Teaching values: what does the public really want? - report: 'First Things First: What Americans Expect from the Public Schools'

Despite the controversies over sex education and multiculturalism, parents are more concerned about safety, discipline, and instruction in basic skills.

THESE ARE difficult times for educational reformers. Despite broad leadership consensus about how to improve the public schools--a strategy centering on raising academic standards, increasing course work in science and math, and introducing tougher assessments designed to encourage critical thinking and problem-solving--reform agendas have become unraveled in the face of unexpected opposition from parents, teachers, and community and religious groups.

In the summer of 1994, Public Agenda, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and education organization, undertook a project to explore the public's perspective on the controversies causing turmoil in the schools. The resulting report, First Things First: What Americans Expect from the Public Schools, is based on a national telephone survey of more than 1,100 Americans, including 550 parents with offspring currently in such educational institutions. It includes detailed views of white and African-American parents, including those who identify themselves as traditional Christians. The report finds overwhelming public support for making the schools safer and more orderly, as well as for placing a renewed emphasis on basic skills. Reform agendas that fail to address these fundamental concerns, the study suggests, in all likelihood will fail to receive public support.

First Things First also sheds light on a topic that has received a great deal of media attention in recent years: values disputes in the schools. In a number of communities, discussion about how to improve student skills has taken a back seat to debates over what should be taught. Bitter quarrels over the content of history and science courses, selection of textbooks and library books, and, most prominently, sex education and AIDS prevention have surfaced in school districts in all parts of the nation.

In comparison to safety, order, and the basics, values issues are not a priority for most Americans. They are not preoccupied by concerns about sex education and multiculturalism that have caused such acrimonious debate in various communities.

Despite the attention they have attracted in the press and the genuine turmoil they have created in some school districts, "values" disputes about how history and science should be taught, how minorities are portrayed, what textbooks should be used, and what moral traditions should be conveyed in sex education and AIDS prevention programs are not at the top of the public's list of concerns about the schools. While Americans certainly have opinions about such issues and care about how they are resolved, these topics simply are not a chief concern when most people consider how well public schools are serving the nation's children.

Although very strong majorities in all parts of the country and in all demographic categories express concern about safety, discipline, the basics, and academic standards, just 24% feel that sex education in public schools has become "too graphic" and 14% think that schools devote too much time to it. Even among traditional Christians whose children attend public schools--those who attend church regularly and say they accept the Bible as the literal word of God or characterize themselves as "born-again"--a mere 30% express concern about graphic sex education. Thirty percent of respondents are worried that textbooks stereotype women and minorities, although 53% of African-American parents voice this sentiment.

When parents are asked whether they ever have seen anything in their offspring's textbooks that "struck them as very inappropriate," 15% say they have. Twenty-three percent of traditional Christian and 14% of African-American parents indicate they have been upset by material in their children's textbooks or lessons.

Moreover, people seem comfortable with the values of educational professionals. Seventy-six percent state that the values of teachers are close to their own; 64% agree with school board members' values; and 65% feel that people who write school textbooks have similar beliefs. In contrast, 16% say that the values of those who produce Hollywood action films are similar to their own, and 10% regard the values of those who make TV soap operas in that way.

These results should not be interpreted to mean that people are blase about the role of the schools in transmitting values to the nation's children. Seventy-one percent maintain that it is even more important for the schools to teach values than academic subjects. They especially want schools to emphasize those values that allow a diverse society to live together peacefully.

When the press and national leadership accuse the public of a lack of concern about "values issues," it does not mean that Americans endorse a public school education that is value-neutral or makes no judgments about moral behavior. There is a circle of broadly agreed upon values people expect the schools to teach directly and reinforce by example. There also are some "lessons" that most believe are not the business of the public schools--those that seem aimed at dividing people, rather than helping them live together in harmony.

Respondents were given a list of 22 items and asked whether they were appropriate for public schools to teach. Results indicate that overwhelming majorities across geographic and demographic lines believe it is highly appropriate for public schools to teach an inner circle of consensus values. Ninety-five percent believe schools should teach honesty and the importance of telling the truth; 95% support instruction on respect for others, regardless of their racial or ethnic background; and 93% feel children should be taught to solve problems without violence.

