never mentioning slavery and his white-maleness, he repeatedly confuses class and race without defining either, he uses his own ancestors (Jewish immigrants) as example of 'superior' adjustment over Italian immigrants in the States, he never examines his position/bias, he takes tests at their value and fails to critically examine who wrote the tests and for what purpose, ... and much more. He exalts middle-class culture as an ideal to be imparted upon the 'disadvantaged', he suggests we should attempt to assess "non-cognitive skills" like "tolerance, comprehension of pluralism, self-direction, responsibility, and commitment to craft" (p. 97); he is often contradictory, and at times even racist. Consider what Rothstein has to say on biology and genetics:
On one hand, Rothstein writes that a "family's economic, educational, and cultural traits are influenced by the genetic traits of the parents"; in other words, "smarter" parents have "smarter" babies and such reasoning (17). On the other, he says blacks and whites do not have inherent different genetics--but then again, whites do test "smarter", according to him, and there is nothing wrong with the testing in essence (i.e., who constructs the tests, the framework tests follow, etc)... we are left to work out the ambiguities of the position on our own. What saves Rothstein's ambiguity from more blatant expression is that he believes it's essentially out of policy's range at this point to regulate genetics or to do anything about them, so he "does not dwell on the possible genetic contributions" (p. 17).
This work is truly disturbing in its lack of critical examination, considering it claims its place within a critical tradition.
First part: powerful and convincing; Second part: polemical and arrogant
