REFORM BUILDING-LEVEL SOLUTIONS

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | ADVOCATE | January 28, 2011

          The education crisis is real. As a public school teacher, I have taught and tutored a range of students from the sheltered suburban students to the melting pot of inner city school youth. Thus, I am well acquainted with the achievement gap that has held steady for our public schools today. Today’s educational reform movements emphasize the standardization of curriculum, providing all American students with parallel educational experiences that will assist them in becoming informed and active citizens. However, in working toward these improvements, the processes have revealed glaring problems and contradict the notion of the common school.

          Have we not learned anything from “No Child Left Behind"  which
emphasizes accountability through testing? As a result, a “teach to the test” style of education has sprung up, which focuses upon test scores rather than critical thinking, engagement, and creativity. According to findings published in The Shame of the Nation, instead of preparing students for civic engagement in a democratic society, this form of education leads to “citizens becoming receptacles for other people’s ideologies and ways of looking at the world but lack the independent sprits to create their own”.

The pressure of standardized testing and the allocation of funding are clear examples of areas explicitly discussed in No Child Left Behind that have its own share of mixed reviews. Those schools who do poorly on standardized tests tend to be schools in poor urban districts. Consequently, doing poorly on these exams through a loss of funding then punishes these same schools. Are they ever allowed a break? If this devastating cycle continues, only furthering the despair of some schools while elevating those who do not need to be elevated will continue to occur. Historian Christine Shea writes, “For the vast majority of noncollege-bound/minimal-competency students, the end of formal schooling is expected to occur as soon as they demonstrate acquisition of “learning to learn” minimal-competency skills”.

Such reforms serve to perpetuate educational, racial and economic inequalities and a system that merely prepares to students to enact and perpetuate their own limited roles that social factors have set up for them. Poorly funded schools in neighborhoods of lower socioeconomic classes complete the cycle of offering substandard educations to their students. On the other hand, affluent schools are able to provide their students with even more educational opportunities. NCLB attempted to resolve issues of accountability with standardized testing and funds allocation but it seems like the possible outcomes of such measures were not properly thought through. It is unfortunate that this Act implies the possibility of outcomes that are counter-intuitive to its goals.

Yet another focus of current school reform—school choice has hit news stations recently. Though the concept of choice is an integral element of democracy, it serves to alienate thousands of students when implemented in the American education system. I find that reformers maintain that school choice and vouchers would allow students to pick their school “on the basis of its perceived quality and its compatibility with their personal educational goals”; consequently, high quality schools will ideally flourish while poorer schools would either have to improve or simply close. Realistically, this reform of choice would most likely benefit students in wealthier school districts and create greater disparities between the “haves” and the “have nots.” With this schools will never expand sufficiently to address the needs of the great majority, which needs to be recognized.

The problems and attempted reforms within American education highlight the very problems and complexities at the heart of our society. It seems apparent that inequality is the most profound problem that then compounds into other problems.  For example, accountability through standardized testing attempts to alleviate inequalities within our schools, while simultaneously highlighting the vast inequalities at play in our schools, especially in urban and rural areas.

If the road does not lead to Rome do we really want it followed? The roller coaster of school reform seems to be part of a self-perpetuating problem. It also leaves many educators jaded about the possibility of finding a direction, which works, as trends and problems tend to be cyclical, and driven by legislators far removed from the classrooms they are manipulating. Instead, contemporary reforms need to refocus on the more important issue at hand, leveling the playing field, so students in all school districts are given the same opportunity to succeed.

          I propose that the professionalization of teachers is one way to begin, as is allocating funds and resources equally, instead of based on school performance merit. The facets of our ever-changing society demand reforms to the educational system, so as to address diversity, equality, economy, technology, etc. Unfortunately, our current strategies in contemporary education reform movements, though ideally seeking to fulfill the notion of the common school, in reality only challenge our foundations.  And though these reforms also strive to act as a remedy for our complex social problems, I feel they have become yet another variable in this complexity.

Suggested Citation
Tolliver, Armãndo. (2011). Reform building-level solutions. [Education Project Online]. Retrieved online at http://www.educationprojectonline.com/2011/01/reform-building-level-solutions.html