thesis of education reform

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Education Reform and School Change

Introduction, 1990–present, implementation, sustainability and institutionalization, restructuring and reculturing, systemic educational reform, school improvement and turnaround, organizational learning, inquiry, networking, and capacity building, change agents, international comparisons and globalization, parents and communities, curriculum, teaching and learning, standards and accountability, school organization and culture, race, class, and language, culturally responsive teaching, urban schools and underserved populations, disability and inclusion, stage development theories, personal, emotional, and psychodynamic, institutional theory, related articles expand or collapse the "related articles" section about, about related articles close popup.

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Education Reform and School Change by Andrew Hargreaves , Corrie Stone-Johnson , Kristin L. Kew LAST REVIEWED: 30 April 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 21 January 2016 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0014

Educational change is a central topic of inquiry in education, and also a recognized field of study, as exemplified in the International Handbook of Educational Change , the Journal of Educational Change , a special interest group of the American Educational Research Association devoted to educational change, and widely used texts by founding authors of the field on core concepts such as the meaning of educational change. In the past, eagerness about what to change overlooked the complex processes of how people changed or failed to change in practice. The field therefore addresses and analyzes deliberately designed as well as implicit and unintended processes of educational change, such as innovation, implementation, improvement and resistance; the forces that drive change externally in policy and society and internally within schools and classrooms; the orchestration by and impact of change on its various agents, such as teachers, students, parents, and leaders; the experience and articulation of change across various educational domains such as pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment; and the evolution of change processes and change strategies over time, as well as their geographical distribution and variation across different systems and countries. The movement of research and development activity beyond simply what to change toward how to change, and the causes and consequences of these change processes, started in the post-Sputnik era of the 1960s in the United States, which addressed the problem of diffusion of individual innovations. Difficulties in achieving successful diffusion then prompted an interest in planned educational change, though this approach was criticized in turn for neglecting the various meanings that people attached to the change process as they experienced it. This resulted in an increasing emphasis on creating more collaborative professional cultures and professional communities in schools to develop common purpose and shared meanings. The impact of these changes since 1970 has been waves of reform that have left many educators confused and burned out, many schools with a seemingly haphazard string of unconnected reforms, and still many students not achieving. By the turn of the 21st century, frustration with these successive waves of change efforts ushered in an era of large-scale, administratively and politically coordinated reform initiatives and their uneven effects, as played out in different systems and countries across the globe—especially those that perform the strongest on international tests of educational achievement and those that are increasingly left behind. This entry explores the key literature and research on these processes and patterns of educational change, and their variations across time and space.

Classic Texts

This section includes some of the most influential and classic texts in educational change and reform. Divided into three timeframes—1960–1974, 1975–1989, and 1990–present—these works comprise the first consciously constructed forms of change and demonstrate the growth of thinking in the field of educational reform from its earliest days. The most recent pieces detail modern educational change from multiple perspectives.

These early classic texts also deal with some of the first consciously constructed forms of change, especially innovation, as well as presenting the first ideas about the developmental stages through which change processes pass. To read about the concept of organizational learning, see Argyris and Schon 1974 . For a critique of the cultures of silence that surround the notion of banking education and the development of a new pedagogy arising from the concerns of oppressed communities, see Freire 1970 . For a discussion of planned educational change, see Gross, et al. 1971 and Havelock 1973 . For details on school innovation and planned change, see Hoyle 1969 . For a discussion of loss and change, see Marris 1974 . To better understand diffusion of innovations, see Rogers 1962 . To explore culture and change, see Sarason 1971 . To read about educational innovation in a classroom setting, see Griffin, et al. 2012 (cited under Innovation ) and Smith and Geoffrey 1968 .

Argyris, Chris, and Donald A. Schon. 1974. Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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Argyris and Schon launch the concept of organizational learning into the field of organizational change. They distinguish between single-loop learning that leads to refinements in existing practice, and double-loop learning that affects value systems, beliefs, and forms of understanding.

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Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the oppressed . Translated by Myra Bergman-Ramos. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.

This is probably the single most important book on educational change from the standpoint of critical theory. Based on work with literacy development among peasant communities in Latin America, it critiques the cultures of silence that surround authoritarian and oppressive forms of banking education, and proposes a consciousness-raising curriculum and pedagogy arising out of the cultural concerns of oppressed communities.

Gross, Neil C., Joseph B. Giacquinta, and Marilyn Bernstein. 1971. Implementing organizational innovations: A study of planned change in schools . New York: Basic Books.

