Master in Teaching: "Teaching Against the Grain"Winter 2008Group Research Project EQUITY AND EXCELLENCE IN PUBLIC EDUCATIONDEMOCRACY PROJECTSIn 1831, Count Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States and kept a detailedjournal of his travels. Using his journal notes, he wrote a stunning ethnographic account of the young nation. In Democracy in America (1956, abridged edition) de Tocqueville described what he saw, the conversations he had, and the impressions he formed. In the introduction, the editor Richard Heffner writes thatde Tocqueville's study rejects America's "equation of equality with freedom, of democracy with liberty" (p.11). This equation, according to de Tocqueville, ignores the reality that democracy is essentially majority rule, and that the "tyranny of the majority" (p. 11) curtails individual freedom. De Tocqueville asserts that Americans desire freedom but are passionate about equality; they want liberty but abide by the principle that "the interests of the many are to be preferred to those of the few" (p. 24). Because of this passion for equality, de Tocqueville expresses his concern that Americans will develop a "mediocrity of desires" (p.21) and that society will "every day become more tranquil and less aspiring" (p.21).Another Frenchman, Henri Gaillard visited the United States in 1917 to attend the100-year celebration of the American School for the Deaf, co-founded by the deafFrench teacher Laurent Clerc (see Seeing Voices, p. 20, p. 108). Like de Tocqueville, Gaillard toured the United States and kept a detailed journal of his journey. He visited deaf people everywhere he went and as noted in Gaillard in Deaf America: A Portrait of the Deaf Community, 1917, Bob Buchanan notes that:Gaillard's narrative account also provides compelling evidence that deaf citizens, like other minorities in the early twentieth century, were at risk. Acclaimed for its representative democracy, its growing industrial might and its entrepreneurial genius, the United States in the early twentieth century was also a segregated country defined by hierarchy and division. In its rapid and often discordant transformation from a scattering of colonies to an industrial giant that spanned the continent and beyond, the national culture and civil society privileged white over black and red, men over women, the affluent over the impoverished, the "able-bodied" over the "disabled," and, of course, the hearing over the deaf. Today, assumptions about the relationship of freedom and equality and democracy and liberty continue to affect political and social policy discussions in the field of education. Current debates are influenced by people's understandingsand confusions about what it means to have equality of conditions or equity in thepublic schools. Further, people have different opinions about the soundness of the principle that "the interests of the many are to be preferred to those of thefew" (de Tocqueville, p. 24). In addition, some parents, teachers, business leaders, and community members seem to share de Tocqueville's concern that equality and equity might lead to mediocrity and less aspiring goals for public education. Many policy discussions in education are related to the question of whether, and how, we can have equity AND excellence in our public school system. This issue is central to arguments about single-gender school, inclusion for special needs children, "gifted programs", bilingual education, Afro-centric schools, school choice, privatization of public schools, bond levies, magnet schools, automatic promotion from one grade to the next, "mastery" programs, pay-to-play sports programs and the like. To help you begin to prepare yourselves to address these issues as professionals, we have designed four options for investigating questions related to equity and excellence in public schools. Please read the following options carefully and select the one that feels most comfortable and inviting to you. Please do not select an option that you think you SHOULD choose simply because it would be a good thing to do. Rather, select the option that appeals to you the most.2OPTION 1RESOURCES: Videos on reserve in the library (Children in America's Schools) Children's books that address what it's like to be poor Books by Jonathan Kozol (on reserve), Robert Coles, Herbert Kohl,Carolyn Persell (on reserve) Professional journals and newspapers (including Rethinking Schools online)You could check the reserve shelf in the TESC library, consult with the children's librarian at Olympia Timberland Library, and consult with Sara Pederson or Liza Rognas about using references in TESC's library and/or media center.TASKS:The resources you have available will provide you with a sense of what it feels like in a democratic society for children living in povertyand for schools that are "poor." Using the recommended resources:a) Before you begin your research, write a journal entry that explores your current understanding of "equity" and "excellence" in relation to public schooling.b) View videos, and read children's books, newspapers, currentjournals, articles and books of your choice related to the topic. Write regularly in your journal about what you're finding out.c) Discuss in small groups what you learned from these sources, what was most meaningful to you and why, and how what you learned affected your understanding of equity and excellence in public schools.d) Reflect in writing about what you think schools or communities as a whole could do to address inequities that exist.e) You need to decide with your group how you will share your findings with the whole program. Choose a way to share your realizations about the impact these inequities have on students and your insights about how to address the inequities. You might do this through writing a short story or poem, creating a poster, or leading a small discussion group of program members who are in other research groups, etc.3OPTION 2RESOURCES:  Washington Administrative Codes (WACs) Sara Pedersen or Liza Rognas in the TESC Library Data from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction Meetings and minutes of school boards Various school district superintendents' offices Documents from the State Legislature Offices of the Washington Education Association Internet 2002 Census DataTASKS:With these and other resources you will be able to acquire the factsthat will deepen