




































The Fallacy of Approaching Education Reform through a Singular Lens


Volume 3, Issue 1 

2020 

Allies for Education 2020, 3, 1 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 

 

The Fallacy of Approaching Education Reform 

through a Singular Lens 

 
Russell Craig Helmstedter 
 

“Students in poverty… learn less because they are taught less.” (Dudley-Marling & Dudley-Marling, 2015, 

p.42). With marksmanship accuracy, the authors direct what Tollefson (2008) refers to as the spotlight 

of accountability squarely at teachers. Dudley-Marling and Dudley-Marling (2015) offer a tantalizing 

solution. Since it is teachers who limit the potential of students in lower track classes, which are 

disproportionately filled with poor students and students of color, by not offering the same engaging 

curriculum as students in the high-level tracks, schools should get rid of tracking. The authors attempt to 

support this idea by providing two examples of schools that found success after detracking. However, 

the authors commit two logical fallacies. The first is a red herring. They blame all disparities in student 

achievement on teachers employing deficit thinking towards students in poverty while ignoring 

extenuating circumstances faced by students in poverty. The second fallacy is post hoc ergo propter hoc, 

or rather, after this because of this. While it is true that all schools have found success after detracking, 

Dudley-Marling and Dudley-Marling fail to account for all of the factors outside of detracking that 

account for success in the cases they cite.  

A Tale of Two Schools 
To illustrate their point that detracking is the solution for closing the achievement gap, Dudley-Marling 

and Dudley-Marling (2015) first offer the example of The Preuss School (TPS). TPS is a public charter high 

school in San Diego. Low-income students, who have been identified as high potential, are selected 

through a lottery system. The school offers a singular college prep pathway in both mathematics and 

English language arts. Over the span of six years, 2004-2009, 84% of graduates attended a four-year 

university. However, the authors have omitted key details about the program that have led to success.  

To elucidate the magnitude of this omission, consider De Anza Academy of Technology and the Arts 

(DATA), a Title 1 middle school in Ventura, CA. Table 1 features demographics of both TPS and DATA. For 

the 2018-2019 school year both schools were comparable in the number of students and served large 

populations of low-income students. That is where the comparison ends.  



The Fallacy of Approaching Education Reform through a Singular Lens 
Russell Craig Helmstedter 

Allies for Education 2020,3 , 1 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 
 

Table 1 

Comparison of School Characteristics of DATA and Preuss Schools in the 2018-19 School Year 

 DATA PREUSS Difference 

Students 839 836 -3 

Annual Instructional Minutes 54900 74669 19769 

Teachers 25 42 17 

Student:Teacher Ratio 33.6 19.9 -13.7 

Math Classes with 33+ Students 42.1% 3.2% -38.9% 

Counselors 2 3 1 

Expenditures Per Pupil $7,478.00 $14,255.67 $6,777.67 

Mean Teacher Salary $69,185.00 $87,504.25 $18,319.25 

Three Year Mean Suspension Rate 7.1% 2.1% -5.0% 

Free and Reduced Lunch Program 71.0% 97.2% 26.2% 

English Language Learners 26.5% 9.0% -17.5% 

Students with Disabilities 14.8% 4.2% -10.6% 

Note: Data collected from California Department of Education (2020a), and California Department of 

Education (2020b) 

 

TPS outspends DATA by $6,778 per student per year, a percent increase of 90%. In other words, TPS 

spends nearly double what DATA spends per student. TPS employs 17 more credentialed teachers than 

DATA despite having three less students. Also, any struggling student has access to after school tutoring, 

counseling, and family counseling. Every student with a GPA below a 2.5 attends mandatory Saturday 

school (TPS, 2020). Most notably, TPS allocates 74669 annual instructional minutes each year, 

approximately 20,000 more than the state minimum. This means a high school student who attends TPS 

for four years accumulates an additional 80,000 instructional minutes equating to more than a fifth year 



The Fallacy of Approaching Education Reform through a Singular Lens 
Russell Craig Helmstedter 

Allies for Education 2020,3 , 1 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 
 

of instruction. Detracking is undoubtedly a defining characteristic of TPS.  However, TPS also has a highly 

motivated student body, and the school builds in multiple layers of support for struggling students and 

their families. 

