Challenge to Laboratory Schools: Finding a Niche
Address prepared for NALS convention, San AntonioFebruary 1984
Arthur R. King, Jr., University of Hawaii
Introduction
We are here to talk about laboratory schools. They have been the focus of my professional life for the past seventeen years and an important concern of most of you here. Campus laboratory schools in the United States number about a hundred, situated in colleges and universities throughout the country. Each laboratory school has its special history, unique opportunities, successes, difficulties, resources, politics, and other features of complex organizations. Thirty years ago there were two hundred laboratory schools, more or less, in our ranks; since then about half have lost their support and passed into history. A number of them were in our most prestigious graduate institutions. Most of those that remain are not "sitting pretty"; many face serious difficulties. It would be optimistic indeed to assume that all will survive the decade, even though some are prospering with new or revitalized programs, and several universities are considering establishing new laboratory schools.
It may be comforting to us-and also instructive-to note that laboratory schools are not the only social and governmental institutions under attack. Teacher education in general is the target of heavy criticism from the profession and the community. Universities are not immune. Who could have imagined twenty years ago that the courts and the legal profession would be so heavily criticized and that medical and other health services would be so widely questioned? The criticism of laboratory schools is part of a pattern of aggressive questioning of all public services and professions.
Arthur R. King, Jr., is professor of educational foundations and director of the Curriculum Research & Development Group/University Laboratory School at the University of Hawaii. After earning his doctorate at Stanford University, he was an administrator with the Sonoma County school system in California and a faculty member at Claremont Graduate School and Pomona College, where he directed teacher education programs. His most important publication is The Curriculum and the Disciplines of Knowledge, written with John A. Brownell.
The nation seems ripe for reforms in all branches of education, including those branches associated with the university or college: preservice teacher education; preparation of administrators, counselors, and other school professionals; in-service education of educational personnel; research; development; evaluation; and educational improvement efforts. The reports, speeches, and other literature associated with proposed changes rarely if ever identify laboratory schools among the resources available to bring about needed reforms. One could say that laboratory schools are invisible; or perhaps they are visible but not credible. Certainly we can conclude that the potential of laboratory schools for an important role in educational changes to come has not been developed or communicated.
Criticism is not necessarily bad. It can be interpreted as evidence that the public is aware of our function and expects a higher grade of service. The nation has a noble though somewhat naive notion of education as a formative agent in American society. Schools are held responsible for fulfilling the dreams of social justice, patriotism, social and economic mobility, public morality, equality, and the good life in addition to the perennial academic and other instructional goals of schooling. When we don't deliver-and we usually don't, of course-the public is confused and angry and insists that changes be made. Yet in such troubled times we can plant the seeds of new visions, of greater vigor, and develop the programs that come closer to meeting the needs of our times.
We cannot escape public scrutiny and criticism. Nor can we escape the evaluation of peers and administrators in our universities and colleges who allocate resources and judge the appropriateness of our work. We can neither hide nor dodge the flak. Our only strategy in such times is to be vigorous in planning and carrying out our programs.
Visualizing Our Potential
Polya, the great mathematician from Stanford, in his notable book on problem solving in mathematics, suggests a number of problem-solving strategies. One strategy is to pick a comparable problem from a different area and examine it, thereby gaining some insight into a solution of the original problem. To illustrate this process I will draw two problems from the field of technological change for brief discussion and application to the problems of defining what our roles are and deciding what changes we must make in laboratory schools. A "technology" is a structure created by humans to do some necessary work. In this sense I consider medicine, social work, psychotherapy, jurisprudence, finance, education, engineering, and manufacturing as technologies.
Let us suppose that eighty years ago we were in the business of making and selling wood-burning cast-iron stoves. Ours was a stable industry with a predictable market. Every home and workplace had one such stove or more. But things happened. New construction materials such as steel and porcelain were developed; new fuels such as kerosene, gas, and electricity appeared. The demand for our product evaporated. What is the message? If we had stayed with our traditional product, we would have seen a huge decline in sales, profits, and the viability of our company. If, however, we had revised our vision of the function of our firm from being in the cast-iron stove business to being in the larger stove business or in the heating business or in the iron business, or even in the general manufacturing business, we could have modified our definition of our work and survived.