Other items near the top of the public's "values-to-teach" list reiterate a concern for equality, fairness, and "getting along." Eighty-four percent say schools should teach students that having friends from different racial backgrounds and living in integrated neighborhoods is good; 80% believe they should be taught that girls can succeed at anything boys can; and 76% cite the importance of lessons on the struggle for black civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, 61% advocate teaching respect for people who are homosexual.

The public's concerns about tolerance and equality extend beyond selection of textbooks and development of curricula and lesson plans. People expect the schools to enforce certain minimum standards of fair treatment for all children.

Study participants were presented with this scenario: "If a teacher passes a group of students in a public school playground who are teasing another child about his race, should the teacher: A) let the students work it out themselves; B) break up the situation; or C) break up the situation and emphasize that teasing about race is wrong?" Ninety percent--across all geographic and demographic lines--want the teacher not only to break up the situation, but to explain that the behavior is wrong. Eighty-six percent would expect the same reaction if the child were being teased about religion. While 72% would feel the same way if the youngster were being teased because a parent is homosexual, 18% would prefer that the teacher break up the situation, but not discuss the reason at length.

Several items were considered "not at all appropriate" by most respondents and fell to the bottom of the public's list. What most of these have in common is that people seem to find them strident and divisive. Eighty-one percent say that schools should not bring in a guest speaker who argues that the Holocaust never happened, and 71% would not invite one who advocates black separatism. There are no significant differences between the views of African-American parents and white parents on the latter--both oppose it. Sixty-six percent also reject the idea that schools should teach that "Columbus was a murderer because his explorations led to the mass destruction Native Americans."

Among educational leaders, there is an ongoing discussion about issues of Eurocentrism and patriarchy in the public school curriculum. Some have called for a more multicultural curriculum, while others fear that too great an emphasis could undermine traditional American values. This dispute has a relatively low priority for the public, but respondents expressed a distinctive point of view to it--one that helps explain why they deem some kinds of lessons highly appropriate, while rejecting others as highly inappropriate.

Most do not believe that women and racial minority-groups are treated unfairly in existing textbooks, although African-American parents view this issue quite differently. Less than a third of the public thinks that African-Americans (32%), Hispanics (28%), or women (20%) are treated unfairly. Nonetheless, they support what they see as positive values emerging from the women's movement and the advocacy of minority groups.

What they reject, at least as lessons in the public schools, are sharply negative critiques of American society. For instance, while there is strong public support for teaching that girls can succeed at anything boys can, it drops off dramatically when people are asked whether schools should teach that women need to have careers outside the home to be fulfilled, with slightly more than one-third in agreement. What people seem to be saying is: "Yes, encourage girls to succeed at anything they want, but don't criticize those who choose a more traditional lifestyle"--a variation of the "live and let live" theme.

A similar pattern emerges on race. Respondents strongly endorse teaching respect for all people regardless of their racial background, but support drops off dramatically when issues are presented as a critique of mainstream society. Just 29% think schools should teach that "racism is the main cause of the economic and social problems blacks face today," and only 10% believe public schools should invite a black separatist to speak.

The findings--strongly endorsing the teaching of "respect" for others and rejecting more contentious messages--suggest a longing among the general public for harmony and civility and some desire to put discord in the past. The public school system has played a historic role in enabling diverse Americans to learn about each other and live together without bloodshed--a goal that many other nations have not been able to achieve. During the 1950s and 1960s, the schools became the symbol of the nation's moral judgment that whites and blacks should live together in equality.

Few would argue that the U.S. has lived up to all of its goals, and prejudice, anger, misunderstanding, and distrust continue to divide the country along racial and ethnic lines. Regardless of these failures, the vast majority of Americans accept the goal, and they want the public schools to play a central role in passing that goal along to their children.

Ms. Johnson is vice president, the Public Agenda Foundation, New York. Dr. Immerwahr is chairman, Department of Philosophy, Villanova (Pa.) University, and a senior research fellow of the foundation.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Society for the Advancement of Education
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