Based on research conducted at the Center for Research and Development on Educational Differences, this book presents one of the first studies on the trajectories and outcomes of planned educational change.

Havelock, Ronald G. 1973. The change agent’s guide to innovation in education . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology.

The function and method of change agents have been studied in various cultures and professions, and this book applies those findings to schools. The authors explain six stages of planned change: building a relationship between client and change agent, diagnosing the problem, acquiring relevant resources, choosing the solution, gaining acceptance, and stabilizing the innovation and generating self-renewal.

Hoyle, Eric. 1969. How does the curriculum change? Journal of Curriculum Studies 1.3: 230–239.

DOI: 10.1080/0022027690010304 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

This early article focuses on school innovation and planned educational change. It argues that for any curriculum innovation to become an effective improvement on an existing practice, it must “take” with the school and become fully institutionalized. Genuine innovation does not occur unless teachers become personally committed to ensuring its success.

Marris, Peter. 1974. Loss and change . New York: Pantheon.

This book examines people’s experiences of change as ones of loss and bereavement, most obviously in the case of bereavement itself but also in the case of other changes such as innovation that create powerful feelings of loss too.

Rogers, Everett M. 1962. Diffusion of innovations . New York: Free Press of Glencoe.

Rogers explains how new ideas spread or are diffused via communication channels over time. Such innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. Most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea. Thus the diffusion process consists of a few individuals who first adopt an innovation, then spread the word among their circle of acquaintances.

Sarason, Seymour B. 1971. The culture of the school and the problem of change . Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

In the field’s first extended discussion of culture and change, Sarason details how change can affect a school’s culturally diverse environment—either through the implementation of new programs or as a result of federally imposed regulations. In this book, Sarason challenges assumptions about institutions and presents evidence that the federal effort to change and improve schools has not succeeded.

Smith, Louis M., and William Geoffrey. 1968. The complexities of an urban classroom . New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

This is the first of a series of books spanning more than fifteen years on the nature and fate of educational innovation in a classroom setting. It is one of the first books to disclose how clarity about what to change is no substitute for a clear method or strategy of how to bring about desired changes

These classic pieces, written between 1975 and 1989, demonstrate the growth of thinking in the field of educational reform from its earliest days. For a view on the study of change implementation, see Berman and McLaughlin 1975 . To better understand change in teaching practices over a century, see Cuban 1984 . To learn about the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), see Hall and Loucks 1979 . For a look at the first analysis of educational change from the technological, political, and cultural perspectives, see House 1979 . Huberman and Miles 1984 is one of the first analyses of process and outcomes of innovations, and Lortie 1975 is the foundational book on the culture of teaching.

Berman, Paul, and Milbrey Wallin McLaughlin. 1975. Federal programs supporting educational change . Vol. 1, A model of educational change . Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

This classic report, the first in a series of RAND studies on change agent programs, analyzed the then-current state of knowledge of planned change in education, which proposed a conceptual model of factors affecting change processes within school districts. The literature review revealed the need for a more systematic understanding of the processes of implementation.

Cuban, Larry. 1984. How teachers taught: Constancy and change in American classrooms . New York: Longman.

Cuban describes teaching practices in the United States from 1890 to 1980. The author offers explanations for continuity and change in public education, including school as a form of social control, long-held assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning, and the implementation of reforms.

Hall, Gene E., and Susan Loucks. 1979. Implementing innovations in schools: A concerns-based approach . Austin, TX: Research and Development Center for Teacher Education.

Hall and Loucks created their Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) to describe change as it affects individuals and to prompt more successful change efforts. CBAM views the teacher as the focal point in school improvement efforts, yet also acknowledges social and organizational influences. This paper describes the application of the model to a curriculum implementation effort based on an understanding of teachers’ concerns.

House, Ernie 1979. Three perspectives on innovation: The technological, the political and the cultural . Washington, DC: Office for Educational Research and Improvement.

This foundational report was the first to analyze educational change from three perspectives, illustrating different aspects of change issues that are raised as each perspective—technological, political, and cultural—is used as a lens to analyze change efforts.

Huberman, Alan M., and Matthew B. Miles. 1984. Innovation up close . New York: Plenum.

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This volume represents a distillation and analysis of twelve site reports; it is one of the earliest empirical analyses of processes and outcomes of innovation and school improvement.

Lortie, Dan C. 1975. Schoolteacher: A sociological study . Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

In this foundational book, Lortie draws on survey and interview data to understand and analyze the work and culture of teaching. The unifying theme of this book is a search for the orientations and sentiments unique to teachers, which he characterizes as presentism, conservatism, and individualism.

