8 When Education Quality Speaks, Education Equality An.docx

8
When Education Quality Speaks,
Education Equality Answers
Chapter 8 was written in 2008. As the reader will readily note,
an ap-
plication of the logic of social equity in public administrationto
the field
of public education has the great advantage of wrestling with
two of the
primary forces in modern public administration.One, of course,
is social
equity. The other is the powerful performance measurement
reform
movement. In the context of the application of the No Child
Left Behind
performance measurement regime, and the equally
compellinglegal and
political expectations that schooling be fair and equal, public
education
is a crucible of these forces.
This is an essay about school accountability and performance. I
shall defend
the claim that the contemporary school accountability and
performance move-
ment is best understood in the context of two primary public
school policy
objectives: education quality and education equality. The
burden of my argu-

ment is that the modern school accountability and performance
movement
has been pulled back and forth along a sweeping arc of history,
first in the
direction of education quality at one pole of the arc and then in
the direction
of education equality at the other pole.
American public education has always been about educational
achievement,
on one hand, and educational opportunity, on the other.
Educational achieve-
ment has to do with student and teacher merit, quality, grades,
advancement,
capability, performance, and work. Educational opportunity has
to do with
justice, fairness, and an equal chance for students and their
families. Both
education quality and education equality matter importantly
because our
public education system is still the primary engine driving the
allocation of
social and economic goods, and the level of one’s education is
still the best
predictor of one’s future success or achievement.
At the policymalung level as well as at the level of policy
implementa-
tion in the day-to-day operation of schools, the values of
educational quality
114 CHAPTER 8
and achievement often compete with the values of fairness and

equality. The
public and their democratic representatives want, indeed
demand, both quality
and equality, as if they are noncompetitive objectives and as if
seeking more
of one will not be at the expense of the other. But in the recent
arc of public
education history, say the last thirty years, the magnetic pull of
the values of
school and student achievement have been much stronger than
the pull of the
values of equality and opportunity.
This is an argument about cycles of history and a claimed
dichotomy be-
tween quality and equality in those cycles. While I will go from
time to time
o n excursions into political, intellectual, and educational
history, my main
purpose is not historical. I shall attempt a light phenomenology
of reform
involvements and disappointments that is meant to account for
the swings
or the arcs of change from education quality to education
equality and back
again. And in this phenomenology, I shall attempt, from time to
time, to fix
the part that special education has played in these arcs.
The claims made here are fashioned after two similar
approaches to ac-
counting for or explaining competing forces of reform in the
public sector. In
separate works, Herbert Kaufman and Albert Hirschman
describe the adop-
tion of policy changes and subsequent disappointment with

those changes as
the essential dynamic that explains cycles of government reform
(Kaufman
1991; Hirschman 1982, 1991). One version of this dynamic
accounts for the
American economic depression in the 1930s, the New Deal
response to that
depression, and then, beginning in the 197Os, a distinct swing
back in the di-
rection of deregulation, unfettered capitalism, and market
solutions. Another
version of this dynamic, and the one most particularly
applicable to public
education, is the arc of change from public institutions built on
the values
of efficiency, professionalism, and neutral competence, and our
subsequent
disappointment with them, followed by institutional changes
built on the
values of executive leadership. The point is that institutions are
imperfect,
disappointment almost always sets in, and we respond to that
disappointment
by reforming our institutions. This is essentially the story of the
arcs of educa-
tion equality reform and education quality reform.
One particularly important factor explains the arc of policy
change in a field
such as education. Public attention and particularly the attention
of elected
officials is a scarce and limited resource. A high level of public
attention to-
ward a particular public problem or persuasive reform is often
at the expense
of possible attention given to other problems or reforms. In

organizational
decision making, as Herbert Simon explained, we practice
bounded rationality.
One of the bounds or limitations on organizational rationality is
the scarcity
of attention space (Simon 1998).
O n September 25,1957,nine black children integrated Central
High School
EDUCATION QUALITY 1 1 5
in Little Rock, Arkansas. Ten days later, on October 5 , 1957,
the Soviet Union
launched Sputnik, the world’s first Earth-orbiting satellite.
Triggered by the
Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education case three years
earlier, the in-
tegration of the Little Rock schools set off waves of education
equality reforms
that continued through much of the rest of the twentieth
century. Sputnik set in
motion waves of education quality reforms that gathered
strength through the
twentieth century, culminating in the No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) tsunami
in 2002. It could be said that both of these great modern epochs,
the equality
in education epoch and the quality in education epoch, began at
about the
same time fifty years ago.
The Arc of Education Equality Reform
Following Brown v. Board of Education and the Little Rock
Nine, the courts in

many states decided that public schooling was distinctly
unequal and that such
inequality was unconstitutional. The remedies-school spending
equalization
and busing-were put in place after bruising legal battles in the
courts and
political battles that pitted representatives of rural and suburban
areas against
representatives from inner cities. As the years went by, it
became evident that
equal per-pupil spending did make inner-city schools more
equal to suburban
schools and significantly improved the performance of inner-
city schools. But
equal per-pupil spending did not eliminate the performance gap
between inner-
city and suburban schools. Busing and other systems of school
desegregation
were likewise successful, at least in terms of integration.
However, busing did
not eliminate the performance gap between children from the
inner city and
children from the suburbs, even when they went to the same
schools.
Gradually, equality reforms lost their momentum. In California
and Texas-
hotbeds of school spending equalization-and in several other
states, politics
moved steadily away from equality reforms, and state courts
were less in-
clined to support such reforms. Busing was discontinued, and
other forms of
educational special treatment based on poverty, race, or
ethnicity faced stiff
opposition on the grounds that such treatment was unequal. Put

another way,
education equality reforms often involved spending more on
poor and minor-
ity children in an effort to make them more nearly equal to more
advantaged
children. Unequal inputs werejustified by education equality
reformers so as
to achieve more nearly equal education results outputs. In a
profound irony,
the language of inequality would come to be used as a weapon
against busing
and equal spending on the grounds that such programs gave
more to poor
and minority children. By the 199Os, the school reform
emphasis had shifted
from equality toward individual and school “merit.”
The other key feature of modern education equality reform
started at about
116 CHAPTER 8
the same time. In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson signed the
Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the first major piece of
legislation that
addressed inequality of students, specifically those from low-
income fami-
lies. The next year, 1966, the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act was
amended to include two parts aimed specifically at students
with disabilities.
First, Congress established the Bureau of Education of the
Handicapped and

the National Advisory Council for the Benefit of Students with
Disabilities.
Second, Title VI was established to help create and fund
educational programs
for students with disabilities, authorizing grants for states to
pass along to
institutions and schools that served students with disabilities.
This was the first
federal government legislation that required a free and
appropriate education
for students with disabilities.
Both pieces of legislation had an enormous impact on the
educational sys-
tems of the time. By some estimates, federal spending on
students in grades
K-12 tripled because of ESEA. As a successful part of
Johnson’s war on
poverty, ESEA provided specifically for children in need
(minority students,
low-income students, bilingual students, and students with
disabilities). When
this law was passed by Congress, many people criticized it and
fought against
its enactment. Southern Democrats were afraid of the federal
government’s
involvement in racially segregated areas, while some
Republicans were afraid
that the federal government would someday claim undue
authority over lo-
cal education decision making. It turns out that the Republicans
were right;
after all, they led the charge for passage of No Child Left
Behind, a law that
almost everyone now agrees has made the federal government
into a kind of

national school board.
In 1975, as an amendment of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act,
President Gerald Ford signed the Education for All Handicapped
ChildrenAct.
This law was created in an effort to provide an
appropriateeducationfor the mil-
lions of children with disabilities who were not receiving a
proper education.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was
passed and
signed by President Clinton in 1990. It changed the name of
special needs
students from “handicapped children” to “children with
disabilities” arid estab
lished the right of qualifying students to receive special
education beginning
as early as three years of age. IDEA offers educational services
to students
with disabilities from the time they are toddlers until the time
they receive
stable jobs. The act has been amended several times; the last
amendment was
signed by President Bush in 2004. IDEA 2004 maintains the
basic structure
of the original act, while adding several specific requirements
such as those
that apply to special education teacher qualification.
As we found in the case of per-student spending equalization
reforms and
busing reforms, special education reforms called for more to be
spent on

EDUCATION QUALITY I17
children with disabilities than on other children in order to
make them more
nearly equal with regard to educationalperformance.These
reforms, however
praiseworthy, were not followed by federal money, leaving
school districts
with sizeable unfunded mandates.
Have the education equality reforms of the past fifty years
worked? Gen-
erally, yes. But, in Hirschman’s terms, we are disappointed that
the racial
integration of schools did not do more to equalize student
performance. We
are also disappointed that equalized per-student spending did
not do more to
equalize performance. And we are disappointed that federal
special education
mandates have not been better funded.Another breed of
education reformers
sensed these sundry disappointments and mounted a ferocious
response.That
response is the work of the education quality reforms of the
1990s and 2000s,
the subject to which I now turn.
The Arc of Education Quality Reform
It was Ronald Reagan who accidentally invented modern
education politics.
While he was running for the presidency in 1979, Reagan
campaigned to
eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, only to discover
the political

usefulness of the A Nation at Risk report produced by his
secretary of educa-
tion. By the end of his second term, he had morphed into our
first “education
president,” which is ironic because the Department of Education
was a Jimmy
Carter initiative.
Here is a little story of how Ronald Reagan learned to love
public education.
After he attempted to eliminate the Education Department,
President Reagan
appointed Terrell H. Bell to be his secretary of education.
Terrell Bell was a
wily old school superintendentwho had earlier served as Dwight
Eisenhower’s
commissioner of education. Bell was raised poor in south-
central Idaho and
attended the Southern Idaho College of Education, the only
college he could
afford. Bell started out as a teacher and bus driver and went on
to distinguished
careers as a principal and superintendent. He was one of that
wonderful old
breed of school superintendents, and I might add, city
managers, who faith-
fully followed this creed:
first, have a passion for anonymity;
second, do not draw attention to yourself or your staff;
third, when things go wrong take the blame;
fourth, when things go well all credit goes to the school board.

