From: Changing Schools, Fall 1990
ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION:
THE DEFINITION PROBLEM
by Mary Anne Raywid
At the closing of this year’s National Alternative Schools Conference, those attending could not agree to endorse a petition to make National Alternative Schools Day a part of National Education Week. The impasse that developed over what might seem a winning proposal for The International Affiliation of Alternative School Associations and Personnel (IAASAP) echoed some lasting difficulties. There are real disagreements within the group over what alternative education is and what it should be. As Bill Snider suggested in his Education Week article following last year’s conference, an alternative ‘affiliation or network was formalized, but a definition of alternative schools wasn’t tackled.
The resulting situation is something of an embarrassment, but there are good and probably enduring reasons why agreement remains elusive. The argument over the essence of alternative education is at least as old as the alternative schools movement beginning in the 1960s – and as of today there are further wrinkles making consensus improbable on even more fundamental grounds than earlier. It is only in part a semantic argument about labels. Primarily it is a matter of educational organization and practice, and there are at least three distinctly discernible types of alternative schools.
Type I Programs
There was plenty of disagreement among the alternative educators of the 60s, but in retrospect their differences appear far less fundamental than those of today. They disagreed over whether it was individual freedom or whether it was communitarianism and collective decision making instead, that is the real essence of alternative schooling – or whether action learning takes precedence over curricular relevance as the more critical defining element. There were also at least two vying conceptions of the fundamental mission of alternative education: did it intend to institutionalize diversity by providing a mechanism enabling and inviting schools to differ from one another — or was alternative education the vanguard that would point the way, showing what all schools ought to be like? (It has been a constant temptation, of course, even among the devotees of diversity, to feel that theirs was really a better education than others offered, and therefore something that all should have.) There were also differences among those who saw alternative education as the pathway to more humane schools and those who saw it primarily as the pathway to social and political change.
It is possible to identify schools and thinkers and books and articles for the 60s, and the early 70s, representing and often urging each of these positions as the real crux of alternative education. The differences among them were considerable, but most were at least loosely tied to, or to some extent reflective of, the “counterculture” of the 60s. As such, they were all inclined to be critical of the mass processing conducted by conventional schools and of their bureaucratic organization. This yielded something of a liberation demand, often (but not always) accompanied by an expansive willingness to “let a hundred flowers bloom.” Still, the repudiation of the dominant system probably marked the largest single area of agreement among the alternative school educators of that first, 1960s, decade.
Some of the orientations and aspirations of those early alternative school people remain alive and well in the current alternative education scene. There are still people trying to design new schools, and they are responsible for what 1 call Type 1 alternatives: programs designed in answer to the search for an education that will simultaneously prove more humane, more responsive, more challenging, and more compelling for all involved. And although a lot less fanciful, today’s thrust for diversity and choice for everyone is not such a long step from “let a hundred flowers bloom.” But there are at least two other groups, with rather different sets of orientation that now also count themselves as alternative educators —and they depart notably further from the initial group than its members differed among themselves.
Type 2 Programs
One of these groups consists of the staff assigned to programs explicitly designed for the worst and weakest of students – Type 2 programs. Since the target population is often explicitly identified in just such terms, it is not surprising that the programs of such schools are often judgmental in posture and punitive in orientation. This is what might be expected from an alternative school whose self-reported distinction lies in removing disruptive youngsters to leave others to study in peace. Such programs have been called “soft jails,” and indeed there is reason for doing so. Their students are assigned to them – often as a last chance proposition just prior to expulsion — and instead of the ‘liberation’ theme of the early alternative schools, these are likely to be highly structured. tightly regulated and supervised programs that are expected to employ behavior correction strategies, along with firm and aggressive disciplinary policies.
Not surprisingly, in many alternative schools of this type. the punitive component out-weighs the instructional, and the ambiance is more openly jail-like than school-like. Yet in other schools of the same genre, however, teachers struggle to provide the more positive environment and humane approaches better calculated to re-educate and rehabilitate than in an overtly punitive setting. Such teachers often try to borrow techniques and strategies from the Type I alternative schools described above. The missions assigned them, however, and the systems in which they work, frequently frustrate such efforts. And they open themselves to pressure and criticism if supervisors and colleagues in other schools conclude they are too soft on kids who need a firm hand and who have actually earned worse. (Ironically, the first alternative schools also included many that were designed for previously unsuccessful youngsters ‘Street Academies, for instance, were established in inner cities across the country. But these programs ideologically associated with alternative schools for more fortunate youngsters – with Type I alternatives — and bore no resemblance to the later, ‘soft jail’ or Type 2 approach to alternative education. Instead, they sought to make instruction more interesting and effective, and students more successful.)
