Is Innovation Always Good?:

By Anne Wescott Dodd

In its report "First Things First: What Americans Expect From the Public Schools," the Public Agenda Foundation revealed last fall that many people view teaching innovations unfavorably. (See Education Week, 10/12/94.) This finding is not news to many educators. Hard-working principals, teachers, and activist parents in communities everywhere are frustrated because they can't get much support for changes they believe would improve schools for students.

Those engaged in planning change do their best to include everyone. They set up community-visioning sessions in an effort to build consensus about what students should know and be able to do. They conduct surveys, invite parents and citizens to serve on representative committees, and schedule informational meetings so people can ask questions. But later they are often shocked to discover how forcefully some parents will work to overturn or prevent any change. Even when people agree on a grand vision for the community's schools, they often vehemently disagree about the steps needed to implement it. The devil, it has been said, is in the details.

Why do parents oppose change? Why do so many seem to want schools and classrooms to go back to what they recall as...