Our second example is the cloth diaper business. I'm speaking here as a parent of an earlier generation, highly familiar with the product. If we had stayed with the cloth diaper as our sole product, we would have suffered from the introduction of the disposable diaper. However, if we had envisioned ourselves as being in the baby diaper business or in the baby accessory business, or perhaps in the baby clothing business, we would have had the flexibility to innovate and survive changes. The point is that we must keep an open, creative vision of our enterprise to avert obsolescence. Let's use these examples of technological change as bases for thinking about laboratory schools. What enterprise are we in? Are our activities as viable as they once were? Will they continue to be viable? If not, what functions should we add or substitute? If changes are needed, how would we go about choosing them?
If we go back to our examples, we note that the industries that survived chose new products related to their expertise and experience. They may well have capitalized on their reputation by using their old brand name on the label for the new product. They may have examined their environment (their "market") for new materials, new needs, and even new consumers. They would have done careful technical and market research into possible new products, and they certainly would have stayed within the financial limits of their organization. If their company had been absorbed by a larger multifunction corporation (comparable to a, teachers college being absorbed by a comprehensive university), they would have found it necessary to sell the revised functions to the corporate leadership (the university administration) in order to compete with other branches of the new firm.
We all know what we in laboratory schools have been doing. We've handled practice teaching and observation, as well as other forms of clinical practice; we've done a fine job of delivering education to children of faculty members and other parents who can pay tuition; we've supported faculty research in departments of the university; we've done classical descriptive and analytic research; we've done curriculum modeling; we've done curriculum development; we've done in-service training; some of us have done publishing; many of us have done consultative services to schools. But beyond these, what other possible functions are there for laboratory schools? Is our role in teacher education changing with the introduction of wholly graduate programs? Will our commitment to classical research be replaced in part by product research, policy research, and evaluative research? Can laboratory schools provide some new kind of service related to new possibilities for educational improvement? Is the work of the laboratory school to be campus-oriented, or can it be profitably oriented to cooperative programs with the schools? Is our arena of service the nearby school system, the state, the region, the nation, or the international field? What changes of view are necessary to entertain these and other possibilities? What holds the greatest potential for the future? What services could be unique to the particular possibilities of campus laboratory schools without overlapping those of other educational improvement structures? Will the university or a school system, a foundation, or a federal agency be willing to pay for new services?
Finding the Laboratory School's Niche
From this wide circle of programs and services being provided by one or more laboratory schools, or those hypothetically possible but not now being provided, each laboratory school must find its niche. The term "niche" is used by environmental biologists to identify the particular place within the larger environment that permits a species to exist. For example, a plant, a bug, or a fish exists in a narrow range of environmental conditions that permit it to sustain life, to interact with other species, to reproduce, and to gain necessary protection and resources. If this environment changes because of pollution, changes in other species, or the introduction of new predators, the particular species may find itself in jeopardy. It can survive only by moving or changing: it must find a new niche or adapt its old one.
Applying this metaphor to the laboratory school, we note changes in the structure of American education-new ideas, new needs, new possibilities, and the discrediting of old ideas, needs, and possibilities- which would make change in each laboratory school's niche desirable, even necessary. In my seventeen years with the laboratory school in Hawaii we have "re-niched" profoundly twice and in minor but important ways each year. We have changed types of work, products, staff assignments, staff qualifications, organizational structure, relationships with the rest of the college of education, relationships with the schools, and other features of our laboratory school's purpose, function, and character. Studying our niche and its larger macroenvironment is a constant task. My colleagues and I expect to be doing it as long as we are active in this work.
An Earlier Environment for Laboratory Schools
Arthur Foshay, a brilliant educator from Columbia University, described the context or environment of laboratory schools during their founding period early in this century. It was a time of sweeping inventions-the automobile, the airplane, electrical energy, communication media, and the Linotype machine. Basic discoveries were being announced in the behavioral sciences. Major political reforms were just being brought to fruition after centuries of struggle.
