The Pros And Cons Of Education Reform

Nation policy has been at the forefront of educational reform for decades and lacks effective initiatives to move the education system forward. The U.S Education Reform and National Security report outlines the national initiatives that have taken place to reform the education system. From Goals 2000, to No Child Left Behind (NCLB), to Race To The Top, and Finally Common Core these initiatives have fallen flat for the most part. These policies are riddled with worldviews and common values, also apparent are some key philosophies of education that have identified over time. Although policies are established to benefit the education system, the implementation of some these initiatives has been nothing but headaches at the state and local levels,

What lacks is the overall effect and reflection of these initiatives and the cost of such implementation. According to the text, Alexander stated, “reflection is crucial to sound leadership” (p.14). One may think that the flection process was short served when it pertains to the educational reforms over the last two decades. The authors of these reforms lacked pragmatic philosophy, “with the push for easily measured accountably, widespread school programs grounded in this philosophy (pragmatism) have fallen out of political favor on the state and national stage” (p.16). NCLB favors an idealism philosophy, “because of its assumption about the existence of universal knowledge that can be systemically measured through standardized tests” (p.15). I personally reject the notion that all knowledge is systematic and reform efforts such as NCLB that focus on such thought are bothersome. Although I personally disagree with some these approaches, there are some reforms that have been successful in my opinion. The Race To The Top initiatives provided monies

According to Alexander (2012), “justifying you actions is a function of leadership; policy analysis allows you to fulfil that function”. Lost is the justification for such reform like NCLB and Common Core. Both of these initiatives to move the education system forward received a lot of attention, but fell flat within 4 years of implementation. If foresight by policy makers had taken its rightful place, that might not be the case. In my opinion the problem lies with the individuals making these policies, the majority of the time they are not educators in any fashion. They lack insight on that a classroom looks like today, and the everyday struggles of teachers. Furthermore, they lack foresight of the repercussions of such failed initiatives. Educator reform needs to be more focused on the pragmatic approach that views education as part of the democratic society and “favor a working relationship between school and society and might consider that the key to schooling is developing knowledge by doing (p. 16). This was evident in Race To The Top under the Obama administration, as well as the STEM initiative that is present in education today. Future education reforms should follow a full policy analysis in order to develop effective initiatives to move the education system