Models of Competence and Opportunities to Learn in Schools

The NAEP survey collects information on a wide range of variables pertaining to schools. These variables represent opportunities to learn due to such school aspects as student grouping (by ability, math, reading, etc.), school curriculum emphasis and priority (science, art, etc.), frequencies of science instruction, computer availability, curricula, frequency of field trips, library staffing, parent participation, student behavior, teacher morale, and so on. Table 5.1 presents sample questions from the NAEP school background questionnaire and variables created based on them; a complete list of the variables is available in Appendix C.

When students are in schools, they are placed in individual classrooms. However, individual classrooms exist within a school context. A school as a unit has its own culture that affords various opportunities to learn. This varying effect of school culture on student learning has been called hidden curricula or implicit curricula as compared to explicitly stated curricula implemented in classrooms (Cornbleth, 1984). “In school, students seem to learn much that is not publicly set forth in official statements of school philosophy or purpose or in course guides and syllabi. … Implicit curricula consist of the messages imparted by the classroom and school environment” (Cornbleth, 1984, p. 29). Implicit curricula in schools convey a variety of messages, sometimes contradictory to each other. It is up to individual students to make sense of them. Besides school curricula that may be formal, informal, or hidden, schools impact students through their organization (staffing plans, physical organization, etc.) and curriculum orientations (traditional, constructivist, and personal relevance) (Barbour & Barbour, 1997). Schools can differ greatly in terms of their educational policies, and such between-school differences are particularly evident in the United States in which education is overall decentralized in terms of governance, curriculum, and testing (Burstein et al., 1980).