Education Reform ……Fact or Fiction?

” No matter how far you have gone on a wrong road, turn back. ” – Turkish Proverb

When we exam school reform we should look beyond improving current pedagogy, instructional best practice, schedule modifications and classroom management strategies. In its present state the American concept of educational reform fosters a system defined by the advantage of class and the social dynamics codified in the socio-economic construct. The concept of national reform founded on the premise that one size fits all has created a system that punishes the poor. The determination that a successful school is defined solely on disaggregated test data exacerbates the division between suburban and urban school systems. The students who attend urban public schools have unimaginable social constraints that have global implications. Consider the social-emotional effect of having test data from the students respective schools editorialized in newspapers throughout the state without any consideration of the perspective of urban youth who attend inner-city schools facing myriad environmental, societal, economic, and  academic challenges.

Dennis Littky, [The Big Picture]  challenges the veracity of the intent of bureaucrats who espouse national standards, ” if we care about kids more than we care about schools, then we must change schools.”  The focus on standardized tests and the adoption of  nationalized curricula portends the continuation of an outdated educational model. That policymakers refuse to acknowledge the world is changing is disturbing and speaks to an unyielding bureaucracy. In an article [One Size Does Not Fit All] published in the New York Times, Robert B. Reich pointedly observes that, “yes, people need to be able to read, write, and speak clearly. And, they have to know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. But given the widening array of possibilities, there’s no reason that every child must master the sciences, algebra, geometry, biology, or any of the rest of the standard high school curriculum that has barely changed in half a century.” It is hypocritical to demand a standardized packaged curriculum when children are not cloned monolithic beings. The current societal construct infers that individualism is an innate characteristic of a democratic society yet we refuse to shift the educational paradigm to reflect those attributes.

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