Educators: Reform Thyselves
Ten years ago, we set out to encourage and assist a small number of urban school systems in making their middle schools more challenging and engaging. Over time, this initiative evolved to focus on "systemic, standards-based reform for the middle grades." Now, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation is funding a few school systems that are on a trajectory of reform, with the potential to significantly increase student performance. Our experiences during the past decade have yielded some key lessons about school reform and what accelerates efforts to raise student achievement. Here are five of the most salient:
In nearly all instances, policymakers assume that educators have the necessary knowledge, skills, flexibility, will, and time to bring education reform successfully to fruition. Yet, the capacity among teachers and administrators to do what reformers are now saying is important—to cause all students to perform at significantly higher levels—simply does not exist among the majority of educators. This capacity will not exist unless states, school systems, and schools act intentionally to develop it. Teachers do not become more knowledgeable about the subjects they teach, nor do they develop and use more effective pedagogy, just because their schools' test scores are published in the newspaper. Educators may work harder and may even pay more attention to low-achieving students who were neglected in the past, but there is little evidence that their students are either learning more or are better able to apply what they learn. This is not likely to change until education reform policy is more grounded in an understanding of how much change practitioners can learn and implement, at what pace, and what level of support they need to do so.
Policymakers at all levels need to understand that the success of any policy depends on intensive, sustained, high-quality staff development. Yet, unfortunately, staff development cannot do much about other contextual factors that jeopardize reform. Even in school systems and schools that are serious about making changes to increase student achievement, over and over again we have seen reform jeopardized by the coming and going of school board members, superintendents, principals, and teachers. It seems that just when a school system or school is beginning to develop some hope that teaching and learning can improve, there is a...
This article is available to subscribers only.
To keep reading this article and more, subscribe now or purchase this article.
Subscribe to Education Week and Save
Get a full year and save up to 45%!
Viewed
Emailed
Recommended
Commented
- Elementary School Teacher
- Success Academy Charter Schools, New York, NY
- Program Coordinator
- Institute for Educational Advancement, South Pasadena, CA
- Superintendent
- Pinellas County Schools, Pinellas County, FL
- K-8 Principal
- EdVantages/Performance Academies, Detroit, MI
- Principals
- Prince George's County Public Schools, MD