Type 3 Programs
Still a third variety of alternative schools has developed, whose guiding metaphor appears to be therapy rather than reform school. They are perhaps today’s most rapidly increasing alternative schools, developed in the interests of dropout prevent-ion and responding to the needs of students judged to be at risk.
These programs are clearly more humanistic in orientation than Type 2 alternatives, but they share with Type 2 programs at least one critical and very fundamental assumption: it is that the cause of the student’s troubles lies somewhere within the student. The difficulty is not that the student needs different kind of education, or that there is a bad match between school and youngster: it is that the youngster is flawed in some important respect. They thus construe their mission as helping to eliminate the flaw – a matter of intensive counseling, or unusual support, or remediation. Most typically, the focus is on changing behavior or attitudes, and the therapy component dominates the program – with the result that academic instruction often takes a back seat (at least, on-grade-level academic instruction) and rarely is much staff attention given to rethinking instruction or curriculum.
These differences in fundamental orientation are reflected in virtually every dimension of the three types of alternative schools. They are clearly visible in the way programs are initiated – i.e., in the charge with which they are launched. The differences in mission also have ramifications for school organization – the size of programs, facilities, student-staff ratios. And they certainly seek to establish an exciting, charged and challenging atmosphere; Type 2, an orderly and controlled one; and Type 3, a services-oriented one willing to extend help to those who wish it and who will in return cooperate with service-providers.
Differences
Such contrasts follow quite directly from what these programs are intended to accomplish, and the mission is often quite explicitly specified. As an illustration, see the language of a bill currently pending in California:
. . . for purposes of this chapter, ‘alternative instructional program is defined as a separate school, or a separate program within a school, that utilizes one or more alternative methods of providing the curriculum. . .and meets all of the following criteria:
(1) Is chosen by each pupil, parent or guardian, or both
(2) Involves pupils, teachers, and parents or guardians in planning and carrying out an educational plan...
(3) Allows flexibility in teaching styles, curriculum, and classroom scheduling...
(4) Pursues the school district’s educational goals established for all children, but uses learning techniques that are conducive to each pupil’s individual learning style.
(5) Is designed to be responsive to each pupil’s way of learning, rate of learning, and motivation for learning.
This, of course, is a mandate for a Type I alternative. Now see the contrast with Oregon’s law which has this to say about eligibility for alternative education programs:
School districts shall consider and propose to the pupil prior to expulsion two or more alternative programs that are appropriate and accessible...
(a) Following a second or subsequent occurrence within any three-year period of a severe disciplinary problem...
(b) When ... a pupil’s attendance pattern is so erratic that the pupil is not benefiting from the educational program;
(c) When a refractory pupil is being expelled; and,
(d) When a pupil’s exemption from compulsory attendance is approved.
Clearly this legislation mandates a Type 2 program, which will then be evaluated on the basis of this mission rather than on the sort of grounds a different kind of program might recommend.
Finally, here is an illustration of what we have been calling a Type 3 alternative program. One can see in the targeting, and also in the criteria for awards (district dropout, retention, and graduation rates) the assumption that the students to be reached have problems; but there is also the attempt to help them, in contrast simply to contain and control them, The illustration comes from Florida’s1989 grant incentives program for mini-schools as educational alternatives for the dropout prone. The legislation defined the mini-schools eligible this way:
(a) . . .small, open enrollment...
(b) ...students, parents, and teachers.. .will be involved in the preplanning, development, and operation of the mini-school,
(c) . . .open to all students by choice...
(d) ...if located within a currently operating school, will have self-governance as would any free-standing school.
The three types of alternatives differ considerably as to the organizational arrangements needed to carry out their programs. Type I alternatives need a student population large enough to sustain a full instructional program. This means a least four teachers and thus 100 or so students at the high school level. A Type I alternative also needs enough separation from a conventional school to be able to maintain a different climate – typically emphasizing informality, egalitarianism, and individual expression. The Type I alternative school is likely to reflect a mix of ability levels among students — the weaker and the abler, the motivated and the unmotivated. This, say many advocates, is necessary if the weaker are to have the peer models important to helping them become otherwise. Type 2 programs on the other hand, in effect track students on the basis of their alienation from school, while Type 3 tracks for assorted weaknesses on their part (emotional or academic).
