On December 15, 2005, Youth Together and Justice Matters launched the REAL Schools Campaign at a Town Hall on Student Learning at Ford Elementary School in Richmond. The goal of the campaign is to build a community vision of what education should look like in a democratic society.

Below is a report from one of the presenters, Elizabeth Jaeger. A video was shown that contrasts teaching in two classrooms - the first using a scripted 
reading curriculum and the second employing a more holistic approach:

The first part of the video we watched together vividly demonstrates what happens when, so-called teacher-proof programs, like Open Court Reading which is used in West County schools, are rigidly implemented. In what ways do such programs interfere with student learning? I believe there are at least five reasons for concern.

• First, human beings are constantly striving to understand everything around us.  But contemporary reading programs ignore this truth. They begin by presenting children with the least meaningful aspects of literacy – letters and sounds – and postpone an emphasis on meaning for nearly two years after instruction begins.  This view may seem to be common sense, but, in fact, it is not the way most 
children learn to read. Generally, they begin with a sense of what stories are like and then gradually integrate knowledge about print until they are fully competent readers.  If they are fed a steady diet of nonsensical stories early on, they will come to view reading as a meaningless chore.

• Second, these programs are taught to all students at the same time, limiting the teacher's ability to vary instruction for children. The needs of strong and struggling readers are not met. It also requires a tremendous amount of "teacher talk," limiting communication among children – especially problematic for English Learners. Teachers get laryngitis while children are silent.

• Third, these programs typically require that the teacher move at a very fast pace in order to cover all the material. The teacher in the video, for example, used a timer to be sure she was exactly on schedule. This results in moving on through the curriculum even when students need more time to understand what 
they've been taught.

• Fourth, frequent assessments may take up to 20% of instructional time. While assessment is an important element of instruction, I am reminded of the doctor who said to the worried mother, "Your child is not going to grow any faster by weighing him every day!" This over-emphasis on assessment emphasizes teaching to the test rather than on learning which is both broad and deep.

• Finally, the interaction between teacher and student is reduced to a mechanical and impersonal back-and-forth. We need to remember that these are real people spending hours together every day, communicating about a range of issues. The bond between teachers and students which facilitates this kind of communication 
is undermined by an instructional program which takes personalities out of the equation.

It has become common practice to speak of schools as businesses with Chief Executive Officers, clients, and products. But schools are not businesses, parents are not clients, and children are not products. They are all human beings engaged in the process of education. Teacher-proof curriculum is human-proof curriculum. Is this truly what we want?