Why do the hokey-pokey?: Rationalizing the rhetoric of school accountability when diverse populations are involved

School Administrator, May, 2002 by Randy Ross

Although it had taken him months to get an appointment with the superintendent, reporter Scott Wells still felt that the school district's approach to accountability suffered from a mind-boggling schizophrenia. To Wells, the approach made no more sense than simultaneously boiling and freezing a pot of water to get "hot ice."

After obligatory introductions, Wells sat down in the closest of two chairs that rested opposite the superintendent's high-sheen oak desk and wondered how he would get to the point without offending the superintendent.

"How does it feel to be the new superintendent on the block?" Wells asked.

"Well, Scott, it feels exhilarating, challenging. I've been preparing for this moment for 25 years."

"Ms. Superintendent, during the first months of your stay at the helm, you have been spending most of your time at elementary schools and children's centers. Why?"

"A good start is the key to a good race. We must ensure that all our children have access to a great start, and I am especially eager that our children become independent readers by the time they complete 3rd grade. Reading is the superhighway to educational success."

"So that explains your focus on literacy for the lower grades?"

"Yes."

"It seems you spend most of your time in kindergarten classrooms. Why is that?"

"Well, because I didn't learn everything I needed to know in kindergarten."

"Such as?"

"Such as the hokey-pokey."

"The hokey-pokey?"

"Yes. Do you know how to do it?" The superintendent rose from her seat, removed her navy-blue suit jacket and laid it across the leather couch. "Let me show you. You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out. You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out. You do the hokey-pokey, and then you turn yourself around. That's what it's all about."

"I don't recall doing the hokey-pokey that way when I was in kindergarten."

The superintendent peered at the reporter "Precisely! Everybody knows how to stick his or her feet in and out and turn themselves around, but when it comes to the hokey-pokey everybody does it differently. And if you really want to understand why you do the hokey-pokey the way you do, you'll have to go back to kindergarten."

"Why's that?"

"Because that's what my kindergarten teacher told me," said the superintendent.

Shaping an Agenda

Wells crossed his legs and stared across the desk at the new superintendent, wondering what the hokey-pokey had to do with the shaping of the district's education agenda over the next few years. No wonder, he thought, the district's accountability system is batty.

"Your kindergarten teacher?" the reporter asked.

"Yes. She's been retired for years, but as soon as I became superintendent she tracked me down to give me her blessings as well as some advice."

"And?" Wells said.

"She insisted that in order to be a good superintendent, I would have to treat all children, bar none, as if they were my own. She also said that if I wanted to become a great superintendent I would have to master the hokey-pokey."

Wells crossed his legs the other way. "I don't understand," he said.

"That's what I said, too. And my teacher quoted the French poet, Baude-laire, who once wrote that 'genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will.' Therefore she said I would just have to find time to go back to school; I had been a good kindergarten pupil but not a great kindergarten pupil."

"So, have you mastered the hokey-pokey?"

"I'm getting there."

"But how could you master it if every-body does it differently?"

"Excellent question, Scott," said the superintendent, reaching into her pocket for a coin. "This old copper penny has two sides. One side is heads, the other side is tails. By appearances they will never meet each other face-to-face, only back-to-back. But watch what happens when I spin the coin on top of my desk. Which side of the coin do you see now?"

Wells hunched his shoulders. "Neither."

"Or both," the superintendent said. "The two sides of the coin are spinning a whole new world. Do you see it?"

"No, I don't."

"But because you saw the coin before I spun it, you know that both sides are there, n'est-ce pas?"

"Yes," said Wells. "But what are you getting at?"

"What I'm getting at is that superintendents must figure out how to view both sides of a coin as one and the same. The sides are merely alternative representations of the same phenomenon, the same dream.

Wells ran a hand backward through his hair. "If this conversation gets any deeper I will have to struggle mightily to create an accessible story out of it."

"The story is simple, Scott. All parents in America want their children to receive the best education America has to offer. And virtually all parents believe their children are college-bound. Hence, this school district must push to provide all children with that opportunity."

Expectations of All

Finally, the superintendent had ventured into the territory that Wells sought to cover in this story.

"That makes little sense," Scott said. "All children can't go to college. Indeed, all children should not go to college."