Education Reform

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The United States education system has been changed, reworked, and looked over for as long as it has been in existence. Bring up the words education and reform in the same room and you will have a full-fledged debate on your hands. The definition of education is so broad that it really cannot be answered without deliberation; most scholars would be hard pressed to fit its definition into one sentence. It’s fair to say that even secretary of education, Arne Duncan, would have a hard time defining it within the confines of one sentence. Because education is defined in such broad terms people are hard pressed to try and make it perfect. Reforming it becomes necessary to keep people happy. Reforming education in relative terms is a change in the way students are exposed to information. Educators and policy makers are constantly trying to determine the best way to get this information to the students. I believe it is fair to say that one policy change reforming one aspect of education will not create a perfect educational system. There is no perfect education system. I do however believe that reforming education is necessary for the progression of learning in the future. This being said I would like to enact a policy change to deal with post-secondary education focusing mainly on k-5 and 9-12 students enrolled at underprivileged public schools. The policy change I am proposing will phase out high-stakes testing; a form of standardized testing in which results could be detrimental to the test taker. This policy change would deal with problems that are directly linked to high-stakes testing in post-secondary school, grades k-12. The policy will reduce inequality between students created by the tests. Inaccurate results received from t...

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Freire, Paulo. “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education.” Handout, English 1011, sec 22. Pamela

Swanigan, Instructor.

Jane, L. David. “High-Stakes Testing Narrows the Curriculum.” Academic Search Premier

March. 2011: 78-80. Print

Works Consulted

Finn E. Chester. Education Reform In The ’90s. New York: Macmillan, 1992. Print.

Fiske, Edward. “America’s Test Mania.” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 10 April. 1988. Web. 10 April. 2010.

Goldenberg, Claude. Successful School Change. New York: Teachers College Press, 2004. Print.

Kohn, Alfie. The Schools Our Children Deserve. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Print.

McCarthy, Peggy. “Could Test Scores Be Put to Better Use?” New York Times. The New York

Times Company, 19 May. 1996. Database. 10 April. 2010.

Smith, D. “From the Pennsylvania Gazette.” City Gazette 13 Dec. 1790: VIII. Print

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