After his confirmation, the new secretary of educationdrove a
U-Haul truck
to Washington, D.C. In the first two years of the Reagan
administration, Bell
118 CHAPTER 8
always ranked at the bottom of indices of influence measured by
Beltway
media talking heads and the chattering classes, which is exactly
where Rea-
gan wanted him inasmuch as the president intended to trash the
department
anyway. Bell’s agreement to serve as Reagan’s secretary of
education was
popularly referred to as “captaining the Titanic.”
In the meantime, Bell was quietly at work on his plan. He talked
Reagan
into appointing a task force to evaluate the status of American
schooling; after
all, how dangerous can a task force be? Reagan assumed the
task force would
simply put more nails into the Department of Education’s
coffin. Bell had
other ideas. The task force was headed by David Gardner, the
president of the
University of California and a personal friend of Bell’s. The
group’s report
carried an ominous title: A Nation at Risk. Rather than calling
for less fed-
eral government involvement in education, the report claimed
that American

schools were falling behind those in the rest of the developed
world and that
the federal government needed to be more involved in
education. The media
loved it. The chattering classes loved it. President Reagan soon
discovered
that talking about A Nation at Risk drew attention away from
scandals in the
departments of Defense and Interior.As he began campaigning
for reelection,
he also discovered that his best applause lines came when he
described what
the federal government was going to do to improve the schools.
There was no more discussion of eliminating the Department of
Education.
That crafty old school superintendent had taken Ronald Reagan
to school
(Bell 1988). It was the beginning of modem federal education
politics, the
politics that later brought us N o Child Left Behind. These are
the politics of
education quality.
Since Reagan, successive presidents have called themselves
education
presidents. At the state level, all governors now fancy
themselves to be edu-
cation governors. And in more recent years it has even become
fashionable
for mayors to present themselves as education mayors, most
notably the
mayors of Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and
Cleveland. These
developments are especially important in light of the logic
associated with

the traditional system of public school governance. School
districts were
purposely set up as jurisdictionally distinct from cities, and
states and were
autonomous from them. The idea was to separate school
governance from
traditional city and state politics. The coming of education
presidents, educa-
tion governors, and education mayors has, in many places,
turned education
politics in the direction of traditional politics. Generally
speaking, this has
not been good news for schools.
The lesson is that presidents, governors, and mayors know that
criticism of
the schools is easy and that education reform is almost always
good politics.
Although A Nation at Risk marks the starting point for modern
education
EDUCATION QUALITY 119
politics, it is almost certainly the case that Terrell Bell and
Ronald Reagan
were supporters of public education. A Nation at Risk, while
implicitly criti-
cal of the public schools, was mostly a formula for federal
involvement in
local schools and particularly a formula for federal funding to
help improve
local schools.
A Nation at Risk was a solid start for what would eventually
become the
modem education quality reform movement, which began with a

group of
serious reformers who had the noble goal of improving schools.
But reform
movements have a way of attracting hustlers, true believers,
charlatans,
those with easy answers to complex questions, and seekers after
rent. We see
all of them in the current cast of characters in the education
quality reform
movement.
As noted earlier, the modern education quality movement traces
to Sputnik
and the role of schools in the context of competition with the
Soviet Union.
Over time, threats of competition with outside forces shifted
from the Soviets
in the 1960s and 1970s,to the Japanese and Germans in the
1980s, and now
to the Chinese and the Indians. The threat of competition is
essential to the
logic of the many consultants, experts, and policy entrepreneurs
who now
make up a modem “schools are no damn good” movement. Over
the past thirty
years, in one form or another, this movement has savaged the
public schools.
No longer is criticism of the schools implicit in reform
proposals. Now the
rhetoric of education quality reform is explicitly critical of the
schools. We are
treated routinely to descriptions of failing schools, incompetent
teachers, and
other forms of trash talk. Given this relentless criticism, it is no
wonder that
contemporary polls indicate that the majority of Americans

believe that the
schools are ineffective. The people who respond to the same
polls, however,
indicate that the schools they attended or their children attended
were effective.
The point is that the fact that polls indicate that people believe
the schools are
ineffective is not evidence that they are ineffective, it is only
evidence that
the schools are no damn good movement has been effective.
The modus operandi of the schools are no damn good movement
is the use
of a universal predicate. That predicate is the schools are no
damn good so we
need charter schools. 01; the schools are no damn good so we
need vouch-
ers. Or, the schools are no damn good so we need the profit-
making Edison
Schools. Or, the schools are no damn good, so we need to pass
the No Child
Left Behind Law. Or, the schools are no damn good so we need
performance
pay for teachers. The most importantjustification based on the
claim that the
schools are no damn good is this: the schools are not
accountable.
The use of the schools are no damn good as a universal
predicate is ideally
suited to the way homo politicus thinks and the way politics
works. Like a
heat-seeking missile, homo politicus will find what is wrong
with schools,

120 CHAPTER 8
exaggerate what is wrong with schools, and embellish what is
wrong with
schools. Having established that the schools are terrible, homo
politicus will
then cry, “Elect me, for I will fix the schools.” Homo politicus
learned long
ago that there is no political advantage to defending the status
quo and that
an “Elect m e I will keep things the way they are” platform
doesn’t work well
in American politics.
While this may be very good education politics, it has, in my
opinion,
been mostly bad policy, policy harmful to American public
education. In the
first place, the vast majority of schools are demonstrably good,
and, as the
polls indicate, Americans generally feel that the schools with
which they are
familiar are good. There are, of course, troubled schools and
bad schools. The
evidence indicates, however, that factors of inequality account
for or explain
troubled schools, bad schools, and schools with low educational
quality. In
the language of regression analytics: education inequality
explains or predicts
education quality, but education quality does not explain or
predict education
inequality. If this is true, and I believe the evidence shows it is,
the key to
improving education quality is to work on education inequality.

In the second place, public schooling is an enormously complex
undertak-
ing. Our predecessors understood this and wisely devised a
system of public
democratic accountability that separated school affairs from city
and state
politics. They knew that all schooling is local and is best
governed locally.And
they knew that the schools would be best governed by a
corporate model in
which the policymaking bodies, the school boards, appointed
professional su-
perintendents to manage the schools. They knew that the checks
and balances
model of city, state, and national government was ill suited to
the governance
of schools. They knew the importance of educational
professionalism and set
up teachers colleges to provide a steady stream of qualified
teachers, princi-
pals, and superintendents. Based on this collective knowledge,
the American
public schools became the great engine of social integration,
social mobility,
and economic development. Failing to recognize the importance
of how and
why American public education governance was designed to be
structurally
autonomous and corporate in nature, the education quality
reformers have
pushed school governance steadily in the direction of ordinary
city, state,
and federal politics. As a consequence, the politics of education
has become
more polemic, more divisive, and much more noisy. Why do the

education
quality reformers push education politics away from the school
districts and
toward mayors, governors, presidents, and elected bodies at all
those levels‘?
Mostly because school boards would not buy the untested
reforms being sold
by education quality reformers. And teacher’s unions did not
buy them either.
School boards and teachers’ unions know easy answers to
complex problems
when they hear them. Not being able to sell their sundry
solutions, the educa-
tion quality reformers gravitated into the schools are no damn
good movement
and took their proposed solutions to the state and federal levels
of politics.
In the third place, as American public schooling evolved, there
were seri-
ous design mistakes. The first and most important was racial
segregation.
The second mistake, closely connected to the first, was the
setting of school
district boundaries in such a way as to enable separation by race
and social
class. What was initially a policy of racial segregation is now
an equally
pernicious pattern of racial segregation based on housing
demographics and
school district boundaries. There has been no political will at
either the local
or the state level to fix the boundaries problem. Instead the

courts have im-
posed fixes that leave the boundaries in place and require per-
pupil spending
equalization a n d o r busing. While these fixes have helped,
the momentum for
these and other education equality reforms has steadily
diminished.
In the fourth place, and finally, the application of local, state,
and federal
politics is evidence for Kaufman’s claim regarding the cycle of
public sec-
tor reform. The twentieth-century model of school governance
was based
on nonpartisan professional competence and bureaucratic
efficiency. Late
twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century models of
education reform
are pushing school governance toward elected executive
leadership-presi-
dents, governors, mayors-and toward traditional forms of
elected democratic
representation-the U.S. Congress and state legislators-exactly as
Kaufman
predicted. This has greatly politicized school governance and
seldom in ways
that have helped to improve the schools.There are those, of
course, who point
out that school governance has always been political. They are
right, but it
was differently political, a kind of education politics. The new
model is not
so much education politics as it is ordinary politics applied to
education.
For purposes of simplicity and generalization, I have used the

