Reading Analysis

It did amaze me that I have gone to school for all of these years and never even considered how the public education system in our country developed into what we know today as "real school". I found it very interesting that the factory was such an influence on our education system. The first thing I thought was that a factory spits out identical products for the most part, and that is not exactly what we want education to do these days, I don't think, but then I realized this is one of the issues that reforms work towards dealing with.

The reforms discussed in this chapter were focused on discovering the most efficient ways to teach students, and creating a more democratic education, e.g. collaboration, critical thinking, self governance. I am obviously no professional administrator, but I did feel that several things were overlooked that are crucial to the successful implementation of school reforms.

First of all, I think that the teachers were not considered enough in the development or implementation of the reforms. As leaders of the classroom, their input and advice should have been of utmost importance when developing reforms. Once in place, teachers should have had more support in initiating the new policies in their classrooms. This would have prevented teachers from becoming frustrated and overwhelmed, and the policies are more likely to be implemented properly and given the chance to succeed. The implementation of these reforms must have been exhausting, since T&C said that not only were teachers overwhelmed by demands of the reforms, but often the principals and administrators were quittng. This does not lead to success, and cannot be a good sign. To me this shows that these reforms were too extreme, too much at once. Gradual policy changes seem to be a better answer, and may prove to be more effective for teachers and students alike.

The next problem I have with the development and implementation of these school reforms is that the communities and parents were left in the dark. In our democratic educational system decision making is supposed to be a balance of professional, parental and community ideals. These reforms were developed by professionals, and when they were put into action the parents and community did not understand WHY they were necessary and important, or WHAT they could do to assist the reforms. If they had understood the advantages of the reforms, teachers and administrators would have had the support of the parents and community behind them.

Reforms are important to keep our educational system evolving into what it needs to be to meet the demands of our modern society. I feel that teachers should be emmersed in the decision making procesess, as well as the parents and community. I feel that it is a better idea to start reforms on a much smaller level, like sharing new ideas with teachers and letting them try them in their individual classrooms. We learned that change cannot happen all at once on a large scale, so why not try small scale gradual implementaion?