These important texts detail modern educational change from multiple perspectives. For a better understanding of the three-stage theory of educational change—initiation, implementation, and institutionalization—see Fullan 2007 . This book is the most widely cited in the field and is the most recently revised version. To better understand change in urban high schools, see Louis and Miles 1990 . For an analysis of learning organizations, see Senge 1990 .

Fullan, Michael. 2007. The new meaning of educational change . 4th ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

This book is the most widely cited in the field of educational change. A fundamentally revised edition of the original 1982 book, it sets out a three stage theory of educational change: initiation, implementation, and institutionalization. Fullan also describes the roles and responsibilities of each member in the change process, including the administrator, teacher, parent, student, consultant, district, and governments.

Louis, Karen Seashore, and Matthew B. Miles. 1990. Improving the urban high school: What works and why . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book of multiple case studies on change and non-change in urban high schools points to the need for greater school-level involvement in educational reform processes, especially in terms of leadership.

Senge, Peter M. 1990. The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization . New York: Doubleday.

Senge sets out the basic principles of what he calls the learning organization: turning a process of organizational learning into an institutional aspiration. Through basic disciplines that include personal mastery and systems thinking, Senge’s work challenges leaders to face the disabilities in their organizations and to practice the disciplines that will create improved performance through ongoing problem-solving capacity.

This section contains pivotal pieces that offer approaches and strategies to bring about and sustain educational change. Included are works on the most current thinking in innovation, policy and program implementation, the sustainability and institutionalism of educational reform, restructuring and reculturing of schools, and building professional learning communities.

Some approaches and strategies to bring about change are based on single innovations. The pieces in this section reflect the most current thinking in the area of innovation. For a view of innovation and diffusion theory in the 21st century, see Bentley 2010 . To better understand the impact of disruptive innovation in education, see Christensen, et al. 2008 .

Bentley, Tom. 2010. Innovation and diffusion as a theory of change. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 29–46. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

Bentley brings innovation and diffusion theory into the 21st century by indicating that in fast-flowing knowledge-based societies, more change will and should take place through processes that are open, networked, and user-driven. In such an increasingly technologically enhanced environment, the task of educational and social reformers, he argues, is to create the open architectures in which innovative processes can flourish.

Christensen, Clayton M., Curtis W. Johnson, and Michael B. Horn. 2008. Disrupting class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns . New York: McGraw-Hill.

Christensen takes this book beyond his study of the “Innovator’s Dilemma” in business, to combine with colleagues in order to understand the impact of disruptive (as opposed to incremental) innovation in education. Computer technology in education is bringing about profound transformations in education that public schools are finding hard to accommodate, with the consequence that they may be overtaken by other kinds of educational provision.

Griffin, Patrick, Esther Care, and Barry. McGaw. 2012. “ The changing role of education and schools .” In Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills . Edited by Patrick Griffin, Esther Care, and Barry McGaw, 1–15. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

According to Griffin, Care, and McGaw, educational systems must change in response to the increasing demand for information-technology skilled workers. This chapter discusses the Assessment and Teaching of Twenty-First Century Skills Project (ATC21S), which investigated the methodological and technological barriers to the assessment of Learning Through Digital Networks and Collaborative Problem Solving. The project provides educators, researchers, and policy makers with recommendations to develop learning environments and assessments that support the development of 21st-century skills.

This section explores the complexities and challenges facing schools as they implement various educational reforms. In particular, it focuses on various aspects of implementation, including policy implementation and program implementation. For an overview of policy implementation see Honig 2006 and McLaughlin 1998 . To better understand evaluating program implementation, see Leithwood and Montgomery 1980 . For an exploration of the implementation of planned change, see McLaughlin 1990 . For a definition and in-depth exploration of implementation as it relates to curriculum research, see O’Donnell 2008 . For scaling up school reform, see Datnow, et al. 2002 .

Datnow, Amanda, Lea Hubbard, and Hugh Mehan. 2002. Extending educational reform: From one school to many . London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Authors examine data from several nationwide studies in an effort to provide a comprehensive understanding of “scaling up” school reform. This book explores the complex interactions between institutions and individuals and their influence on the implementation of reform. Readers are provided with guidelines for policy and practice.