phrase “edu
cation quality reforms.” In fact, many kinds of reforms are
lumped together as
education quality reforms. One primary distinction between
kinds of education
quality reform is essential. One group of reforms actually
involves some form
of schooling, reforms such as charter schools, school vouchers,
internet-based
virtual schools, home schooling, performance pay for teachers,
and for-profit
education contractors such as the Edison Schools. However one
views these
reform models, it is evident that they are really forms of
education. These
reforms involve actually getting one’s hands dirty in the day-to-
day work of
schooling.
The other group of education quality reformers does not bother
to actually
engage in schooling but presumes to reform education
nevertheless. These
people could be said to engage in the pursuit of education
quality reform
by spreadsheet. It is almost certainly the case that reform by
spreadsheet
is the most powerful and visible set of tools in the contemporary
education
122 CHAPTER 8
quality reform arsenal. It has these profound advantages: It does
not require

reformers to actually know anything about education and
schooling. It does
not require reformers to actually engage in schooling. It does
not require
reformers to take responsibility for schooling. It does not
require reformers
to take responsibility for either the intended or unintended
consequences of
the application of its reform protocols.
If education reform by spreadsheet does not require knowledge
or re-
sponsibility for schooling, what does it require? The evidence
indicates that
education reform by spreadsheet is antiseptic, which is to say
that one can
practice it without actually getting one’s hands dirty. The
spreadsheet reformer
can truly say, “Look, Ma, no hands.” Evidence indicates that
through the use
of spreadsheets, complex educational questions and the
mysteries of indi-
vidual learning and maturation can be reduced to test scores,
targets, grades,
comparisons, and other forms of “metrics.” The spreadsheet
yields numbers,
ranks, and “evidence” that greatly impress the media, giving
them stories that
shock and titillate while not requiring any knowledge of
education or any
actual fieldwork on the subject. The language of spreadsheet
reform is ideally
suited to media coverage, filled as it is with phrases like
“failing schools,”
‘‘.incompetent teachers,” and “targets missed.” Spreadsheet
reform is ideally

suited to “naming, shaming, and blaming” the schools. It is the
natural home
of the educational cynic, the hit-and-run politician, and all of
those hustlers
and entrepreneurs who use the schools are no damn good
universal predicate
as the justification for their preferred reform scheme.
Spreadsheet reform is an educational application of parts of the
logic of
the so-called new public management, sometimes called
managerialism. The
secret to organizational success in the new public management
is to steer
rather than row. In the language of new public management,
agents do the
rowing and principals do the steering. Principals set out the
terms of work
to be done and use metrics or measures of performance to steer
agents, who
d o the actual work of government (Considine and Painter
1997). This is not
management in the old-fashioned sense in which school
superintendents and
birildiiig principals managed the schools. This is the new
management by
oversight and accountability, therefore the use of tests,
performance metrics,
and spreadsheets is essential to its logic.
All by themselves, tests, performance metrics, and spreadsheets,
when they
are used in education, can be useful for diagnostic and heuristic
purposes.
The problem is steering. Most applications of spreadsheet
reform in public

education include targets and, in many cases, ridiculously high
targets. Such
targets may work politically, but they are considered by those
who are actu-
ally engaged in education to be absurd. Furthermore, most
applications of
spreadsheet reform in public education have built-in
consequences for missing
targets, consequences that tend to use highly charged words
such as “failed
schools” or “schools receiving an F.” Many spreadsheet reforms
include
threats of sanctions such as probation or closure.
Summing-up:Recalibrating the Arc of Education Equality
and Education Quality Reform
In the last thirty years, and especially in the last ten years, the
forces associated
with education quality seem to have been stronger and more
effective than the
forces associated with education equality. Still, in case after
case, as schools
implement education quality reforms and particularly No Child
Left Behind,
they are met with the question of fairness-in other words,
education quality
for whom? In each American metropolitan area, the interplay
between school
quality and equality reforms is played out in the context of our
unique jurisdic-
tional arrangements for public education-poor racial minorities
concentrated

in inner-city school districts, surrounded by better-off and
whiter suburban
school districts. The results of the application of the universal
testing regimes
required by NCLB have yielded one nearly universal
conclusion-inner-city
schools are not as good as suburban schools. We knew that all
along, of course,
but now we know exactly how much worse inner-city schools
are. Now, with
the authority of performance measures, we can label them
“failing schools,”
and we can point out to the third graders in those schools that
when they and
their teachers were held accountable, they didn’t measure up.
The paradox is this: while it purports to tell us about school
quality, No
Child Left Behind actually tells us more about school equality,
and particularly
inequality, than it tells us about school quality.
The education quality reform movement is now entering the
period of
disappointment, as Albert Hirschman puts it. The latest national
tests under
NCLB show that academic gains since 2003 have been modest,
less even than
those posted in the years before NCLB. In eighth-grade reading
there have
been no gains since 1998.
There is disappointment that the main goals of NCLB-that all
children
be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014-are simply
unattainable,

a great example of promising far too much. The testing regimes
imposed by
NCLB have resulted in widespread gaming of the testing system
and teaching
to the test, as any serious student of reform movements would
have predicted.
Again, another disappointment. The sanctions built into NCLB
are turning out
to be both toothless and absurd. Only 1 percent of those eligible
to transfer
to other schools because they are in “failing schools” have
chosen to do so.
Only 20 percent of those eligible for extra tutoring have
received it. Another
disappointment.
Good politics, as every serious student of public administration
knows, is
not necessarily good policy, and the politics of modem
education reform is a
124 CHAPTER 8
painful example. Central to the logic of the modern politics of
education qual-
ity reform is the setting of targets and goals, as if to say that
schools will be
made better because a law has been passed or an executive order
signed. For
example, under NCLB all schools were to have a “highly
qualified” teacher in
every classroom by 2005-6, and they are to bring all children to
“proficiency”
in math and reading by 2013-14. Which schools will come

closest to hitting
these targets? You guessed it: suburban schools.
In our federal system, each level of government should do what
it does
best. The federal government is good at collecting and
distributing information
and money. We know that federal resources make a difference
when they are
made available to help with education equality initiatives such
as Head Start,
school breakfast and lunch programs, and special education
programs. State
governments are also good at financial redistribution, the most
important factor
in working around the unfortunate rigidity of boundaries
between inner-city
and suburban school districts. School districts are best at
organizing, staffing,
and operating flexible and pragmatic schools. It is time for the
experiment
with top-down federal involvement with school districts in the
form of the
No Child Left Behind law to slip gradually into our political
history.
Larry Cuban and David Tyack, in their book Tinkering Toward
Utopia: A
Century of Public School Reform, have i t right. “The concepts
of progress
and decline that have dominated discourse about educational
reform distort
the actual development of the educational enterprise over time.
The ahistori-
cal nature of most current reform arguments results in both
magnification of

present defects i n relation to the past and an understatement of
the difficulty
of changing the system. Policy talk about the schools has moved
in cycles of
gloomy assessments . . . and overconfident solutions, producing
incoherent
guidance in actual reform practice” (1997, 8).
There is no doubt that the public schools, and particularly the
inner-city
schools, have serious problems and challenges. But top-down,
politically
driven, federal and state education reforms, based on high
stakes testing and
imposed on local school districts, are not working for the
students who are most
in need of good schools. That is because modem education
reform places too
much emphasis on test-measured quality and not enough
emphasis on educa-
tion equality. We are, I believe, in the early stages of a
recalibration of the arc
between education quality reforms and education equality
reforms. In the com-
ing years, the education equality reformers will overcome their
policy attention
deficit disorder and come once again to be a strong voice for
change.
If my light phenomenology of education reform has it right,
then when
education quality reformers speak, they will be answered by
education equal-
ity reformers. And the answer will not be that the schools are no
damn good.
The answer will be that the best way to achieve education

quality is to work
on education equality.
Street Codes in High School: School
as an Educational Deterrent
Pedro Mateu-Gelabert∗
National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. (NDRI)
Howard Lune
William Paterson University
Elsewhere we have documented how conflict between
adolescents in the streets
shapes conflict in the schools. Here we consider the impact of
street codes on the cul-
ture and environment of the schools themselves, and the effect
of this culture and on
the students’ commitment and determination to participate in
their own education.
We present the high school experiences of first-generation
immigrants and African
American students, distinguishing between belief in education
and commitment to
school. In an environment characterized by ineffective control
and nonengaging
classes, often students are not socialized around academic
values and goals. Stu-
dents need to develop strategies to remain committed to
education while surviving
day to day in an unsafe, academically limited school
environment. These processes

are sometimes seen as minority “resistance” to educational
norms. Instead, our data
suggest that the nature of the schools in which minority students
find themselves has
a greater influence on sustaining or dissuading students’
commitment to education
than do their immigration status or cultural backgrounds.
Measuring differences in academic performance among minority
students, especially
those between new immigrants and American-born, has become
a prominent theme
in the field of urban education over the last two decades. One
goal implicit in such
research is to distinguish between higher- and lower-performing
minorities and to link
poor performance with unfavorable student attitudes and
behaviors in a seemingly causal
model. In this study, we seek to “bring the school back in” by
measuring how students
perceive and experience their school environments. We explore
how new immigrant and
American-born minority students in one inner-city high school
negotiate their commit-
ment to education in a troubled school environment. Interview
and observational data
indicate that while the teens’ social identities as students
compete with the “street” iden-
tities of some, the school environment draws out the latter more
effectively than the
former.
We posit that what is often labeled as antisocial or
undisciplined behavior, as a so-
cial problem that students bring into the school, is often a
response to an unsafe,

