Education Reform Essay

Introduction 1. How many of you had a senior category with a 100 % graduation rate? 90 % ? 80 % ? 70 % ? Less than 70 % ? I graduated in 1985. ten percent in my category. There were 500 childs in my senior category. and all but three of us graduated. That’s over a 99 % graduation rate. Yet. we had been told merely two old ages prior that our schools were non making their occupations. and that we would be the first coevals that would non transcend our parents’ coevals educationally. What does that say about your coevals? Is it your mistake? Or your instructors or parents? Is it because of or in malice of instruction reform? 2. Today I will talk to you about instruction reform.

First. I will discourse a spot of the history of reform. particularly in the latter half of the twentieth century. Following. I will talk about how the reform of today is really aching both pupils and instructors. and making jobs for future coevalss. Finally. I will speak about some possible solutions to give instructors more liberty in instruction and kids more joy and involvement in larning. 3. I am qualified to talk about this subject because of my ain experiences with instruction reform. the past ten old ages of extended research I have done on this topic. and the documents I have written about it.

( Passage: Let me get down by giving you a brief history of instruction reform. ) Body 1. Education reform is nil new. A expression at the history of public schools in the United States shows answerability criterions have been around for about 200 old ages. Who is accountable to whom and for what have changed. but the basic premiss has been in topographic point a long clip. In 1897. Dr. Joseph Mayer Rice began the push for standardised accomplishment trials to measure course of study and direction. While unsuccessful at first. by World War I school boards across the state were utilizing achievement trials in simple and secondary schools.

Accountability was placed on the decision makers. overseers. and the school boards. Until merely after the Second World War. schools in modern edifices with sufficient suites. desks. and text editions for pupils. qualified instructors. and indoor plumbing were viewed as good schools. A. With the launch of Sputnik by the Soviets. instruction criterions in America began to alter. The turbulence of the 1950s and 1960s gave manner to higher criterions and the burden of answerability was get downing to switch to instructors. B.

In The Schools our Children Deserve: Traveling Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards” . published in 1999. Alfie Kohn writes that by the terminal of the seventiess. two tierces of the provinces had mandated that high school pupils had to go through minimal competence trials to graduate. C. The 1983 study A State at Risk provinces “…the educational foundations of our society are soon being eroded by a lifting tide of averageness that threatens our really future as a State and a people. What was impossible a coevals ago has begun to occur—others are fiting and exceling our educational attainments.

“ Reforms continued through the 1980s and 1990s. but it wasn’t until the much maligned No Child Left Behind was enacted in 2002 that instruction reform was one time once more at the head of our attending. ( Passage: That brings me to my 2nd point. which deals with the jobs with instruction reform. most particularly NCLB ) 1. Teachers are being held to tougher and higher criterions than of all time before. and they are experiencing the force per unit area. Many first-class instructors have either gone to learn at private schools or discontinue learning wholly to avoid the demands made on them.

Others have done their best to learn pupils in what has become a unquestionably unfriendly environment. Decisions made by people who either have no experience in learning kids. or are so far removed from the public school puting are doing a rift in our educational procedure and a loss of regard for instructors. Teachers are now held accountable for the trial tonss and graduation rates of their pupils. Teachers are an easy mark. and teacher bashing is all excessively common among policy shapers. Some parents are besides speedy to fault the instructor alternatively of themselves or their kid for hapless trial classs.

It is small admiration that some instructors are seeking different occupations. The force per unit area of being a instructor is enormous. To be held responsible for that over which they have small or no control is no manner to maintain current or attract new instructors to the profession. A. In their 2002 book High Stakes: Children. Testing. and Failure in American Schools. Dale and Bonnie Johnson make comparings between occupations in instruction and other service-oriented occupations. stating “ Dentists are non held accountable for patients who develop pits. We do non fault societal workers for clients that can non acquire occupations.