A Type 2 alternative program doesn’t necessarily require much removal from a host school (although the host may prefer it), and it can be as small as a single class. The requirements consist largely in a relatively confined space and student-staff ratios low enough to sustain highly structured control patterns. A Type 3 alternative, on the other hand, requires assigning a teacher a very small number of students (ranging from 4 or 5 to 10-12 at most). A single classroom is adequate for operating such a therapeutic community whose goal it to eliminate, so far as possible, the incapacitating handicapping performance in the regular school. Thus the focus is on intensive remediation or counseling or both.
Curricular patterns and instructional arrangements are also likely to differ among the three types of alternatives. Type I alternative schools tend to concentrate a fair amount of attention on revitalizing conventional classes and devising innovative teaching strategies. Many of them feature nontraditional arrangements such as interdisciplinary approaches, schools-without-walls, action learning, and independent study. A Type 2 alternative is likely to concentrate as heavily on behavioral change as on academics, and the instructional program is likely to be limited to “the basics” – i.e., to those rudiments of the 3R’s that can be memorized, perhaps as supplemented with some vocational instruction. Although it is not typical, Type 3 alternatives may reflect curricular modification or simplification designed to render school’s academic dimensions simpler or more palatable to their students. One model, for instance, converts the high school curriculum into more than 100 separate competencies, each of which can be reached by completing a set of assignments and obtaining a satisfactory score on a test looking only at that single competency.
Perhaps the most critical division among the three main varieties of alternative schools is where they stand in relation to the matter of choice. For the Type I variety, voluntary affiliation on the part of all – teachers as well as students – is the key ingredient of school revitalization and educational commitment. For the Type 2 program, the denial of choice is equally salient: in the minds of their sponsors, these programs are for youngsters who need shaping up, and no one could be masochistic enough to want to choose them. Type 3 programs are more likely to represent some compromise on the choice question – e.g., many limit eligibility to students deemed at risk or dropout prone, as referred by counselors or teachers, but they permit those eligible to reject the assignment if they so choose.
The three tend to have fairly different success rates, too. The research suggesting extraordinary accomplishment – i.e., the school transformations and the turning around of previously alienated and failing students – is almost all tied to Type I programs. The record of the Type 3 programs is mixed. In many, behavioral improvement and moderate academic progress is evident, but once returned to the environment of the regular high school – a practice observed in many Type 3 programs – a number of students simply revert to their prior behavior and accomplishment patterns. The findings on Type 2 programs are clearer. In a classic study in Florida, for instance, an evaluation by the Governor’s office concluded that the literally thousands of assignments to Type 2 alternatives during the 1978-79 school year has accomplished nothing positive. They had not improved school behavior or attendance, nor decreased suspensions. They changed nothing except, perhaps, to escalate the incidence of punishment for the following year.
Comparisons and Contrasts
Because many of those in Type 3 programs, as well as some in Type 2 alternatives, share the strongly humanistic orientation of the earliest, Type I, alternative schools, there is perhaps more common ground than the foregoing might suggest. Certainly staff in Type I programs often believe they have the best answers for the youngsters enrolled in Type 2 and 3 programs. And many in Type 3 programs respond positively, if a bit wistfully’, to the enthusiasm and optimism of Type I advocates. It is such commonality that is one major reason why for almost 20 years, annual alternative conferences have been able to draw educators from all three types of programs. (Yet the differences between Types I and 3 on the one hand, and Type 2 on the other, are understandably significant enough that a number of people from Type 2 programs felt that this year’s conference offered little that met their needs.)
Under such circumstances, it should come as no surprise that alternative school people cannot agree on a definition of alternative education: their programs differ according to their missions (providing a more humane and effective education; segregating, containing and reforming a disruptive population; healing the wounded). They differ as to what to look to and begin working on when education fails (the student’s misbehavior, the student’s psyche, or the school’s environment). They differ according to the functions formally assigned them, and the expectations and demands of those to whom they report (e.g., the assistant principal in charge of discipline, the district special needs population office, or the associate superintendent in charge of instructional or organizational innovation). These differences add up to extensively different conceptions of what alternative education is about, what it is for, and how it is best conducted.