The Curious Case of Railside  
Dudley-Marling and Dudley-Marling (2015) provided another example of a school that saw success due 

to detracking. Boaler and Staples (2008) researched detracking as a reform for equity in mathematics. 

The study includes a trio of high schools in northern California. Railside school is a school that locals 

refer to as being on the “‘wrong side’ of the tracks” (p. 609). Railside is the most diverse of the three 

schools in the study, with 30% of students being ELL and 30% of students being low-income. The study 

found that after detracking, students at Railside outperformed the other whiter, more affluent schools. 

Specifically, while Railside students had a lower mean score for the year 1 math pretest, they outscored 

the other schools by the end of year 2 math. Moreover, 41% of students at Railside took Calculus, 

compared to 27% on average at the other two schools. However, that success cannot be attributed to 

detracking alone. The remainder of this section will explore the factors outside of detracking that lead to 

Railside’s success. 

A Methodological Discrepancy 
Students at the other two schools in the Railside study (Boaler & Staples, 2008) were either placed in 

remedial math or offered a choice between a ‘traditional’ mathematics pathway and a pathway that 

centered on group work and applied problems. It is notable that because of the smaller sample size, 

students who chose the alternative group work and applied problems pathway are not included in the 

statistical analysis. This means that all students, including high achievers, were included in the mean 

scores at Railside. At the other two schools the pathway that typically consists of high achievers is not 

included in the analysis. Potentially, this could have an impact on the mean scores the study did not 

explore.  

Scheduling 
Scheduling was another source of success at Railside (Boaler & Staples, 2008). Students attended the 

same classes for 90 minute periods every day, with class sizes of 20 to 1. Thus, a course that is a year 

long at most schools is a semester long at Railside. Students were able to take two math courses each 

year, therefore, allowing students who fail multiple courses the chance to still reach calculus by senior 

year. Moreover, Railside students took year 1 math over the course of two semesters to ensure that 

foundations are taught with depth. This is the equivalent of taking year 1 math over the course of two 

years at the other schools. So although Railside students outperformed the other two schools on the 

year 2 math post-test, they had at least 54,000 additional instructional minutes in which to learn the 

same content than the other two schools.  

Curriculum 
 In addition to detracking, Railside students experienced a completely reformed curriculum designed 

around complex instruction with cultural awareness and equity in mind. Expectations and norms were 

put in place so that students knew they were responsible for the learning of others as part of the 

reformed curriculum. Teachers practiced assigning competence to student ideas by highlighting 

individual contributions to the whole class, increasing student efficacy. The final component of complex 



The Fallacy of Approaching Education Reform through a Singular Lens 
Russell Craig Helmstedter 

Allies for Education 2020,3 , 1 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 
 

instruction was the idea of multidimensional classrooms. Teachers posed complex problems that could 

be solved in multiple ways and created a culture in which various approaches were valued.  

Staffing 
Apart from the curriculum, Railside has a unique math department. Veteran teachers would deliberately 

teach lessons one or two days ahead of more novice teachers. The idea was that more novice teachers 

were able to observe, reflect, collaborate, and refine lessons taught by venteran teachers before having 

to teach the same lesson themselves. The study found math teachers put in 650 minutes of planning per 

week despite only getting paid for 450 minutes of preparation. The culture of the department was such 

that teachers were expected to work outside of contract hours without compensation. Finally, the Math 

department also had control over recruitment and hiring. The majority of the department had been 

working and collaborating for years. New teachers were hired if they fit into the common vision for the 

department. 

To illuminate the uniqueness in department control of staffing, consider DATA once again. Teachers at 

all middle schools in Ventura Unified School District teach six periods out of a six period day. There exists 

no opportunity in the schedule that would allow teachers to observe each other. Meanwhile, one 

quarter into the 2018-2019 school year, district administration removed a teacher from a Ventura 

Unified high school for breaking state law and misusing district funds meant for the girls’ basketball 

team (D’Angelo, 2018). The Superintendent held an optional staff meeting informing DATA staff that the 

teacher would be placed at DATA because he was in need of a ‘fresh start’. Subsequently, district 

administrators took a teacher from DATA to cover the now open position at the high school. As cited in 

the Railside study (Boaler & Staples, 2008), consistency and quality of faculty matters.  