Lawyers are non accountable for clients who end up in prison. ” B. A deficiency of liberty and decision-making power over constructions and processs that affect their daily work is one of the on the job conditions that instructors find unbearable. Elaine Garan. in her book In Defense of Our Childs: When Politicss. Net income. and Education Collide. published in 2004. says that “Teachers’ control over affairs closest to them. such as teaching method and course of study content. has diminished because hapless trial tonss lead to increased force per unit area to learn the criterions and a tighter monitoring of teachers’ work.

” C. It is non merely the instructors who are affected by these criterions. Children are besides also-rans in this epoch of high bets proving. An article titled High Stakes Testing Has a Negative Impact on Learning by David Berliner and Sharon Nichols in the 2008 book Has No Child Left Behind Been Good for Education? . provinces “By curtailing the instruction of immature people and replacing for it developing to execute good on high bets scrutinies. we are turning America into a state of test-takers. abandoning our heritage as a state of minds. dreamers. and actors. ”

( Passage: Now that I’ve spoken about the jobs with current instruction reforms. I’d like to speak about my 3rd point: possible solutions that might let instructors to be more independent and pupils to larn effectively. ) 1. In my research. I’ve come across a few interesting thoughts for instruction reform. Two thoughts that have some virtue are larning community schools and child-centered schools. A.

Charles Myers and Douglas Simpson write about larning community schools in their 1998 book Re-Creating Schools: Topographic points Where Everyone Learns and Likes It. They say “When schools are thought of as learning communities. they are civilizations instead than physical locations. As civilizations. they have a moral intent. a mission. and a shared set of nucleus values. Their moral intent is to educate pupils and their cardinal end is all pupils larning at the highest possible degrees.

” Obviously. these are common missions and ends of all schools. but the difference in larning community civilizations. the mission and end are used more systematically to make better acquisition for kids and instructors likewise. B. In his 1993 book. What are we seeking to learn them anyhow? A Father’s Focus on School Reform. Ronald Pierce advocators for child-centered schools. He writes. “Child-centered pedagogues believe that each kid needs to develop their ain committedness to and manner of larning. and that can merely happen in an environment where the kid mostly directs his ain acquisition.

” In this scene. geting cognition is still of import. but non every bit much as the overall psychological and emotional development of the kid. Decision 1. In decision. today I have spoken to you about the history of instruction reform. the jobs with the current thoughts. and some solutions that might do things better for instructors and pupils. 2. A instructor doing $ 25. 000 per twelvemonth. purchasing their ain schoolroom supplies. paying measures and perchance back uping a household is under a batch of strain.

Add to that the rigorous guidelines and the answerability criterions of instruction today and it becomes obvious why so many immature people are abandoning the profession or non come ining it at all. Veteran instructors with a few years’ experience may do a spot more. but the same emphasiss are at that place. The mass fires of instructors. counsel counsellors. principals and adjunct principals in Rhode Island in February 2010 is an utmost illustration of the effects of high bets instruction reforms. How are instructors supposed to make their occupations when the menace of being fired looms over their caputs?

We can non anticipate our instructors to go on to work in conditions such as these. and we can non anticipate our kids to go zombis filled with facts that merely glean the surface of what there is to larn. Bibliography Fisanick. Christina. Ed. Has No Child Left Behind Been Good for Education? Greenhaven Press. 2008. Print Garan. Elaine M. In Defense of Our Childs: When Politicss. Net income. and Education Collide. Heinemann. 2004. Print Johnson. Dale D and Bonnie. High Stakes: Children. Testing. and Failure in American Schools.

Rowman & A ; Littlefield Publishers. 2002. Print Kohn. Alfie. The Schools Our Children Deserve: Traveling Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1999 Print Myers. Charles and Simpson. Douglas. Re-Creating Schools: Topographic points Where Everyone Learns and Likes it. Corwin Press. Inc. 1998 National Commission on Excellence in Education. A State At Hazard: The Imperative for Educational Reform. April 1993. Pierce. Ronald K. What are we seeking to learn them anyhow? A Father’s Focus on School Reform. ICS Press. 1993.