Given such fundamentally different orientations, it cannot be surprising that people in alternative education do not agree upon a definition, it may be that it makes little sense to try – and most especially, perhaps, at a national convention of alternative school people where the largest single group at any particular annual conference may consist of people from within the host state, and a substantial proportion of those attending may well be participating in their first National Conference on Alternative schools.
This year, the expected group of newcomers from alternative schools in or near the host state was further swelled by a substantial number of school administrators expecting to launch one or more alternative schools and coming to find out what they are. A lot of these people were confused by the conflicting advice they received (e.g., on whether an alternative school should be a separate school or school within a school; or whether a classroom could suffice; or on whether class sizes need be limited to 6 or 8 or whether they can and should parallel regular classroom enrollments). Many seemed puzzled by the fact that a national assemblage of alternative educators could not muster enthusiastic support for a National Alternative Schools Day.
Perhaps this analysis will help them understand why: that to support an alternative schools day is to be lending support to whatever goes by way of alternative education anywhere – and thus, somewhere, to the very sort of wrongheadedness one is committed to replacing! To offer such support not only seems like poor and self-defeating politics, but also wrong in principle. For insofar as National Alternative Schools Day would celebrate and reinforce whatever goes by the name “alternative” anywhere, that is sure to be arguing against one’s own beliefs and commitments. A Type 2 alternative school, and its arrangements and practices, are an anathema to a Type I alternatives advocate. And though a Type 3 program may be well meaning, it typically misses the boat, from the Type I perspective. On the other hand, from a Type 2 perspective, the Type 1 operation may appear irrelevant and probably more than a bit utopian. And from the Type 3 perspective, both Type 1 and Type 2 fail to perceive what is wrong with unsuccessful students, and thus aren’t in a position to provide the strongest remedies. And this is why a National Alternative Schools Conference may be the last place to reach agreement on whatever alternative education is.
End notes
1 William Snider, “Alterna-tive Educators Form National Network for Change,” Educazion Week, August 2, 1989
2 This was the response of one of the respondents to a national survey, in reply to the question, “What do you think is the single most outstanding feature of your alternative program?” National Survey of Public Alternative Schools. Pro-ject on Alternatives in Education, 1982.
3 This seems clear in various ways in the major works dealing with alternative school effects on at risk youngsters — e.g. in Wehlage et al., Reducing the Risk. Schools As Communities of Support (London: Falmer Press, 1989) and in Gold and Mann, Expelled to a Friendlier Place: A Study of Effective Alternative Schools (Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press, 1984)
4 California Senate Bill Number AB 175 as amended May 21, 1990
5 Oregon, 1989 Legislative Session. ORS 339.605, and ORS 339.250(6)
6 Addendum to Florida Dropout Prevention Act, 1989 Legislature
7 See, e.g., Mary Anne Raywid, The Case for Public Schools of Choice. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa. Fastback, 1989.
8 Gold and Mann, exemplify researchers finding lasting behavioral and academic benefits in the Type 3 programs they examined. Op.cit. McCann and Landi describe what I suspect is more typical: modest progress which disappears as youngsters re-enter the conventional school environment. See ‘Researchers Cite Program Value,’ Changing Schools, Spring/Summer, 1986, pp. 2-5.
9 Executive Office of the Governor, Office of Planning and Budgeting. An Evaluauon of the Florida State Alternative Education Program, June 5, 1981.
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THE DEFINITION PROBLEM
Robert L. Fizzell
From Changing Schools, Winter 1991
The article by Mary Anne Raywid is the best analysis of the history and current status of alternative education that I have seen. It is, thus, with some reservation that I would suggest a couple of additions to her comments. I do believe that these points are significant.
In her comments on the origins of Type 1 schools, she perhaps places too much emphasis on the counterculture origins, as did Deal and Nolan in their excellent work. The counterculture programs and advocates dominated the literature at the time and were very important stimulus, but there was much happening independent of them. My own interest, and that of my associates in the late 60s. was not so strongly focused on the criticism of the existing system, but simply on the creation of additional systems. From this perspective, we began using the term “alternatives”, while the counterculture people referred to their programs as “new schools” or “free schools”.