People throughout the western world believed that the potential power of the human mind was without limit. In the field of education we were emerging as a separate field and had confidence in our growth and power. Great figures were giving leadership. The testing movement held promise to sweep away superstition and to lead us into scientific views and methods.
The first laboratory schools were founded during this time, and early leaders such as Colonel Parker and Professor Dewey had every reason to believe that the schools had fantastic potential. With a new feeling of freedom to inquire and to experiment, along with a new attitude toward the nature of childhood and children's potential for learning, the laboratory school seemed the most natural step in the world of education. New laboratory schools were formed all over the country during a period of two decades, all of them part of a great march toward the new education.
Today's Environment for Laboratory Schools
Such was the environment within which the original laboratory schools found their niches. What does the environment look like today? It is my belief that the true larger role of laboratory schools is educational improvement. How would I describe the educational improvement industry? First, the educational improvement industry is extremely large and complex. We have regional laboratories; R & D centers; school support centers of various types; aggressive dissemination/diffusion systems such as the National Diffusion Network; information systems such as ERIC; national task forces established by state and federal governments and by private organizations; teacher centers; multitudinous federal, state, and local educational improvement programs; programs and schemes supported by educational foundations and professional organizations; accreditation systems; curriculum development and dissemination programs; commercial enterprises and educational publishers; staffs of educational consultants, supervisors, and other educational support workers at school, district, and state levels; and policy study groups. They exist in an unorchestrated set, competing with each other for resources and for the attention and support of teachers and school leaders.
The range of improvement objectives is also great, and various mechanisms to achieve them are presently attempting to affect the schools. Values education, sex education, environmental education, marine education, multiethnic education, the school environment, computer education, mainstreaming, basics, dropout prevention, and thinking skills are among the fifty or more topics being proposed for school change in my region. Obviously the country wants educational change and is willing to pay for it. What is the place of laboratory schools in this set of educational change enterprises? First, I have said that we are not highly visible; we are rarely mentioned in the literature of educational change. More important, what is the role of laboratory schools in the future? Will all, or most, or some of them be in the new set of survivors? The answer will depend upon how well we take advantage of our innate advantages.
The Innate Advantages of a Laboratory School
What are the innate or natural advantages of a laboratory school over other agencies attempting to bring about educational change and improvement? First, the laboratory school can be a necessary bridge between the university and the schools. Without this bridge the university's power to influence education is diminished. Professors do not have a reality base in their thinking about education. We would hardly recognize a professor of surgery who had performed no operations in the past ten or twenty years or a professor of accounting who was not reasonably active in his field. Yet most of our college of education staff members have not interacted directly with schoolchildren or their parents or teachers for years. Opportunities to blend theory and practice are greatly enhanced by having a campus laboratory for developing these links. We have found that professors in the arts and sciences, as well as those in professional schools, are quite willing to use the laboratory school environment for making a contribution to the schools.
Second, the laboratory school is a source of ideas and stimulation. We commonly get most of our ideas by reading each other's articles and reports and by researching someone else's practices; rarely do we have the opportunity to have direct experience with students, teachers, parents, and the multitude of problems and influences that make up the real environment of education. From this direct experience we get the ideas and the concepts as well as the deeper, and probably more profound, insights that remain subconscious. My own learning in education has come in large part from the laboratory school, where I am constantly forced to ask Why? or Why not? and to challenge the conventional wisdom.
Third, the laboratory school has a national advantage as the basis for educational experimentation, demonstration, modeling, and training. Many of our educational leaders from John Dewey to today have been educated in a laboratory school. Former laboratory school teachers and administrators in my state occupy a large number of positions of leadership. Laboratory school people are very visible and attractive. Most public schools do not want first-level research or development or innovation done at their schools.; they want it to work well somewhere else before they will try it. The laboratory school is prepared to take such risks because students and parents are knowledgeable about the change process and agree to it when the child is enrolled.
Also, the laboratory school can select its students to fit the experiments and demonstrations it performs. Our school in Hawaii purposefully draws a sample of students from across the ethnic, socioeconomic, and learning levels of the general population of the state in its attempt to achieve a representative range in each dimension. This kind of student body has helped both our research and our credibility. Visiting teachers often say, "Why, your kids look the same as mine."
