Powell, A.G., Farrar, E., & Cohen, D.K. (1985). The shopping mall high school: Winners and losers in the educational marketplace. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

OVERVIEW

This is the second report from a study of high schools, co-sponsored by the National Association of Secondary Principals and the Commission on Educational Issues of the National Association of Independent Schools. James Colman’s (et al.) presidential report of the early 1970s described the American high school’s overextended role as socializer of teenagers. This study looks at the overextension of high school curricula in the 1980s brought about by an attempt to please all.

These authors see our schools responding to the "American beliefs" that:

• Everyone should attend high school.
• Almost everyone should graduate from high school.
• Almost everyone should find the experience constructive.

In response to data showing that many students are not really learning and to studies recommending reform, the authors conducted extensive interviews with parents, teachers, and students to determine why so many were satisfied with things as they are and resist educational change.

They found high schools with 400 to 500 separate courses. Nationally, the number of courses doubled between 1960 and 1972:

Variety in the formal curriculum is very substantial to begin with; but that variety is increased enormously by another, more subtle kind of variety: the range of intentions students and teachers bring to their courses...To remedy the mix of intentions and preferences...teachers and students have...subtle ways of accommodating either differences or similarities: they arrange deals or treaties that promote mutual goals or that keep the peace. (pp. 67-68)

Counselors reported student-counselor ratios of 320:1 and 420:1—they saw any given student ten minutes a year. Such time limitations provide opportunity for little more than a bit of advice without follow-up. And teachers often say, "If you find the course so distasteful, drop it and take something else."

This study found that the tendency to multiply courses resulted from an emphasis on content over competency (basic skills and capacities). "Cutting the curriculum up into subjects makes it easy for students and teachers to forget the capacities that ought to be cultivated, and easier to pursue the illusion that education is a matter of covering material." (p. 307) "The shopping mall high school is...profoundly neutral about mastery. No one opposes it, but few require and expect it." (p. 61) "The schools have done a masterful job at selling the importance of attendance, but have failed in the attempt to sell to most students the value of working hard to learn to use one’s mind." (p. 311)

The authors conclude that parental pressure and various laws ensure challenging education for the gifted and the handicapped. But the majority of "average students" place few demands on the school system and these "unspecial" students often "slip through" without serious study and challenging growth.

The shopping mall high school has three basic qualities: its variety of offerings, the freedom to choose among them, and its neutrality about their value. Because "too many teenagers are served the way they want to be served, and too many school professionals willingly provide services," the shopping mall high school is likely to withstand efforts to change it. That many students are well served and most graduate are seen to be great accomplishments.

The authors see in some proposals to stem urban dropout rates a tendency toward increased proliferation of preferences rather than commitment to the basics, to hard work, and to excellence. They distrust reform from the top and doubt that radical or idealistic reform can ever be accomplished. What they do suggest is strong commitment to intellectual achievement at the grass roots that will entail a reallocation of teachers’ time and a renegotiation of teaching treaties in the classroom.

IMPLICATION FOR EDUCATORS

Many distinguished studies have scrutinized the data and produced serious recommendations that have had little effect upon recent education. In this study, as in most, there is little or no mention of "truth." Even in a pluralistic society there should be agreement on some truths—if only about quality of life and the kind of society we desire. Then there would be a greater chance of agreement on the nature and importance of the skills that students ought to have.

IMPLICATION FOR YOUTH WORKERS

Youth leaders need to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of our educational system. The limitations of this system should be recognized and opportunities to complement it seized.

cCYS