“disorganized” school environment (Gottfredson, 1989; Welsh,
Greene, and Jenkins,
∗ Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Pedro Mateu-
Gelabert, NDRI, 71 West 23rd Street, New York, NY
10010; [email protected]
City & Community 6:3 September 2007
C© American Sociological Association, 1307 New York
Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20005-4701
173
CITY & COMMUNITY
1999) rather than a rejection of or disinterest in pursuit of a
formal education. Similarly
to Flores-Gonzalez (2002), we suggest that students rehearse
their social roles, whether
school- or street-oriented, and choose according to the
responses they get from their
environments. Such choices are highly constrained. For those
who choose the street
orientation, it becomes their master status and determines how
they are perceived and
treated. “Once they have adopted this identity, it is very
difficult and very unlikely that
they will or can become school kids” (Flores-Gonzalez, 2002, p.
12). For those who choose
the school orientation, we find that maintaining it requires a
struggle against the ac-
tions of other students, but not necessarily with the assistance
or encouragement of the
school.

We adopt the concept of the “code of street” developed by
Elijah Anderson (1999) to
link street orientations to school orientations. Anderson defines
the code of the street as
a set of informal rules governing public behavior, including
violence. The rules prescribe
a proper way to “be respected” and a proper way to respond if
challenged, often involving
threats, violence, and intimidation. This concept helps to
explain why certain misbehaviors
are prevalent in schools like our study site, and why the
majority of students are forced
to develop mechanisms to cope with those unsafe behaviors and
street values. Anderson
(1990, 1994, p. 82, emphasis added) describes the conflict
between two value orientations
among the residents of the inner city:
These two orientations—decent and street—socially organize
the community, and
their coexistence has important consequences for residents,
particularly for children
growing up in the inner city. Above all, this environment means
that even youngsters
whose lives reflect mainstream values—and the majority of
homes in the community
do—must be able to handle themselves in a street oriented
environment.
In some schools the conditions of the street culture permeate the
boundaries of the
school (Mateu-Gelabert and Lune, 2003; Sullivan, 2002),
compelling students to draw on
their local knowledge to protect themselves and enhance their
safety, regardless of their
commitment to education. Students whose value orientations are

more consistent with
the nominal goals of the school must respond to the
environment in which they find
themselves.
An understanding of the presence of street codes in the school
allows us to address the
issues of misbehavior and low academic performance without
recourse to “resistance” as
a cultural trait of students in inner-city schools. By resistance,
we refer to cultural models
that define student misbehavior or conflict as an indicator that a
student has rejected
the norms and values underlying formal education. Such models
suggest that students
assert values that are in some manner associated with their class
or ethnic backgrounds
against the values of the school in order to disrupt the school’s
attempts to assimilate them.
While not explicitly blaming the students, the assumption of an
oppositional culture still
supports the perception that some groups of students, having
adopted an ideological
opposition to the idea of school, are simply less teachable than
others, and for reasons
exogenous to the schools. In contrast, we view students’
commitment to academic per-
formance and behavioral decisions as significantly influenced
by the schools they attend
and the reinforcements that they perceive there. We therefore
examine the culture of the
school, as perceived and experienced by the students, to provide
a different explanation
for student “misbehavior” and poor academic performance.
174

STREET CODES IN HIGH SCHOOL
TABLE 1. Plans after Graduation
Old Castle All High Schools
4-Year College 53.4% 53.0%
2-Year College 17% 23.5%
Trade/business school 5.1% 2.6%
Employment 4.5% 10.5%
Military services 3.4% 1.7%
Other/no response 16.5% 8.7%
Source: 1993–1994 Annual School Report, New York City
Board of Education.
We do not seek to refute work on the cultural backgrounds of
students but to contextual-
ize it. Specifically, we reject the implied essentialism that
explains away student difficulties
by labeling their culture or identities as “different,” or by
attributing their difficulties to
a dissimilar, hence confrontational, culture that they carry into
the schools. For example,
the high school in which this research was conducted had a
dropout rate (often attributed
to student “lack of interest” or disengagement with school) of
22 percent. However, it is
striking that in this same high school, the percentage of students
wanting to continue on
to college was slightly higher than among students citywide (see
Table 1). Our question is
why do so many students, despite having trouble with their

schools, remain committed to
their education and continue pursuing their education despite
very difficult conditions.
What helps them to remain “school kids,” and what pressures
others to become “street
kids?”
STREET CODES
The concept of a code of the street does not imply that a
majority of individuals are
committed to the street culture. In fact, the majority of inner-
city residents do not embrace
the street codes, even on the streets (Anderson, 1999; Wilson,
1996). Yet, such descriptions
are often used to characterize entire groups of students,
particularly ethnic minorities,
immigrants, and lower-class students (cf. Hamid, 1992). Nor did
the majority of students
observed in this study consistently draw on the norms of street
behaviors in the school, if
they had alternatives. However, they must govern their actions
with an awareness of the
codes that organize their physical environments (Mateu-
Gelabert and Lune, 2003). That
is, they embrace the same educational values that are typically
attributed to middle class
“white” culture, and they seek many of the same goals, but
minority students in “inner
city” neighborhoods must still accommodate the chaos and
violence that define their time
in school. For young students, still negotiating their value
commitments, this dissonance
between society’s educational values and the unsettling
environment in which they pursue
those values may lead to apparently inconsistent or

dysfunctional behaviors. In the worst
cases, it may lead students to drop altogether whatever
attachment to the educational
process they once had. By implication, the social environment
of the schools can play a
considerable role in either drawing out or suppressing the
students’ sense of place and
purpose in the educational realm.
We contrast the students’ own experiences of their schooling
with two approaches:
Ogbu’s Cultural Model and Resistance Theories (Fine, 1991;
Giroux, 1983, 1988; McLaren,
1989; Willis, 1977). Both approaches explain the
confrontational behavior that some
175
CITY & COMMUNITY
students exhibit toward their educational institutions as a
cultural trait, reflecting differ-
ences between minority/working class student culture and the
culture of the educational
institutions that they attend. Although the assumptions and
measures of the two cultural
approaches differ on many fronts, each attempts to explain how
students’ responses to
deficient social conditions outside the school affect behaviors
and attitudes of students
in the school, typically measured by poor school performance.
By posing the question
this way, each of the two approaches implies that the culture of
the schools is a culture of

learning, while certain students bring in conflicting cultural
values.
CULTURE AND RESISTANCE
In his many books and articles, John Ogbu sought to explain
why students of different
ethnic backgrounds perform unequally in the same schools.
Treating the school as a sin-
gle institution that treats all groups equally, Ogbu looks for
answers in the backgrounds
of the students. Among his contributions to the field, Ogbu
developed a Cultural Model
that represents recent immigrants and native-born minorities as
possessing separate cul-
tural schema—their respective understandings of how society
works and their place in
that working order. This is what Ogbu calls a “folk theory of
getting ahead” (Ogbu,
1992).
The new immigrant in this schema sees education as the main
means of bettering one-
self, of improving one’s present situation. This concept has
been used in support of the
“model minority” thesis, often in forms intended to disparage
the rest of the minorities
(Tang, 1997). Castelike in comparison, longstanding minority
groups develop their frame
of reference in opposition to the majority group. (Ogbu dropped
the term caste from his
later work, but retained the notion that members of some
minority groups perceive sig-
nificant widespread barriers against their social and economic
advancement. See Ogbu
and Davis, 2003.) American-born minorities, according to