The Dangers of Promoting a Single Solution 
Dudley-Marling and Dudley-Marling (2015) adduce the detracking at TPS and Railside as exemplary 

while neglecting to mention the systems, funding, and support required to facilitate such reform. In 

both cases, successful detracking coincided with other supports and interventions such as counseling 

services, expenditure per student above the state mean, increase in instructional minutes, a high-quality 

and consistent staff, small class sizes, a common vision shared by the faculty, and mandatory tutoring. 

Detracking may be a piece of the puzzle, but it must be accompanied by other reforms. Moreover, if we 

believe that lack of access to prenatal and early childhood care (Dudley-Marling & Dudley-Marling, 

2015), and adverse childhood experiences (Hughes & Tucker, 2018) disproportionately impact students 

of poverty, we must acknowledge disparity exists amongst the social stratification of socioeconomic 

statuses and address those disparities accordingly. To promulgate detracking as a feasible reform in 

closing the achievement gap, without acknowledging the systemic changes required to implement that 

reform, sets teachers and students up for failure. To paraphrase Adichie (2009), the danger of 

presenting a single solution is that it robs teachers of their dignity.  

  



The Fallacy of Approaching Education Reform through a Singular Lens 
Russell Craig Helmstedter 

Allies for Education 2020,3 , 1 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 
 

About the Author 
Russell Helmstedter is an alumnus of CSUCI through and through. After receiving a B.S. in Mathematics 

with an emphasis in Education, he went on to earn a Single Subject Teaching Credential in Mathematics. 

Furthermore, he is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction, also at CSUCI. He 

has been a public school teacher for seven years. In the classroom, his passion is creating or presenting 

problems and scenarios that pique student curiosity and help students develop reasoning. 

References 
Adichie, C. N. (2009). The danger of a single story [Video]. TED Global 

https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transc

ript?language=en#t-1107598 

Boaler, J., & Staples, M. (2008). Creating Mathematical Futures through an Equitable Teaching  

Approach: The Case of Railside School. Teachers College Record, 110(3), 39. 

California Department of Education (2020a). School accountability report card for De Anza 

Academy of Technology and the Arts. Retrieved from https://www.sarconline.org/Sarc 

Pdfs/Temp/37683383731189.pdf 

California Department of Education (2020b). School accountability report card for Preuss School 

UCSD. Retrieved from https://www.sarconline.org/SarcPdfs/Temp/37683383731189.pdf 

D’Angelo, A. (2018, November 30). Buena girls basketball coach was removed for allegedly 

misusing funds, violating laws. Ventura County Star. 

https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/education/2018/11/30/buena-basketball-coach-dave-

guenther-public-funds-law/2114145002/ 

Dudley-Marling, C, & Dudley-Marling, A. (2015). Inclusive Leadership and Poverty. In Scanlan, G. 

& Theoharis, M. (Eds), Leadership for increasingly diverse schools. Routledge. 

Hughes, M., & Tucker, W. (2018). Poverty as an Adverse Childhood Experience. North Carolina 

Medical Journal, 79(2), 124–126. https://doi.org/10.18043/ncm.79.2.124 

The Preuss School. (2020). Retrieved from https://preuss.ucsd.edu/ 

Tollefson, K. (2008). The inversion of visibility. In Volatile knowing: Parents, teachers, and the 

censored story of accountability in America’s public schools. Lexington Press (pp. 131-140).  

 

https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript?language=en%23t-1107598
https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript?language=en%23t-1107598
https://www.sarconline.org/Sarc
https://www.sarconline.org/SarcPdfs/Temp/37683383731189.pdf
https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/education/2018/11/30/buena-basketball-coach-dave-guenther-public-funds-law/2114145002/
https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/education/2018/11/30/buena-basketball-coach-dave-guenther-public-funds-law/2114145002/
https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/education/2018/11/30/buena-basketball-coach-dave-guenther-public-funds-law/2114145002/
https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/education/2018/11/30/buena-basketball-coach-dave-guenther-public-funds-law/2114145002/
https://preuss.ucsd.edu/

	The Fallacy of Approaching Education Reform through a Singular Lens
	A Tale of Two Schools
	The Curious Case of Railside
	A Methodological Discrepancy
	Scheduling
	Curriculum
	Staffing

	The Dangers of Promoting a Single Solution
	About the Author
	References

