Mismatch: Historical perspectives on schools and students who don't fit them

There have always been students who do not meet the, educational expectatio ns of their time-students outside the mainstream mold who do not fit domina nt notions of success. The differences between schools and these students c an be thought of as a "mismatch" between the structure of schools and the s ocial, cultural, or economic backgrounds of students identified as problems . In this essay we examine the history of these students who have not been able to do what educators wanted them to do. We look at how educators have labeled poor school performers in different periods and how these labels re flected both attitudes and institutional conditions. M then summarize four major historical explanations for why children fail in school-individual de ficits or incompetence, families, inefficiency in schools, and cultural dif ference. Finally, we explore what implications this history has for student s in the current standards-based reform movement, including implications fo r social promotion and the age-graded school. To avoid a mismatch in the st andards movement, we argue that educators should focus on adapting the scho ol betters to the child, addressing social inequalities that extend beyond the classroom, and undertaking comprehensive changes that take no features of current schools for granted.