Ogbu, often perceive them-
selves as victims of discrimination and as having fewer
opportunities than members of the
majority. Therefore, their folk theory of getting ahead does not
include education as a
viable alternative, since they do not expect the effort of
pursuing an education to pay off.
They see school as an institution serving the interests of the
majority. In developing their
oppositional cultural framework, they generate “alternative
theories of getting ahead” in
which formal education is not an element (Ogbu, 1992, 1993).
Ogbu’s point is not to
deny that discrimination, past or present, is real, but to
differentiate between groups that
are more or less attitudinally prepared to overcome such
problems. His insight is that
the effects of both discrimination and attempts to overcome
discrimination are mediated
by the minorities’ expectations of what they can realistically
achieve through legitimate
means.
This model has been criticized both theoretically and
empirically. First, as Gould (1999)
contends, while Ogbu’s model presumes that African Americans
possess the same natural
abilities as Whites and others, it credits them little agency in
finding ways to demonstrate
their abilities or to avoid the cultural trap of hopelessness and
helplessness. Yet, when
it comes to rationally assessing their future chances and the
probable returns on their
invested efforts, African American students are presumed to
rationally choose to achieve
less. In this model, “It makes sense for them to simply ‘make

do’ or drop out” (Gould,
1999, p. 176). The students who drop out are thus treated as
representative of the mindset
176
of the group, while the students who succeed, or strive to
succeed, are culturally deviant.
All of the agency and, hence, all of the value enactment, is
placed on the students who
fail.
Like Ogbu’s cultural model, both resistance theory and radical
pedagogy theories exam-
ine the role of social and economic deprivation in the
development of oppositional group
norms (Fine, 1991; Giroux, 1983, 1988; McLaren, 1989; Willis,
1977). Also consistent with
Ogbu’s work, these theories often conflate ethnic group
identification, immigrant status,
and working class status. Thus, working class membership
entails a form of social learning
to resist the dominant patterns of socialization that take place in
schools. This line of rea-
soning is consistent with, or draws on, Bourgois’ definition of
street culture as “a complex
and conflictual web of beliefs, symbols, modes of interaction,
values, and ideologies that
have emerged in opposition to exclusion from mainstream
society” (Bourgois, 1995, p. 8).
Oppositional cultural values include asserting one’s identity in
the face of authority, which

is contrasted with the White, middle class normative values of
seeking personal progress
through discipline and hard work. Nonwhite students who share
culturally normative val-
ues would then have to worry about being perceived as “giving
in” to a dominant White
culture (Fine, 1991; also McLaren, 1989).
All of these cultural models share the implicit assumption that
working class and/or
minority students—as a group norm—either do not accept or
actively reject both schools
and formal education. As Ogbu explains, students from the less
normative groups primar-
ily perceive educational opportunities in terms of dominance
and opposition. “To further
complicate these perceptions and interpretations, involuntary
minorities . . . usually do not
make a clear distinction between what they have to learn and do
to enhance their school
success (such as learning and using Standard English and
adopting standard school be-
havior practices) and the cultural frame of reference of their
‘oppressors,’ that is, the
White cultural frame of reference” (Ogbu 1990, p. 53).
Oppositional culture theories suggest first that many African
Americans choose not to
succeed academically, and second, that these students also
harass successful Black peers for
“acting White” (Fordham and Ogbu, 1986). Both of these
assumptions posit that students
perceive education as a White cultural value. Ironically, it is
oppositional culture theorists
that define attitudes toward education as a racial trait while
criticizing students for suppos-

edly doing so. Although some students do use the phrase “acting
White,” a variety of recent
studies, both quantitative (Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey,
1998; Cook and Ludwig, 1997)
and qualitative (Akom, 2003; Tyson, Darity, and Castellino,
2005), have raised questions
concerning the underlying theoretical assumption that non-
White students are thereby
alienated from educational goals. Farkas, Lleras, and Maczuga
(2002), for example, por-
tray competition between higher- and lower-achieving students
as a racially based cultural
trait. They critique the Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey study
for relying on successful
Black students’ self-reports that they are popular, without
giving equal weight to their
greater likelihood than comparable White students to report
being “put down” by other
students. Tyson, Darity, and Castellino (2005), however, find
that all high-performing
students suffer the “geek” stigma, but that the race factor tended
to be exacerbated in
cases where the Black students had only token representation in
the advanced classes, or
where the teachers and administrators themselves explicitly
invoked the “acting White”
hypothesis. That is, all successful students are labeled by their
peers. The “comparable”
White high-achievers, however, often form a larger block in a
heterogeneous school than
the relatively small group of Black students in the top classes.
Because they stand out twice,
177

CITY & COMMUNITY
their achievements are given a racial interpretation. As Tyson et
al. conclude, “It’s not ‘a
black thing.’” In order to explain students’ attitudes toward
education, it is therefore
necessary to investigate students’ meaning systems in addition
to their behaviors.
THE RESEARCH SITE
“This is Old Castle, Planet of no hope, disillusion and
frustration”
Old Castle Guidance Counselor
This research was conducted in an inner-city school located in
New York City. One of
the study participants observed that the building reminded him
of “an old haunted cas-
tle,” hence the code name “Old Castle” High. This nearly 100
percent minority school,
primarily African American (24.7 percent) and Latino (73
percent), was identified by
members of the New York City Board of Education as among
the 10 most difficult high
schools in New York City. Collectively, these schools “had high
dropout rates, they were
located in poor neighborhoods and a majority of their student
body led lives condi-
tioned by poverty, joblessness, social neglect and hopelessness”
(Board of Education,
nd:1).
Old Castle represents the kind of underfunded, overcrowded
schools to which many

immigrants and many lower class minority students are
relegated in the largest urban
centers, referred to by Devine (1996) as “lower tier schools.”
Both Old Castle’s dropout
rate, at 22 percent, and the percentage of students who take
more than 4 years to graduate,
at 33 percent, are higher than average but similar to other
lower-tier schools.
While Old Castle students have greater educational needs than
those in other New
York City high schools, they are taught by teachers who have
lower-than-average educa-
tional backgrounds and experience (see Figure 1). The study
site is one of the 10 most
overcrowded high schools in New York City with a utilization
rate of 157 percent (New
York City Board of Education, 1993–1994). At the time of the
research, Old Castle had 16
school safety officers on staff and 1 assistant principal whose
full-time responsibility was
security. The school, however, had only 10 guidance counselors
and 2 librarians for 2,225
students (Old Castle High School, 1996–1997 enrollment).
FIG. 1. Experience and educational background of Old Castle’s
teachers.
Source : 1993–1994 School Profile. New York City Board of
Education.
178

DATA COLLECTION
From the fall of 1989 to the fall of 1994, the first author worked
in Old Castle as tutor
and research assistant in a partnership between a New York
University and New York City
public school system. This work was followed by a period of
field observations in the
school’s classrooms, hallways, offices, and cafeteria throughout
the spring of 1995. He
observed classrooms, held informal interviews with teachers and
students in both English
and Spanish, and spoke with guidance counselors and other
school staff. Insights gained
from these observations were subsequently reflected in the
formal interviews and focus
groups. In this way, the students were able to not only tell their
own stories but also to
provide their interpretations of the fights and other conflict
incidents that had occurred
during the period of observations.
From a pool of students whom the author met during the first
months of field-
work, 12 students were selected for participation in the study: 6
new immigrants and 6
American-born. The criteria for inclusion reflected an effort to
represent a wide array of
variability within the groups in the sample. For the new
immigrants, we included differ-
ent geographic origin (Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico),
different lengths of stay
(recent arrivals, 3–4 years in the United States), and different
English ability (fluent, very
limited). For both American-born and new immigrants, we

included those attending dif-
ferent grades and variance in their academic ability and
classroom and school attendance.
The 12 students were interviewed in depth twice: once at the
start of the research and
once approximately a year and half later. Each of the principal
students gave us further
access to their own immediate social networks, though we did
not formally interview the
friends of the informants.
The student informants varied widely in their academic
performance and their com-
mitment to and perception of the high school. Among the new
immigrants, three (Pablo,
12th grade, Anastasio, 12th grade, and Yanira, 10th grade) were
from the Dominican
Republic, as are the majority of immigrant families in the
neighborhood. One (Alexis,
9th grade) was from Puerto Rico. Of the four American-born
students, three (Sylvia, 12th
grade, Anne, 11th grade, and Akin, 11th grade) were African
American. Chanel, while
born in the United States, was of Latin descent. Her parents
were originally from Puerto
Rico. Ten of those students (five U.S.-born, four recent
immigrants, and one immigrant
raised in the United States) agreed to participate in in-depth
interviews, though two of
them did not complete the data-collection process. Those
students with the least commit-
ment to school thereby also demonstrated the least commitment
to research. Rather than
drop them entirely, for failing to complete the second interview,
we worked with them
for as long as they remained in the study, providing field

observations and some “con-
versational” data. The other students who were not interviewed
also provided occasional
comments or explanations throughout the fieldwork. Our
experiences with the students
revealed issues in the students’ lives and attitudes that would
have been lost to a more
strict definition of subject “participation.”
Two focus groups were held: one with new immigrants and one
with U.S.-born students.
The focus groups were tape recorded, transcribed, coded, and
analyzed for students’
perceptions regarding safety issues and academics, and their
reactions during violent
events. The focus groups were designed to explore the meanings
of the observed inter-
actions from the students’ perspectives. Students were asked
about general conditions in
the school, group dynamics among sets of students (or between
students and faculty),
179
CITY & COMMUNITY
and their own experiences and goals. Students interpreted
specific observed incidents for
us, and described additional events in order to further educate
the researchers on our
topic.
Group discussions and interview data revealed a complex
“reading” of the school envi-

ronment by the students, and an ongoing adjustment on their
educational commitment
based on the school conditions, their experiences and
expectations from school staff. The
group discussions also provided us with the opportunity to
evaluate the face validity of
the various models. Notably, African American students reacted
with visible surprise to
the notion that school performance was equated with “acting
White.” Their reactions
led to a number of interesting statements about the value of
education, incorporated
below.
Comparing responses between the two groups, we were struck
by the similarities in
their future aspirations, their experiences in Old Castle, and the
changing attitudes and
commitments toward education. Both groups of students often
referred to the difficult
circumstances they were facing in school as an explanation for
changes in their own
approaches to school. Driven by students’ emphasis on the
circumstances they face while
attending Old Castle, we shifted our attention from cultural
characteristics of “inner city
students” to the students’ perceptions and experiences of the
school and its effect on their
academic commitment.
CODE OF THE STREET IN THE SCHOOL
Student informants have suggested that there are social rules
concerning violence and
competition in the schools that remain outside the purview of
the school’s administration.

