Chapter 12 Notes

How Should Education Be Reformed?

 Although most people agree that schools should educate students to be good citizens, workers, and people, differing educational philosophies and beliefs about the purposes of schooling lead to a variety of approaches to schooling. Responsibility for school reform resides primarily with state and local educational agencies, with the federal government and national associations also making significant contributions. 

Some educators and politicians argue that much more needs to be done to improve U.S. schools, given that the reforms implemented to date have not led to significant gains in academic achievement. Others disagree, stating that U.S. schools are a great social achievement, educating more children to higher levels than the schools supported by any other society in the world. A number of skeptics believe that the schools-and particularly the public schools-are incapable of being reformed.

We can categorize the major motivations to reform our educational system as follows:

 To develop a democratic citizen: There are dramatic differences between the schools serving the children of the rich and those serving the children of the poor. Disturbingly high percentages of students know nothing about our democratic traditions and how our government functions.

 To Develop the Good Worker: Our way of life and our individual standard of living are closely linked to the United States' ability to maintain its economic leadership-a leadership that is  seriously threatened by the comparatively low level of knowledge and skills in mathematics, science, and vocational education demonstrated by the graduates of our schools. The world of work is rapidly being transformed, and schools are not keeping pace.

 To Develop the Good Person: Too many students are concerned with personal gain and individual rights rather than the well-being of their community and society. Disturbingly high percentages of students know nothing about our democratic traditions and how our government functions.

Constructivist principles stress the importance of learners taking an active role in creating their own new knowledge. For instance, the schools in the Coalition of Essential Schools try to put into practice the Ten Common Principles, which include the following points:

• Helping adolescents use their minds well

• Teaching for the mastery of essential skills and acceleration in certain areas of

   Knowledge

• Recognizing the student as worker rather than the teacher as deliverer of

  Information

• Provoking students to learn how to learn

• Reflecting values of trust, decency, tolerance, and generosity

• Expecting much from students without threatening them.

Increased graduation requirements and calls for more testing are part of many states' educational reforms. Voucher programs that allow students to use public funding to attend private schools are quite controversial.