We were people who had come into education from other fields and had begun our teaching in the innercity in the 60s. We all had experience with other cultures. We realized that there could be other ways to provide an education and that the existing schooling system was not appropriate to the youth with whom we were dealing. When we moved into suburban school systems, we continued to work on creating more appropriate systems for the unserved youth with whom we often worked. From this, I developed the concept of schooling style. Rooted in psychology and anthropology, schooling style was seen as the need to relate the culture of the school to the personality of the students. We recognized that there were many ways to accomplish the goals of assisting youth to mature and of transmitting the culture to the next generation. We advocated diversity of schooling models to ensure that all youth could find one in which they could succeed. It differed slightly from the concept of “learning style”, which was beginning to be publicized about the same time, in that it advocated system redesign rather than simply a variety of pedagogical techniques.
In the early days of N/ICOPE (National/International Consortium for Options in Public Education) the “alternatives” approach and a mild countercultural view were equally represented. The NCACS (National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools) became the focus for the more radical counterculture people. Nancy Messmer, Dave Lehman, and I are among the very few people who have been members of both groups, as the interests have tended to be divergent. The philosophical division of Type 1 schools is well represented by these two groups.
I would also like to note one other point about Type 1 schools. Dr. Raywid comments that these schools require a minimum size of about 100 students and 4 staff to offer a full program. In fact, the school I ran in Skokie, IL was one third that size and was one of the most successful of all alternative schools. The assumption that a staff person is needed for each of the major discipline areas is a holdover from traditional thinking. We used a variety of resources in the community and were able to achieve a very high level of academic excellence, sufficient to send over 90% of our graduates into some form of advanced education.
Finally, it is worth devoting further consideration to the unique character of Type 3 schools. As Dr. Raywid notes, the line does get a bit fuzzy at times. Particularly when we look at Type I philosophy of the “alternatives” perspective. Staff of a Type 3 program may serve “at-risk” students while believing that the child is not “defective” but merely in need of a different type of school. However, these Type 3 programs may still be viewed by their sources of referrals as serving students who are “failures”. Thus, we have a situation in which the alternative school may have a Type 1 philosophy but be cast in a Type 3 role by its environment. Students who come to such an alternative school are ones who have a history of problems in the regular school. I have seen many schools in this situation in which the staff themselves are somewhat “schizophrenic” in relation to these issues. They want to believe in a Type 1 philosophy, but they have trouble shaking the image that their students are “handicapped”. Commonly, their students have many problems in life - bad family situations; histories of abuse, being teen parents, have low self-esteem, and are self-supporting. The staff, overwhelmed by these problems, sets lower expectations and slides into a Type 3 philosophy.
It is important to see that schools of this type can become Type I schools with proper staff development. The school in which I currently work has been going through this transition during the past couple of years and is finally beginning to function as a “true alternative”.
Since these schools are Type 3 by default, by lack of proper design and training rather than by clear philosophy, perhaps it would be appropriate to consider whether Type 3 represents a philosophical position or simply a collection of programs that might be better represented as modification of Types 1 and 2. That is, some of these schools are simply more humane Type 2 programs while others are ill conceived or inadequate Type 1 programs. To me the difference is significant because it opens the possibility of moving many of these into Type I philosophy through staff development.
The growth of the concept that alternatives are the answer to the “at risk” problem presents us with an opportunity if we are able to reconsider the Type 3 programs. One critical pair of questions separates Type 1 and Type 2 programs and would permit us to divide the Type 3 programs to find those which are most readily convertible to Type 1 programs through staff development. The questions are, “Are essentially all young people capable of achieving mastery of a general high school education?” and “Should we educate essentially all young people to this level?” By “essentially” I mean at least about 90%. If the staff can be convinced that the answers to these questions are “yes”, then they can become Type 1 alternative educators. Otherwise, they are destined to fall into the Type 2 philosophy, believing that all those who can not succeed in the traditional program must be prepared for inferior roles in our society.
Thus, it is not the issue of choice, but the belief in the capacity and the rights of the individuals that is the critical question. If one believes that all persons have the right to be educated for success in our society and that all but a very few have the capacity for this, then the right to choose is a necessity, a means to this end.
If we can make this philosophical position clear, it is possible for schools to serve “at-risk” youth without labeling them or hurting them in other ways. We could bring into harmony some of the schools that are currently at odds with each other unnecessarily.
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