One African American student, Daniel, introduced himself as a
representative of the gang
Zulu Nation. He explained the way he deals with the problems
he and “his people” (friends
and other gang members) face at Old Castle.
The only way people understand in Old Castle is with the fist. If
you don’t get respect
people will walk all over you, they will push you around . . . .
You got to show that you
are not weak.
(Daniel, 11th grade)
Raul (10th grade, new immigrant) and Kevin (11th grade,
American-born) offer no
pretense of working within the rules of the school system. They
know the rules but they
do not take them seriously. During one day of observations,
Kevin spent the first three
periods running from floor to floor hiding from the security
guards and entering the
classrooms of his friends in order to socialize. Raul also spends
much of his time in classes
other than his own in order to visit friends. In one day, he
disrupted three separate classes
by entering and leaving as he wished. In all three cases, the
teachers made initial attempts
to stop him, but all of them then backed down.
Students are fearful of their safety and are subject to threats and
constant intimida-
tion. Fights are a daily event in Old Castle. They are regularly
seen in the hallways. They
become public events that appear to be almost a spectator sport.
Students often engage

in other disruptive behaviors that flout school rules, sometimes
as a way to increase social
interaction with their peers and sometimes as a way for those
who have disengaged from
the educational process to occupy themselves. Some students
exhibit remarkable disdain
180
for the teachers and staff, ranging from simply ignoring what
they are told to threatening
or, in one case, punching school officials. Disruptive students
are often allowed to remain
in the classroom despite their total disregard for the academic
process, or return to them
after having been kicked out. These students frequently taunt
their teachers throughout
the classes, to the apparent annoyance of a majority of the class,
but with occasional sup-
port from some of the others. The teachers lose their authority
and their warnings of not
giving a student a passing grade or issuing a “pink card,” which
presumes disciplinary
action will be taken, are not considered serious threats. Three of
our informants have
been found carrying weapons or have described to us how they
smuggle weapons past the
metal detectors at the school entrances.
During the time of our fieldwork, Daniel demonstrated how
gang rules can supercede
classroom rules. Daniel and three of his friends entered a

classroom while an English
class was in session to get their friend Manuel. Disregarding the
teacher’s request not
to disrupt the lesson, Daniel began to loudly explain in front of
the class that some-
body “had messed up” a girlfriend of one of their friends. Now
Daniel and his friends
were gathering during classroom time “to teach this student a
lesson.” Manuel left
with them to retaliate. Other incidents reported to us by
students and teachers in-
cluded an attempted rape of one student and an assault against a
teacher by another
student.
The disruptive students’ explanations and stories suggest that
they have adjusted the
degree of violence enacted in the schools as a negotiation
between what they perceived was
necessary and what they perceived was considered either normal
or at least practicable. D
described how he and his friends started “digging people’s
pockets.”
Like we would see a couple of kids against the wall, all right,
and we would go up
to him and we was like, ‘yo what you have in your pockets?’
And, you know, if he
had money that we wanted, we would take it. And it started
getting serious when,
you know, the school didn’t really, nobody really wanted to be
like, ‘well these guys
did this, these guys did that, cause,’ they know what happens.
One evening, we
approached a kid in the stairway and they threw like a hood
over the kid’s head and

started taking his money out of his pockets. But this kid instead
of, well he only had
like two dollars, and instead of giving up the money easily, he
decided that he wanted
to fight and put up a struggle. So what my friend did, was just
kick him down the
steps. So after seeing that and the way that kid was, was, you
know, hurt, it brought
the whole digging pockets thing to a different level.
(D, 12th grade)
In this incident, the students seemed almost surprised by the
amount of violence they
were able to enact, and more so by the relative lack of
consequences for their actions.
Such incidents feed into some of the students’ reading of the
school as an extension of
street and their role in “ruling it.” D further described an event
in which he and other
friends, while roaming the hallways, had a violent encounter
with a student. This student
had closed his classroom door in D’s face because the class was
in session while D was
trying to check if a friend was inside. D felt disrespected and
called this student outside
the classroom. D and his friends beat him so badly that he
needed hospitalization. D’s
description gives the event an air of inevitability, as though he
and his friends had no
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CITY & COMMUNITY

choice but to assault the other student because the student had
failed to give the “respect”
that D and his friends would command in the street.
So I tell him this [that they have to fight] and he looks at me
and by the time he
knew it, he was just catching lumps. By the time he knew it, I
hit him. He fell and
then when he got back up and we started fighting, somebody
grabbed him from the
back, slammed him into the wall. Then, you know, he caught
some timberlands in
his face and, . . . by the time we all got off of him, . . . it was
sad. I feel sorry now that I
had to do it, but you know. By the time we got off of him, his
mouth was busted, his
nose was busted.
(D, 12th grade)
This ecological limbo where it is not clear whether or not the
institution is in control
of its own environment creates the sense that there is no
authority in the school. This
allows some of the students to think that “they are running the
place,” as some students
expressed it. In D’s descriptions of the beatings in the stairs and
outside a classroom, for
example, the issue of teacher authority was not even mentioned
as a concern.
In the same fashion that the public space of the neighborhood
has been taken over by
street ethos, the school has increasingly lost control of its
environment to those same street

forms of behavior. This has forced all of the students to adapt
and deal with the “street
environment” in Old Castle while they pursue their educational
careers. New immigrants
and American-born students all made reference to their need to
know and understand
the street codes of behavior for safety purposes.
ATTITUDES TOWARD EDUCATION VERSUS ATTITUDES
TOWARD SCHOOL
American-born students from minority ethnic groups in our
sample did not perceive
education to be a tool of White domination. Nor did they
associate educational success with
commitment to White majority culture or denial of their own.
Many new immigrants do
operate under a dual frame of reference (Ogbu, 1993). They
generally consider themselves
better off in their adopted country, and often believe that any
obstacles or hardships they
face in the United States can be overcome. But other elements
of the cultural models
fail to describe these students’ lives or their expectations. The
American-born students,
for example, are more critical of their high school experiences
than are new immigrants.
Contrary to what would be expected using cultural explanations,
most of the American-
born students in our study embrace education as a necessary
and, for some, the only tool
available to provide possible upward mobility. Part of the
resentment or hostility that some
of them expressed for the school derived from their perception
that the school was not
interested in educating them, that many teachers are there “just

to get their pay check.”
The students had expected more.
While the new immigrant students tended to explain the
shortcomings of Old Castle as
the result of “bad students,” the American-born students held
the institution responsible
for not responding to their needs. One student, Kevin, showed
visible anger at the thought
that he was being denied the opportunity to get an education
because the expectations of
the school were so low. “People don’t care, they don’t care
about teaching. [Old Castle] is
a fucking bootleg, bottom gray high school. They want to close
it.” Yet many students still
182
seek to participate in the culture that the school supposedly
represents. For example, Akin
embraced education as a means of upward mobility and was
encouraged by his mother to
do so.
[My mother] says “get that high school diploma. You can’t get
no where without it,”
and I see a lot of people that couldn’t go nowhere without it.
Akin (11th grade)
In a similar vein, Anne’s family felt education was important.
Her oldest sister had

graduated from high school, setting an example that Anne tried
to follow. Her mother
encouraged her to remain in school, emphasizing the importance
of education as the
primary determinant of future upward mobility.
She [my mother] just tells us the same things the other parents
say. Stay in school.
You know you have to stay, ‘cause you can’t get anywhere
without an education. And
not just a high school education, because that is settling for
less. If you want more
out of life, you have to go high. You can’t get afraid. Just go
for the gold.
Both Chanel and Sylvia reported disillusionment with schooling
while in Old Castle.
Chanel’s attendance had become sporadic and her grades had
suffered. She considered
dropping out. She was transferred to an alternative school
because of poor attendance.
Once in her new school, Chanel reported a renewed enthusiasm
for learning and resumed
her plans to attend college. Sylvia, on the other hand, had
entered Old Castle excited about
the prospects for her education. She remained in Old Castle
until graduation, although
by that time she had lost interest in further studies. Both
students were leaning toward
the academic path but were discouraged by their experiences in
Old Castle. Chanel was
able to regain her original interest in academic work only after
attending the slightly
more supportive environment of an alternative high school with
smaller classrooms and
more experienced and committed teachers in a supportive and

