In the blink of an eye, culture has become the culprit in the scandal engulfing the Atlanta Public Schools. And it’s about time. I’m thrilled that culture has taken center stage and assumed its place as a key factor in the education reform debate.
The GBI’s 800-page report on the cheating scandal castigated Superintendent Beverly Hall and the district for a deeply embedded culture of cheating, cover-ups, obstruction, and fear. The report paints a vivid picture of how a pernicious culture harmed thousands of APS students. What’s missing, however, is an equally vivid picture of how a culture built around academic achievement can help students.
I’ve long been interested in the opportunity to leverage culture, particularly peer and school culture, as a conduit for improving student outcomes. I was inspired to co-found the W.E.B. Du Bois Society seven years ago in large part because I thought culture was the elephant in the room, a key and missing ingredient in our education reform debate.
There are minority groups in this country that consistently perform at the very highest levels. Jewish, Chinese, Indian, African and Japanese students benefit from a group culture that reveres education. These cultures developed over centuries in different parts of the world and were brought here by the grandparents and parents of the students now excelling. The issue that intrigues me is whether other minority groups, particularly blacks and Latinos, can purposefully create comparable cultures that will drive higher levels of academic achievement.
In the early days of the Du Bois Society, when I talked with parents, business leaders, educators and policymakers about the impact of popular and school culture on children’s educational outcomes, I received bemused and puzzled looks that suggested I might be crazy or naïve or both.
From those conversations I learned that where education is concerned, many of us view culture as not at all central to moving the needle on student achievement. We see it as a soft, amorphous concept much too big to be influenced or changed. Then as now, everyone was clear that our public education solutions lay in early childhood education, or better teachers, or more engaged parents, or increased accountability.
One clear outcome of the APS calamity has been that culture has made its debut in a very public and not so flattering way. In this example, school culture, much like peer culture, has been identified as a negative force to be reckoned with rather than as a positive one that is an agent for the attainment of goals and outcomes.
As all eyes are now focused on culture, I’m reminded of the adage that cautions us to be careful of what we wish for. What all of us should want in our schools and districts are cultures that respect, expect and reward achievement — cultures that have a positive and reinforcing agency.
Shifting the APS culture from where it is today to one that produces the academic outcomes Atlanta’s children and our country need may appear to be a daunting task, but it can be done. Corporations such as Apple and Walmart take the building and maintenance of culture seriously.
School should do no less. If all involved step way back, they’ll see the opportunity to shift the culture in a really profound way — way beyond eradicating cheating.
The thing about finally acknowledging the elephant in the room is that once you see it, it’s too big to continue to ignore.
Etienne R. LeGrand is president of the W.E.B. Du Bois Society.
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