Failing at School: Lessons for Redesigning Urban High Schools

by Camille A. Farrington, Patricia A. Wasley, Ann Lieberman, Joseph P. McDonald

Overview

Roughly half of all incoming ninth-graders across urban districts will fail classes and drop out of school without a diploma. Failing at School starts with the premise that urban American high schools generate such widespread student failure not because of some fault of the students who attend them, but because high schools were designed to stratify achievement and let only the top performers advance to higher levels of education. This design is particularly detrimental for low-income, racial/ethnic minority students. To get different results, Farrington proposes fundamental changes based on what we now know about how students learn, what motivates them to engage in learning, and what kinds of educational systems and structures would best support their learning.

Book Features:

• Offers concrete strategies for redesigning high schools based on four dimensions of student achievement—structural, academic, developmental, and motivational.
• Highlights the voices of students to illustrate fundamental problems with the way we currently “do school.”
• Addresses the new Common Core State Standards and the potential of this major reform effort to move us toward equity and excellence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807755167
Publisher:	Teachers College Press
Publication date:	03/07/2014
Series:	the series on school reform
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Camille A. Farrington is a research associate (assistant professor) at The University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and the Consortium on Chicago School Research. She is also director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment for the Network for College Success.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword Ann Lieberman ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Part I Reflecting

Introduction: Failure in Urban American High Schools 3

Fourteen Students Negotiating Failure 5

Selection and Stratification or Equity and Excellence? 6

Organization of the Chapters 8

Urban High Schools, a Changing Economy, and the Challenge of the Common Core 10

1 What We See Versus What We Seek: Faces of Failure in Urban High Schools 13

Failing Monique 13

The Lives of Adolescents and the Assumptions of High School 15

The Prevalence of High School Failure 16

Paying Attention to Ninth-Grade Failure 20

Four Dimensions of Student Achievement 21

The Long-Term Consequences of Dropping Out of School 23

Poverty Exacerbates Failure 24

2 How We Got Here: Tracing the Origins of High School Failure 27

Standardized Instruction Produced Widespread Failure 27

Meritocracy Rationalized Widespread Failure 29

Time, Grades, and Credits Defined Academic Success and Failure 33

The Limits of Meritocracy 40

3 What We Now Know About Learning 45

What Matters for Motivation and Learning 45

The Teacher's Conundrum 56

Part II Studying Failure

4 Looking Closely at Failure: Fourteen Students in Three Urban High Schools 61

Study 1 A Pilot Study of Students' Experiences of Failure 61

Study 2 How Classrooms and Schools Shape Student Failure 64

Three Urban American High Schools Trying to Get It Right 67

Fourteen Students Contending with Failure 71

5 10,000 Ways That Won't Work: The Frustration of Academic Failure 75

Why Students Failed 76

Getting What They Deserve 81

How It Feels to Fail 83

The Need to Change 84

"Boring and Learning Don't Mix" 91

Applying Psychological Research to Student Experience 93

6 Falling into an Abyss: The Role of Grading in Student Failure 95

Grading Practices Impede Recovery from Failure 96

Late Work Policies Make It Difficult to Catch Up 102

Critiques of Grading in Maxwell High School Classrooms 107

Comparing Student Experiences in Grading Systems Across Three Schools 107

7 Credits Are No Joke: Remediation and Recovery Structures Across Three Schools 111

Remediation, Credit Recovery, and Four Dimensions of Student Achievement 112

Academic, Motivational, and Developmental Dimensions of Remediation and Recovery 124

How Remediation and Recovery Programs Affected Students' Success 126

Structuring Failure 129

Doing the Same Thing and Expecting Different Results 131

8 Teacher Practices That Support Student Effort 133

"I Can Succeed at This" 134

"This Work Has Value for Me" 138

The Motivational Dimension of Student Achievement 139

Part III Going Forward

9 Motivation, Capacity, Competence, Opportunity: Redesigning Urban High Schools for Student Success 143

Learning, Failure, and the Common Core 146

Schools That Support Motivation, Build Capacity, Expand Competence, and Structure Opportunity 147

Redesigning Urban High Schools for the 21st Century 162

Notes 163

References 167

Index 181

About the Author 192

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Groundbreaking and eye-opening.... I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in getting beyond the typical talking points of school reform.”
—Grant Wiggins, Authentic Education

“An important contribution to the re-visioning of American high schools.”
—Ronald F. Ferguson, Achievement Gap Initiative, Harvard University

"Why is there such a pattern of failure in urban high schools? This is a vital issue for every city in America. Camille Farrington’s analysis of the roots of this problem and suggestions for structural changes to break this cycle is the best I have seen. This book combines research and practitioner wisdom with common sense and heart, and for those of us engaged in this work, presents concrete directions for positive change."
—Ron Berger, chief academic officer, Expeditionary Learning