safer environment. Sylvia,
lacking these opportunities, merely passed through the system
with little attachment to
school, deriving little from the experience.
Both groups, immigrant and American-born, had similar “folk
theories of getting
ahead.” Students from both backgrounds expressed a desire to
attend college. Further-
more, both groups had similar academic performance measured
by their GPAs (Board of
Education, 1994).
All students in the sample reported having difficulties keeping
their focus on educa-
tion, and many related these difficulties directly to various
aspects of the school itself,
including the actions of faculty, administration, and other
students. Both new immigrants
and American-born students viewed their school environment as
an impediment to their
learning. The students’ descriptions of their time in school
indicated that most students,
who were both working class and minority group members,
resented the fact that educa-
tional attainment was so elusive in Old Castle. They reported a
desire for more structure,
greater discipline for disruptive students, and higher academic
quality in their classes.
The concerns expressed by the students were not that
educational attainment in general
would not pay off in life, but that the education that they got
was not worth the effort. The
students wanted to participate in the normal, mainstream
processes of going to school

and getting an education. But they felt frustrated in their
efforts. For example, Sylvia
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CITY & COMMUNITY
complained that Old Castle “did not academically prepare you
for anything, except for a
couple of teachers who try.” Sylvia, like many other students,
talked about the need for
stricter teachers to control the disruptive students. She wanted
to see more structure and
a stronger presence of authority in the school.
They had a problem controlling kids. And you know Catholic
schools run so well,
‘cause they have rules. And you know the teachers are strict.
Security is strict there, I
guess. In Old Castle, the guards, if you get cool with them, you
can basically do what
you want.
Sylvia (12th grade)
Students in the sample made a clear distinction between those
who are in school for a
reason and those who only disrupt. They criticized the
disruptive students, describing their
comportment as “it’s like they’re in the streets.” Some students
actively requested better
behavior from those who disrupted the classes. Anne would
often take a stance in front
of her peers, asking those who were misbehaving to stop. She

described her experience
in an English class:
Yeah, when I first came in to the class . . . my teacher used to
put “Aim” on the board
and they used to throw papers at him, things like that . . . . But
the students stopped
that because a lot a people would get upset with them like
myself and we would tell
them that it was wrong . . . . And they would get upset, but they
stopped doing things
like that. But they still talk in class, or scream out, or curse at
the teacher. But he’s a
nice teacher.
New immigrants especially expressed shock at the misbehavior
of some fellow students.
They expressed a desire for teachers and administrators to
control the disruptive behav-
iors. Yanira, who was born in the Dominican Republic and
migrated to New York 2 years
earlier, expressed her dismay about what she found while
attending her new American
high school in the following terms:
One of the things that I found most difficult to deal with was
that some [students]
don’t give education the importance it deserves. Some cut
[classes], others are only
concerned about their boyfriends or girlfriends. Also, some
teachers don’t care about
education they only care about how much they’re going to be
paid . . . . I knew this
existed but I never thought it would be with such carelessness.
What was most surprising to students in the immigrant group

was the apparent capitu-
lation of school officials to students’ bad behavior, rule
breaking, and disrespect toward
school staff. Students could get away with behaviors that would
have met with immediate
repercussions in their home countries. New immigrants almost
unanimously desired more
severe discipline for disruptive students.
They [teachers] should talk to the student who doesn’t care
about his/her education
and give him/her two or three opportunities. After those
opportunities if they still
don’t like education they should be expelled. Because all they
do is waste government
money, waste their time and make us [“good” students] feel bad,
calling us names
and bothering the teachers.
(Immigrant student focus group)
184
The students complained that teachers spent so much time
trying to quiet down unruly
students that they did not have time to teach class. Students felt
that student misbehavior
is a loss for them “because they don’t let you study, behaving
noisily and disorderly, then
those who want to learn cannot learn.”
THE INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSE TO THE CODE OF THE

STREET: CONTAINMENT
Teachers are not trained or supported to respond to student
disruptions. One newly hired
science teacher, Mr. A, learned about street codes in the school
through his confrontation
with Monk, a third-year Old Castle student. Monk had been
arrested and placed on proba-
tion for shooting someone who had threatened his cousin. On
one occasion, Monk threw
Mr. A’s papers and briefcase off of his desk and onto the floor
and ran from the classroom.
Mr. A called a security guard who wrapped his arm around
Monk’s back and walked him
to the end of the hallway. There he let Monk walk away to cool
off. (“You don’t want to be
on this guy’s bad side,” the guard explained.) Five minutes later
Monk was back knocking
at the classroom door. When Mr. A opened the door, Monk
walked away, ignoring Mr. A
and came to speak to the field researcher. He complained of his
arrest, explaining that
the teen whom he had shot was after his cousin for getting a girl
pregnant. Asked why he
was in school, Monk said, “It is part of my probation
requirements.”
Mr. A did not understand why Monk, who had been escorted
from his class by a security
guard, was back at the door disrupting his teaching. He looked
to see if anyone was nearby
who could help and support him, but there was no one. Mr. A
expressed his outrage about
what had just happened to a science teacher who passed by. The
teacher replied, “You will
soon get used to it,” and continued on his way.

Such events are common in classrooms throughout Old Castle.
Students cause com-
motion and leave classrooms, then return and continue harassing
teachers. More often,
students causing difficulties do not leave. While some teachers
are better equipped to han-
dle this type of situation, many, including new teachers, are not
prepared for the disrespect
and abuse they face from some students. With each incident, a
room full of students misses
one day’s course work. With each unresolved confrontation, or
each encounter in which
the school’s rules give way to the street behavior, the teachers
and the students become
accustomed to such events as part of their school routine.
Faculty withdrawal from this
losing battle contributes to the resocialization of future
students, who are amazed at what
the school expects of them as a group. Thus, the serious
unaddressed disruptions of a few
students reshape the educational process of the whole student
body.
Teachers suffer as much as anyone from the failure of
academics in the schools, and the
best teachers, with seniority and options, avoid working there.
For those who remain, the
inability to complete a lesson, or to present it without undue
interruption, means that they
cannot expect even the most committed students to learn what
they are teaching. This
lowers the requirements for passing, increases the boredom and
futility of the classroom
environment, and exacerbates the dominance of the street codes.
Students who try to

remain engaged perceive the lessons as meaningless drills, and
the class content as “too
easy.” When students are unable to remain interested in their
work, they find other things
to do, which increases the level of disruption. Even for those
who do their work and avoid
violence and confrontation, they can roam the halls or cut class
at will and still pass. In
the end, the teachers can barely teach in Old Castle, and the
students can barely learn.
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CITY & COMMUNITY
Lacking other resources to maintain order, teachers rely on the
security guards and
weapon searches to at least contain the violence. Yet none of
the students indicated any
sense of being on the same side as the guards or administrators
against those who caused
trouble. Instead, much as you find in a prison, students
described the security and admin-
istrative systems as an attempt to control the students in a
general sense.
STUDENT RESPONSES TO THE CODE OF THE STREET:
SITUATIONAL CODE SWITCHING
Informants reported having once assumed that the school
environment would be substan-
tially different from the street, or even that the school would be
a protective space off of
the street. However, the failure of that assumption led them to

reconsider their priorities.
The impact that street codes have had on their learning
environment is so substantial that
they recognized the need to adjust their expectations of school
in order to cope with it.
Sylvia described how her experiences in school had altered her
expectations about her
own education and her behaviors regarding her commitment to
schoolwork. She found
Old Castle in such disarray that she felt the need to become
“street smart.”
I was going to go to college, to be smart, like on TV. Like they
move away from
their parent’s home, go live in a dorm, and go meet a bunch of
friends, go through
problems, struggle through college, and then get a good job. I
thought that was
going to happen. Like I said I used to live TV so, if it didn’t
happen on TV . . . . I was
very confused. I thought it wasn’t supposed to go like this, what
am I supposed to do
now. I wasn’t street smart. I didn’t know the real world.
Sylvia (African American, 12th grade)
Attending Old Castle required that the students defend
themselves using the same
forms of behavior engendered by street codes. Some students
talk about needing to “act
bad” so that they are not constantly bothered and picked on.
Pablo, who indicated that he
was aware that some students steal in the school but that he
would not be easily robbed,
provided one example.

