Reforming/Reinventing Schools

Roseanne Yezzo

The concept of school reform is not a new idea, and has been revisited throughout history. Some of the most recent efforts to improve the current educational system have stemmed from the Civil Rights movement. Continued attention was given to the concept of reform during the Reagan years in the 1980’s through the work of E.D. Hirsch. In the 1990’s and 2000’s the term standards based education reform became the focus and of course, was closely tied to No Child Left Behind. As a result, reform is often associated with closing the gap between the economically disadvantaged student and the affluent student. Over the years, the concept of school reform has prompted much controversial debate.
In an attempt to explain the ongoing need for school reform, Michael C. Johanek references the idea of “groupthink” in his article School Reform That Matters. This term suggests that the current educational field “continues to hold strong to its beliefs that what we are doing is working despite evidence to the contrary.” In other words, we continue to follow the same policies and procedures regardless of the result. However, educators and those interested in reform do recognize what is needed for success in the classroom but are not always able to make it happen. Today’s student is complicated and requires more services than what is only available within the school system. A variety of resources are needed to address all areas of need and although they exist, they are not always easy to access and schools do not work in conjunction with the various agencies that might be an asset to them. Johanek quotes Dewey who wrote in 1899 “All waste is due to isolation” and he offers this as a reason as to why our current system does not meet with more success, despite our ongoing attempts to institute reform. School’s tend to operate in isolation and do not bridge the gap between community and school. Today’s students are not always able to make connections between daily life and what is taught at school because resources within the community are not operating in conjunction with the educational system. To emerge from this practice of “groupthink”, Johanek suggests we need to overcome the wasteful isolation. Therefore, a necessary component of school reform would include ongoing collaboration with community agencies that service our school’s youth and families and maintain consistent efforts to make the school day less isolated from the rest of a child’s life.
Criticism of current reform efforts include that most reform efforts lack a broad based impact. What works in one setting does not often work in another and resources do not always trickle down to the most disadvantaged students. Therefore, more research is needed to determine what exactly does work. The Gates Foundation, which has invested extensively in both health care abroad and education here in this country, has been creating new educational opportunities for the poor and disadvantaged. However, even with significant financial support, success has been mixed. It has been suggested that an important factor that is missing in educational reform, which has led to the mixed results for the Gates Foundation, is the lack of substantial research. Without ongoing research and development, innovations strong enough to make significant differences, and that can benefit all populations aren’t available. Paul T. Hill in his article Money, Momentum and the Gates Foundation suggests the need for “grant programs that would stimulate development of online resources, ways to mix teacher work with online information, extend students’ learning days, and access instructors who are masters in their subjects.” Hill further suggests that there is no good alternative to research and development, but this of course, will take time. In addition to research and development, Hill also includes the integration of social service funds into school budgets as a critical factor for successful school reform.
Attempts to reform education through private funding are certainly worth investigating further, but politics often get in the way. Our current system of state and local guidelines mandate services, funding, etc. and can interfere with the flexibility of how/where financial support is provided. Nevertheless, school reform also remains a constant source of interest within our federal, state and local governments indicating, whether it is privately or politically motivated, change is being demanded. One recent movement toward reform, which would impact current federal guidelines, includes a focus on improving and revamping our high school requirements. Goals focusing on career/college readiness for high school graduates are not adequately included in AYP and therefore, are being overlooked in any reform system currently in place. Without this piece, today’s students are not fully prepared for life after school in this fast paced global economy. A few suggested changes to the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (NCLB) have included “establishing college and career readiness goals, ensuring meaningful accountability for high school outcomes, instituting a differentiated and data driven school improvement process, putting in place support strategies necessary to implement high school improvement, maximizing the role of entities outside the school system, implementing innovative solutions, and providing new funding for the implementation of innovative solutions.” (Education Digest, Feb.2010). These suggested changes are an attempt to bridge the gap for students, particularly poor and minority students, for a successful life beyond their early schooling years.
Although school reform has been a constant subject of review over time, it has moved to the forefront of many political agendas in recent years. Educators, in turn, have become the focus of many of those political platforms. Politicians have made the “educator” the emphasis of reform efforts rather than the specifics of how to reform the educational system. Unfortunately, this may not be the best approach. Yes, educators are required to grow and change and keep up with the most effective practices in education. But as our society has changed exponentially in recent years, perhaps education needs to take the time to identify, through research and development, which reform efforts have been proven to work and under what conditions. It would also seem that Dewey’s interpretation of “isolation” is more appropriate now than ever before. Not only do we need to connect our students to community services and opportunities, but we need to also extend that beyond their own neighborhoods. And if we are going to regulate what is taught, when it is taught and how we are going to measure it, through our government, then we need to include the whole child from pre-K (or even before) to post high school. In education, there is always room for improvement, but how best to accomplish that seems to continue to elude us.