Honig, Meredith I., ed. 2006. New directions in education policy implementation: Confronting complexity . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

This book describes how education policy implementation as a field of research and practice has amounted to a search for “implementable” policies on the one hand—those that in practice resemble policy designs—and “successful” policies on the other, which produce demonstrable improvements in students’ school performance.

Leithwood, Kenneth A., and D. J. Montgomery. 1980. Evaluating program implementation. Evaluation Review 4.2: 193–214.

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A methodology for evaluating program implementation is described. Requirements for such a methodology are derived from an analysis of the functions to be performed by implementation evaluation, the nature of the program being implemented, and characteristics of the implementation process.

McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin. 1990. The RAND change agent study revisited: Macro perspectives and micro realities. Educational Researcher 19.9: 11–16.

DOI: 10.3102/0013189X019009011 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

This article revisits the classic RAND Change Agent study, undertaken 1973–1978, which indicated a significant shift in the ways people thought about implementing planned change in education. The article reasserts RAND’s finding that effective projects are characterized by mutual adaptation rather than uniform implementation, and underscores the essential contribution of teachers’ perspectives as informants and guides to policy.

McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin. 1998. Listening and learning from the field: Tales of policy implementation and situated practice. In The international handbook of educational change . Part 1. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins. 70–84. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

The “implementation problem” was discovered in the early 1970s as policy analysts took a look at the school level consequences of the Great Society’s sweeping education reforms. Comprehensive intergovernmental initiatives meant that implementation no longer was just primarily a management problem, confined to a single institution, but instead stretched across levels of government and across agents.

O’Donnell, C. L. 2008. Defining, conceptualizing, and measuring fidelity of implementation and its relationship to outcomes in K–12 curriculum intervention research. Review of Educational Research 78.1: 33–84.

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The results of this review indicate that there are too few studies to guide researchers on how fidelity of implementation to core curriculum interventions can be measured and related to outcomes. This review attempts to clarify the definition, conceptualization, and measurement of fidelity of implementation and to guide future researchers in understanding how fidelity of implementation can be used to adjust or interpret outcome measures.

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the sustainability of changes over time and across systems. Anderson 2010 examines the evolution of change over time. Hargreaves and Goodson 2006 details change over a thirty-year period in the United States and Canada and explores the sustainability of change in these contexts. Hargreaves 2002 explores how social geographies contribute to or undermine sustainable improvements. Meyer and Rowan 1977 and Meyer and Rowan 2012 looks at the ways in which organizational structures affect innovation or change in schools.

Anderson, Stephen. 2010. Moving change: Evolutionary perspectives of educational change. In The second handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michal Fullan, and David Hopkins, 65–84. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

In this chapter, Anderson revisits some of the taken-for-granted concepts in the field of educational change. The author focuses on some significant areas of debate and suggests areas for further research to think about change as a process that evolves over time.

Hargreaves, Andy. 2002. Sustainability of educational change: The role of social geographies. Journal of Educational Change 3:189–214.

DOI: 10.1023/A:1021218711015 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

The paper examines the conceptual and strategic role of social geographies in contributing to or undermining sustainable school improvement. It develops a definition of sustainability as involving improvement over time, within available or achievable resources, that does not negatively affect the surrounding environment and that promotes ecological diversity and capacity more widely. This analysis is then applied to a framework of seven strategic geographies of educational change.

Hargreaves, Andy, and Ivor Goodson. 2006. Educational change over time? The sustainability and non-sustainability of three decades of secondary school change and continuity. Educational Administration Quarterly 42.1: 3–41.

DOI: 10.1177/0013161X05277975 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

This article presents the conceptual framework and key research findings from a study of long-term educational change over time. Educational change is shaped by the convergence of large-scale economic and demographic shifts that reaffirm the traditional identities and practices of conventional high schools and pull innovative ones back toward the traditional norm in an age of standardization.

Meyer, John W., and Brian Rowan. 1977. Institutional organizations: Formal structures as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology 83:340–363.

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Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules. These rules function as myths which organizations incorporate, gaining legitimacy, resources, stability, and enhanced survival prospects in the face of efforts to bring about innovation or change.

Meyer, Heinz –Dieter, and Brian Rowan. 2012. The institutionalism in education . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

Explores the ways in which education as an institution must be redefined to include new forms of educational organizations. Contributing authors provide conceptual tools and empirical assessments to overcome the challenges this new institutionalism poses to reigning theories. Readers will gain insight into possibilities for institutional reform and innovation.

