Imagine you were to go to a school where every task in class was timed down to the second, where you were expected to comply with strict behavior rules and where all your teachers closely followed a district-approved curriculum.
Does this sound anything like the school you go to now or one you have attended? Or is it radically different from what you’re used to?
Do you think this kind of schooling model would work for you? Why or why not?
In “Is Micromanaging Classes a Recipe for School Success?” Troy Closson and J. David Goodman write about how a new superintendent in Houston is trying to improve its public schools through strictly structured teaching like this. But the model has been deeply polarizing:
The Houston public school classroom might have looked like any other, if not for an unusual feature on the whiteboard: A countdown timer.
The teacher leading the English lesson allowed her fourth graders “10 more seconds to log in” for tech problems. Then she asked the class to read a passage to determine the author’s motivations, set the timer to one minute, and called out at the 25- and 15-second marks. Students took 30 seconds to share answers with a partner before their daily 10-minute quiz.
The regimented structure is part of a strict new schooling model that nearly half of the 274 schools in the Houston Independent School District have adopted.
Educators are required to adhere closely to the curriculum. District officials visit schools several times a week to observe classes and ensure that teachers are following the new protocols. Strict behavior policies are enforced. At one point, students were required sometimes to carry orange traffic cones to the bathroom, instead of the traditional hall passes, as part of an effort to prevent disorder.
These ideas are not all new, but the scale, pace and force of change in Houston stands among the starkest in modern American education.
Halfway through the second school year that the new model has been in use, officials argue that it is paying off. The number of schools in Houston that were rated D or F by the state dropped to 41 from 121. Math and reading scores on state standardized tests have risen. The overall gains were “largest single-year growth in the district’s history,” district officials said.
The Houston schools did not make overall gains in reading last year on a federal exam that is considered the gold standard — but it did avoid the national slide in achievement in the subject.
Still, the overhaul has also been deeply polarizing, infuriating many people in a district where more than 80 percent of the students are Black or Hispanic. A fierce movement of parents and teachers argue that the new model’s emphasis on test preparation damages students’ desire to learn. They have criticized the removal of novels from English lessons, and have complained that the closure of libraries is harmful to disadvantaged children.
The article quotes a parent:
“This is not an education,” said Liz Silva, whose third-grade son attends an arts magnet school in Houston under the new model. “My kid’s miserable.”
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
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What are your thoughts on the district’s new strict schooling model? Are there parts of it that you think might be helpful and effective? Are there parts of it that you think might be ineffective or even harmful to students?
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Houston’s district officials point to improved test scores to show that the model works, but many parents and teachers say it has damaged students’ desire to learn. Do you think highly structured classes are better for learning? Why or why not?
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Where does your own school fall on a scale from extremely regimented to more free-flowing? Does your school’s approach work for you? Do you wish you had more or less structure during the day? Why?
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This art piece, “The Takeover,” by Isobel Stevenson, a 16-year-old student in Houston, was one of the winners of our 2023 multimedia challenge that asked students to tell us what school is like today. What do you feel when you look at it? What does it communicate about Texas’ takeover of Houston public schools from a student’s point of view?
