On educational reform churn

'Everyone in the field of public education has his or her favored reform methods, from merit pay to vocational education to year-round schooling to giving every kid violin lessons. But if district leaders don't allow other experts' ideas to come to fruition over the course of years, not months, new strategies can never be fully assessed, nor scaled-up if they work.'

The problem is multifold:

1. A facile expectation that there's One Silver Bullet, one magical program, approach, trick, whatever, that will solve all educational ills.  Which is as dumb as thing that there's just one way to teach a kid to read, or one way to run a business, or one way to succeed at any job (except in very, very broad terms).

2. Superintendents and school boards have become overly focused on immediate results. But no educational scheme, no matter how documented, can be fully implemented and the kinks worked out in a single year. Or two. Or five. Nor is any particular school or faculty going to implement it the same way (nor would you really want them to be so robotic as to do so).

3. As part of this, superintendents (especially) now come in politically touting a reform package. Nobody runs on doing things the same way, or maintaining the status quo, or even just making sure the school busses run on time.  The results is that they must change things, even things that are arguably working, in order to fulfill all those promises they made.

The result is, sadly, not just getting rid of "failures" but the need to classify as "failures" anything that doesn't fit what the new boss sees as the Grand Vision.  Which is fine for the boss, not so much for the schools, teachers, or students.

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In Los Angeles, a Promising and Progressive School Reform Plan Is Under Threat – Dana Goldstein
Everyone in the field of public education has his or her favored reform method, from merit pay to vocational education to year-round schooling to giving every kid violin lessons. But if district leade…

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