Change efforts sometimes try to transform organizations by restructuring them, whereas others concentrate more on alterations of relationships and interactions through “reculturing.” To learn about the role of micropolitics in educational reform, see Blasé and Bjork 2010 . To better understand how districts have been restructured, see Brouillette 1996 . For a view of the role of trust in school improvement, see Bryk and Schneider 2002 . To read more about the role of collaboration as a means of educational reform, see Darling-Hammond 1997 . To read about leadership in a culture of change, see Fullan 2001 . For a deeper look at school restructuring, see Lieberman 1995 and Newmann and Wehlage 1995 . For a better understanding of how prevailing cultural beliefs perpetuate inequality in an urban high school, see McQuillan 1998 . For a look at lack of change in teaching pedagogies over time related to educational reform and policy, see Cuban 2013 .

Blasé, Joseph, and Bjork, Lars. 2010. The micropolitics of educational change and reform: Cracking open the black box. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michal Fullan, and David Hopkins, 237–258. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This article builds on and updates Blasé’s past work on the micropolitics of educational change; showing how change at the micro level is affected by the competing and complementary interests of different groups in the educational process as they converge and collide.

Brouillette, Liane. 1996. A geology of school reform: The successive restructuring of a school district . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

This book describes a study that focused on how successive waves of reform interacted within a single school district from its beginnings in the early 1950s through the early 1990s. The study examines the multiple misunderstandings that occurred among individuals whose formative experiences with public schools were shaped by widely differing historical circumstances and philosophical perspectives.

Bryk, Anthony S., and Barbara L. Schneider. 2002. Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement . New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

On the basis of a three-year study of reform in twelve different elementary school communities in Chicago, the authors establish the importance of relational trust as one of the key variables that affects student achievement. Developing relational trust among teachers, principals, students, and parents is therefore a key component of the culture of change leading to substantive and sustained school improvement.

Cuban, Larry. 2013. Inside the black box of classroom practice: Change without reform in American education . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Cuban discusses the complex and often contradictory relationship between numerous attempts at educational reform by policy makers over the last two centuries and relatively stable teaching practices in the classroom. He examines the interconnectedness of policy and practice from various viewpoints, including changes in medical practice policy.

Darling-Hammond, Linda. 1997. The right to learn: A blueprint for creating schools that work . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Darling-Hammond emphasizes the process of learning rather than testing. She believes that what’s wrong with public schools can be attributed to excessive bureaucratization that leaves teachers with little time for teaching. The American educational system is predicated on a “factory model” that processes students instead of teaching them. She believes teachers must be prepared to collaborate more often and spend more time “teaching for understanding.”

Fullan, Michael. 2001. Leading in a culture of change . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bringing together the literature of leadership and change in business and in education, Fullan critiques naïve changes based on transplantation of systemic reforms from one context to another without thought for the local cultures and contexts in which the transposed reforms have to be developed. He then demonstrates how relationships between large-scale transformation and local culture can be pursued through five core competencies.

Lieberman, Ann, ed. 1995. The work of restructuring schools: Building from the ground up . New York: Teachers College Press.

The contributors to this work tell a set of stories about schools, teachers, and administrators who face district and state mandates concerning restructuring. It describes the trials and tribulations that they encounter and offers insight into the lessons that can be learned from these individual experiences.

McQuillan, Patrick J. 1998. Educational opportunity in an urban American high school: A cultural analysis . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

This five-year ethnographic study examines issues of educational opportunity at a multiethnic high school. Focusing on the beliefs and values of students, teachers, and administrators, this study reveals how prevailing cultural beliefs, the collective nature of the student population, and the structure of the school system worked in concert to foster inequality. This study considers the implications for promoting educational opportunity more effectively.

Newmann, Fred M., and Gary L. Wehlage. 1995. Successful school restructuring . Madison, WI: Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools.

Since the late 1980s, education reformers in the United States have sought ways to “restructure” schools to boost student performance through such strategies as site-based management, interdisciplinary team teaching, flexible scheduling, and assessment by portfolio. From 1990 to 1995, the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools examined these questions by analyzing data from more than 1,500 schools throughout the United States.

• Professional Learning Communities

One of the forms of reculturing schools is the development of professional learning communities. The following works describe the evolution of professional learning communities and discuss the challenges to implementation as well as the possibilities for improvement. For a differentiation of professional learning communities from performance-training sects, see Hargreaves 2002 . For a definition of professional learning communities and an exploration of what happens when schools develop them, see Hord 1997 . To look at the establishment of collaborative cultures, see Lieberman 1990 . To see how building professional learning communities can improve student achievement, see McLaughlin and Talbert 2006 . To read about creating communities of learning in a context of accountability and standardization, see Meier 2002 . To read about some of the challenges of professional learning communities, see Stoll and Louis 2007 . To learn about creating successful learning environments through leadership, see Robertson and Timperley 2011 .