It’s difficult to be a good student in high school. At times the
good students get in
trouble because they are quiet. At times one has to act bad to
gain respect, from
himself and from others. Because if you don’t respect yourself,
they [other students]
are going to play with you. You have to teach them. Here, in
this high school, it’s
very difficult. For me, it’s hard to study because most students
who come here, they
come to bother.
Pablo (new immigrant, 12th grade)
The students’ versatility and ability to switch from street codes
to school codes is also
evident in Anastasio’s conscious effort to distance himself
while in school from his closest
friends who are more street oriented. He does so to remain fully
committed to his academic
work.
It was a positive change [being more committed to his academic
work]. Something
that many people should do. I had friends and I told them, “We
can be friends but
after school . . .” This is what I do now. If in the school my
friends approach me and
186
say “Come with us . . . just for an hour . . . let’s have fun,” I

tell them that “I’ll be right
there” but I don’t go. I go fast, directly to my classroom. It’s a
matter of keeping
myself a little distant.
Anastasio (new immigrant, 12 grade)
This distancing did not prevent Anastasio from doing what he
considered necessary to
prevent his reputation from being damaged. On one occasion, he
was attacked outside
the school. In response, he and his friends picked up some
baseball bats and went to
look for the attackers. Asked why he did not run, he answered,
“And my reputation?
One’s reputation is the most important thing.” This engagement
in street behavior did
not impede him from making a clear distinction between what
was happening in the
street while asserting his commitment to education as a pathway
to his future goal. In his
schema, education is the pathway to a positive future, to
becoming a professional, and the
street codes represents the danger of becoming a “nobody.”
If I study I am a professional. When I go to my country I will be
very happy knowing
that they know I am a professional here. My career is useful
here [US] and there
[Dominican Republic]. . . . If I put myself on a corner selling
drugs . . . I am nobody.
Students came to school with a set of expectations (learning in
an academic environ-
ment without having to be concerned for their safety). Yet,
many found, they needed

to first deal with the street behavior they found in school.
Contrary to theory, these stu-
dents are not dismissive of formal education. Rather, their
investment and commitment is
greater since school requires both academics and learning how
to navigate the code of the
street to remain safe while there. Given the environment in
which they found themselves,
the ecology of conflict in the school, students must make
rational “presentation of self”
decisions. Forming protective alliances with other students,
standing up to threats, and
even pretending not to study are all forms of behavior that can
help them to stay in school,
attend class, and do their work.
CONCLUSION: THE SCHOOL AS A DETERRENT TO
EDUCATION
Why do so many students enter secondary schools with a belief
in education and a com-
mitment to schooling, and leave without it? One can read in the
work of John Ogbu
and other cultural approaches the suggestion that minority
students come to recognize
or expect that their achievements in school will be devalued
outside of school, and so
they lower their expectations. If this is at all true then we still
need to ask where and
how students learn this image of what the world expects of
them. In many cases, it is the
students’ experiences in the schools that teach them that
different “norms” are applied
to them. Students know the school codes—the norms and values
they wish the school was
run by—as well as the street codes. They recognize which sets

of codes are in effect in
their interactions with teachers and administrators as well as
with other students. Many
students hope that educational attainment will free them from
the poverty and codes of
conduct regulated by violence that they commonly refer to as
“the street.” Once in school,
however, they find that the school is not only ill-equipped to
control the presence of street
codes, but that it often does not even provide an alternative
model of values or behavior.
187
CITY & COMMUNITY
In the students’ perceptions, the school does not see them as
allies in education or as
victims of the disruptive environment. Instead, they are
frequently treated as the source of
the problem, as hopeless cases against whom the school
struggles. This condition actually
follows not from Ogbu’s explanatory framework, but from the
widespread acceptance of
it. Ogbu has argued that African American students reject
school because it is not part of
their folk theory of success and because applying oneself in
school is equivalent to acting
White. A logical corollary to this argument is that few, if any,
educational reforms would
be successful since ultimately education would still be
perceived as serving the interests
of the majority group. This is a very complacent argument for
those who are reticent to

support an improvement of those schools that serve minority
students on the grounds
that “they don’t care about school anyway.”
There is a circular logic underlying such arguments, in which
the lower achievements of
some groups of students becomes evidence of their own lack of
interest in education. The
present study questions Ogbu’s and the social resistance
theorists’ assumption that working
class students do not welcome, and oftentimes actively reject,
education. Instead, we have
found that students’ commitment to education changes during
their school years. There
are times when one is fully committed and engaged in the
educational process and other
times when a student shifts his or her priorities to include other
interests and/or meet
other needs. Students respond to the ways in which they are
treated by the educational
institutions they attend. This simple observation calls for the
use of more fluid categories
in research in this field when looking at student performance
and behavior.
Educational outcomes are clearly a product of the interaction
between students and
school officials, incorporating the assumptions that each hold
about the other. In this study
we have shown that students in the most troubled schools who
face consistent negative
expectations do not receive much of either education or
encouragement to learn. It is
important to determine whether this exists in most inner-city
schools. Qualifying when
and how working class and minority students engage in or reject

school, and determining
the effect that the school environment has on a student’s
educational commitment, would
help us to better understand the educational process in the inner
city.
Despite the gloomy picture in Old Castle, there were many
instances in which both
teachers and students made a great deal of effort to move
forward as though they were
in a “normal” classroom environment. Anne liked and felt
challenged by some of her
classes, but referred to others as “a circus.” Anastasio hardly
knew how to add or subtract
when he entered Old Castle, but acquired basic algebra skills by
his fourth year. The
school ethos is visible in many of the classrooms. But it is
fragile. Under conditions where
some students carry and use weapons, where classroom
disruption is the norm, where
threats and violence are common, the authority of teachers at
times simply does not carry
weight. The school’s response, moving resources from
education to security, may serve
some purposes, but it exacerbates the sense of violence and
confirms the worldview of
the street gangs rather than that of the students. For those
students actively engaged in
street type of behavior, defeating the security guards and metal
detectors becomes the
only challenge they actually face in school. For the rest, being
perceived and treated as
threats rather than as students conveys an important lesson
about survival in the “real”
world.

There is evidence that, in response to these challenges, it is the
school system rather
than its student body that has adopted a different set of cultural
values. Having grown
accustomed to the idea that inner-city minority students from
“socially disorganized”
188
neighborhoods are unteachable, and that education is an
unrealistic goal for the school
to set for students, the school system and many teachers have
altered their goals and
norms. In many cases, teachers have requested that students at
least keep their note-
books open so that it might seem as though they were working.
This adaptation was
institutionalized at the start of the 1995–1996 academic year
when the administration
announced that there would be notebook checks at the door to
ensure that all students
bring pens and notebooks to school. While possibly providing
the school with a way of
identifying those students who were only there to cause trouble,
to students, the announce-
ment codified the idea that the school would accept a reasonable
pretense of academic
interest.
In such an environment, it is not primarily the lack of long-term
prospects for employ-
ment and cultural integration that turns students away from

education; it is the conditions
of the school. There is little the school can do to retain those
who have already determined
not to follow the path of education, but, by crowding dozens of
such students into schools
working at overcapacity with relatively few teachers, little
academic support or career
guidance, and no clear sense of purpose, the school system in
schools like Old Castle is
surrendering its obligations to the majority of the students who
actually want an education.
Where educational outcomes differ by ethnicity in higher-
performing schools, we would
like to know more about the cultures and expectations of those
schools.
Street behavior is not the prevailing cultural model, but it has a
powerful presence
that disturbs the possibility of academic work. The data
presented here show that many
students only enact street codes when compelled to do so as a
form of protection; they
also show that even those students who were not versed in street
behavior were forced to
learn it in Old Castle. This indicates a wide scope of situation-
specific variation that is dif-
ferent from what would be expected if the behaviors derived
from homogenous cultural
traits. Misbehavior in school has many practical purposes, many
of which function as a
byproduct of the street codes in the school. “Resistance” to
cultural dominance does not
appear to be one of them. When researchers categorize
destructive street codes as resis-
tance practices, we risk romanticizing pernicious behaviors that
contribute to community

disorganization. Research that focuses on the students’ “cultural
assumptions” translates
the social, economic, and political conditions that constrain
their lives and their schools
into artifacts of their own perceptions and “folk theories.” Their
problems suddenly have
little or nothing to do with education policies or public
priorities.
While this research leads us to suspect that differential
institutional expectations in less-
crowded, better-funded schools must partially explain
differences in educational attain-
ment by race there, we have not yet tested this idea. Some of the
research that we critique
centered on questions of test score differences by ethnicity
within individual schools, which
we also do not address here. Furthermore, the school in which
this research took place is
on the extreme low end of the spectrum of greater to lesser
effectiveness, and our sample
of key informants is too small even to fully represent that one
school. Nonetheless, it is
clear that the consistently poor performance of students in this
school can be explained
and predicted almost without reference to the students
themselves. The environment of
such schools simply does not promote, or sometimes even
allow, learning. As Noguera has
argued, “Cultural theories that attempt to explain the link
between race and academic
performance generally locate the cause of the problem within
students (i.e., lack of moti-
vation, devaluing academic pursuits, etc.) and in so doing,
effectively absolve educational
institutions of responsibility for finding solutions” (2001:19).

189
CITY & COMMUNITY
The adoption of street codes explains the presence of disruptive
behavior in school
without defining it as a byproduct of inner-city students’
ethnicity or class. Although we
found some students who fit elements of the cultural models,
our data indicate that most
of the students did not perceive education as being in opposition
to their own beliefs
and goals. Far from it. For the students in this study, behaving
“street” rarely qualifies
as an opportunity for personal dignity. It has little to do with
resistance against racism
and economic marginalization, and far more to do with
navigating the web of violence
that surrounds them and delimits their opportunities. Our
research clearly indicates that
those most harmed by the presence of the “code of the street” in
school are the students
themselves, a fact of which the students are well aware.
The presence of students engaging in street behavior,
compounded with the admin-
istrators’ inability to respond, has forced all students to adapt
and deal with the “street
environment” in Old Castle. New immigrants and American-
born students all made refer-
ence to their need to learn and understand the street codes of
behavior for safety purposes.
This indicates that instead of coming to school with an opposing

set of beliefs, students
learn how to respond to street codes while in school. They
would prefer to receive an
education, but in doing so they must learn how to remain safe.
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