I like the idea of having experimental teaching, modeling, evaluation, and training of teachers all wrapped up together in one school. The laboratory school is the only enterprise that can bring it off, since it is the natural link between scholars and practitioners in education. We have found that our curriculum development products are far more successful when they are accompanied by training delivered by the developers. When our laboratory school staff members are through with the development and evaluation stages of their work, they have a natural new function as trainers of in-service teachers and ultimately as developers of a cadre of teachers to train others. To summarize, the laboratory school is the natural point of contact between the schools, the faculty of the college of education, and the faculty of other departments of the university. It can be a locus for training educational personnel in both direct and indirect ways, such as on-the-job experience.
Keeping the Laboratory School Program up to Date: The Dynamics of Laboratory School Change
Finding the niche. Of course, the first task is to find the niche in a particular school's environment. What kinds of service will be performed? The laboratory school's external environment consists of the faculty and administration of the host college and the university generally, including the governing board. Outside the university, we must consider the schools in other service areas, other public institutions, the executive and legislative bodies that influence our functions and our budget, and others. We must consider present and possible resources and the inevitable pressure on scarce funds. Students, parents, and former students are also a part of our environment. In studying this environment, we must look for types of service that will be seen as distinctive and valuable, that will give the laboratory school identity and support.
Deciding on particular programs. The second and related task is to select the programs that are of greatest value. If the niche is clinical practice in teaching, what theories or models of teaching will be used? The major niche of our school in Hawaii is curriculum development and related teacher training. We are continuing to work in secondary English language arts, revising an earlier program that was too complex and multifaceted for schools to use. We are going to continue to develop materials on the ethnic character of our peoples in the Pacific-Asian area; no one else does this work, so we have a relatively open field. Also, all the groups in our environment will respect this choice.
We see ourselves in the business of "thin market publishing," developing and publishing educational materials that fit our regional interests but do not attract publishers for the national market. We will continue to develop secondary school programs that don't segregate students by "ability" or "need" or "interest," for in our state that means educational segregation by ethnic group and social class. This is not just a local problem; we are working on it because we believe that nonsegregating program models are needed and that schools will adopt them when they are available. In other words, we are willing to take a chance on a model that no one is asking for.
We will work on a number of computer -related projects, though with restraint. This is such an attractive field for educational development that we are worried that it will consume too much staff energy. We are interested in designing school programs that will better serve students in educational or personal distress, including programs in which schools are coordinators and organizers of special services to their students and their families. Too often we say that student and family distress is someone else's job. I am hypothesizing that the school may be the best-perhaps the only- organization in the community that can orchestrate these helping services.
We will continue to design curricula and related instructional practices that stress inquiry, problem solving, creativity, and reflection. John Goodlad in his book A Place Called School reminds us how drab and unimaginative our school programs are. We would like to do something about it. There are other targets, but these give a sample of what we have chosen to work on to fill our niche.
There are some topics that we consider not as promising. We are going to do only limited survey or descriptive research. While keeping our environment available for research by college faculty, we will keep it in balance with our primary program. We are not going to be able to do much clinical supervision of teachers, not because it is not important but because our primary definition of service competes with it, and we don't think that we can do everything well. We are not going to put much energy into multimedia or media-based innovations except for computer applications. This effort has not paid off well in the past, and I don't expect it to change. Writing for educational journals is an important part of our role but not our primary function. I can't imagine anyone deciding to give us our budget for fulfilling this function.
Leadership. Leadership is important in the laboratory school, as it is everywhere else; perhaps it is more important because we are not well known or well understood. Leadership must solve the usual functions of program direction, personnel development, finance, and communication, plus the important function of keeping the school visible in important circles within its environment. I've heard it said that universities work on a "star system," with respect and support given to the "stars" on the campus and their departments. If this is true-and it may well be-we want our leaders to have "star" quality. In our Hawaii laboratory school we have separate leadership for the directly educational functions and the intellectual and developmental functions. Both are important, but both are full-time jobs. Also, some of us are better at one job than others, so we achieve some of the advantages of specialization. This practice leads to problems of cooperation and coordination, but these can be managed by the right leaders.
Staff selection and development. Selecting and developing staff is as important as selecting program emphases. In fact, the two go together in that one selects staff to accomplish one's functions. I have found that it takes the best of our profession to work successfully in laboratory schools. We need intelligent people who are at the same time cooperative, hard-working, and good models for students. The pressures of life in the laboratory school and its environment are demanding and test the inner character of the staff. Hence we need strong people. In our curriculum research and development work we have found it necessary to have a balance of people who have strength and experience in teaching, people who are strong in their academic disciplines, and people who are strong in the intellectual aspects of education. The mix of these strengths gives us the power we need. The role of another laboratory school may require that it have a different mix of individuals and specialties.
School composition by size, age level, and student background. The composition of the school by size, age level, and student background is an important feature of the laboratory school. Any size larger than absolutely necessary can be a misuse of resources. We reduced the enrollment of the Hawaii laboratory school from 1,200 to 380, thereby saying staff and space for research and development services. Fortunately, the amount of our resources was not based on student enrollment. Laboratory schools vary, from those with preschools only to those with a full range from preschool through high school, and every combination in between. There is more scope and potential with a wider student group, which permits program building and modeling for the longer period of students' life in school. But where resources are limited, a smaller span is usually advisable. Also, one's functions dictate what kinds of students a school needs. There are some arguments for specialization with a limited age group.
My preference is for a broadly composed student body from homes in the full spectrum of ethnic and socioeconomic groups in the city or region. This spectrum gives us the opportunity to experiment with and disseminate educational practices that can reduce segregation in the schools. It also gives our research more validity. For schools that must charge tuition, this feature is more difficult; financial help would be needed to bring in students who do not pay tuition.
Finances. Finding resources for our laboratory schools is one of our most troublesome tasks. We have many patterns of finance within our group, ranging from full state funding to dependence upon tuition payments. Each school must develop its resources within the patterns available to it. There are sources of additional funds, but funding is not easily available. One possibility mentioned earlier is to conserve resources by keeping the school as small as is consistent with one's functions.
Developing constituencies. I noted earlier that laboratory schools seem to be invisible to those who write about improving education. We cannot exist happily or long where this condition exists. A strong relationship with the dean is obviously important. Fortunately, I have had that support from present and previous deans in my institution. One must keep them informed, involve them in planning and reviewing programs, and listen to their ideas and suggestions. Deans must see the laboratory school as an essential part of the college. The larger college faculty is another constituency. In some schools there is a very close relationship in which the college staff uses the school as a research or training instrument. Where the school has functions independent of the faculty, such as self-initiated research and development, the relationship is often neutral or strained. Specialization of interest goes with specialization of work. We can only work at this as best we can, by using the dean to help and by developing cooperative programs or both. Relationships within the larger university are often more difficult, but they can be positive and successful. It is important to have visibility in the general faculty of the university and with the university administration, but it takes work. It is also helpful to have an understanding with the regents of the university about the school's program. When administrators change, the board can be a balancing agent.
The public and private schools in a region are usually one of the laboratory school's biggest constituencies, especially when curriculum development, in-service training, and other school improvement projects are attempted. It is helpful to have major school administrators speak of your contribution to the schools. This means, of course, that you are doing significant things for the schools-and are being recognized for doing them. Laboratory schools in public universities are often visible to state legislators and to governors. This is especially true in a small state, but it can occur in our larger states when the continuation of laboratory schools is at issue. This constituency must be built. I consider it legitimate to have a few children of legislators in the school. Students, former students, and parents are another important constituency of the laboratory school. Many of them are members of key community groups. Their talk with friends and acquaintances helps form the school's reputation. Many of them know administrators, board members, legislators, and state administrators, to whom they pass on their views about the value of the school. A competent and aggressive program of communication is essential for developing these constituencies.
Conclusion
I have spoken of finding and developing the niche in the university and school environment to which each laboratory school belongs. I believe that we must modify that niche as needed and exploit its potential creatively and aggressively. Finally, I believe that our laboratory schools will survive and prosper if we do the following:
- Undertake a very important job that fits a niche.
- Be recognized for undertaking this important job.
- Do it very well.
- Be recognized for doing it very well.