Hargreaves, Andy. 2002. Professional learning communities and performance training sects: The emerging apartheid of school improvement. In Effective leadership for school improvement . Edited by Alma Harris, C. Day, M. Hadfield, D. Hopkins, A. Hargreaves, and C. Chapman. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

The original intention of professional learning communities was to develop teacher-based inquiry into student learning and classroom teaching. In this article, Hargreaves compares this original purpose against the political tendency of such so-called communities to become devices of compliance and groupthink where teacher teams are driven to analyze numerical data in order to make swift interventions within mandated programs of curriculum and instruction.

Hord, Shirley M. 1997. Professional learning communities: Communities of continuous inquiry and improvement . Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.

Inventor of the concept “professional learning communities,” Hord defines what is meant by “professional learning community.” She describes what happens when a school staff studies, works, plans, and takes action collectively on behalf of increased learning for students, and she discusses what is known about creating such communities of professionals in schools. The literature, she notes, indicates that professional learning communities produce positive outcomes for both staff and students.

Lieberman, Ann, ed. 1990. Schools as collaborative cultures . Lewes, UK: Falmer.

The contributions in this volume articulate and exemplify the key role played by professional collaboration in school development. The authors show how schools need to establish collaborative cultures as a precondition for their own development.

McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin, and Joan E. Talbert. 2006. Building school-based teacher learning communities: Professional strategies to improve student achievement . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book builds more programmatically from the authors’ earlier work on professional communities in high schools, to examine efforts to establish and develop professional learning communities in schools that enhance student achievement. Its most important contribution is in establishing the stages of development, from novice to mature, through which professional learning communities pass over time.

Meier, Deborah. 2002. In schools we trust: Creating communities of learning in an era of testing and standardization . Boston: Beacon.

In contrast to proponents of tests and standardization, this author examines how successful change occurs by building trust in the authority and judgment of those who know children best, so that schools are trustworthy.

Robertson, Jan, and Helen Timperley. 2011. Leadership and learning . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

DOI: 10.4135/9781446288931 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

Contributors to this book examine learning through three themes: empowering relationships, patterns of leadership distribution, and leadership for the improvement of teaching and learning. This book aims to provide a comprehensive view of the elements needed to promote successful learning environments in the educational community through leadership.

Stoll, Louise, and Karen Seashore Louis, eds. 2007. Professional learning communities: Divergence, depth and dilemmas . Maidenhead, UK: McGraw-Hill.

This collection of chapters edited by British and US experts Stoll and Louis delves deeper into the concept of professional learning communities, unearthing their challenges and complexities, as well as their many varying possibilities.

Recently, change strategy has concentrated on interrelated changes orchestrated centrally that may depend on pressures and demands or on capacity building and support, and that in turn can provoke organized responses that take the form of social movements. To read about social movements in the United States, see Anyon 2005 and Oakes, et al. 2000 . To see an analysis of the impact of poverty on systemic change, see Berliner 2006 . For perspectives on the travel of school reform approaches from one system to another, see Datnow, et al. 2002 and Stein, et al. 2010 . For a better understanding of large-scale reform efforts, see Elmore 1995 and Hargreaves 2010 . To read the insights of some of the leading educational change experts on systemic reform, see Hargreaves and Fullan 2008 . For a view of system leadership, see Hopkins 2007 . For some ideas on global educational change and reform from leading experts in the field, see Malone 2013 .

Anyon, Jean. 2005. Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new social movement . New York: Routledge.

Jean Anyon counters the conventional approach to systemic reform as orchestrated local or national policy intervention by describing five social movements in US cities, which offer insights into securing economic and educational justice for America’s poor families and students.

Berliner, David. 2006. Our impoverished view of educational reform. Teachers College Record 108.6: 949–995

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This analysis is about the role of poverty in school reform. Data from a number of sources are used to demonstrate that poverty in the United States is greater and of longer duration than in other rich nations, and that poverty is associated with academic performance that is well below international means. It is argued that poverty places severe limits on what can be accomplished through school reform efforts alone.

Datnow, Amanda, Lea Hubbard, and Hugh Mehan. 2002. Extending educational reform from one school to many . London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Reform programs that have proved to be a success in one school are often unsuccessful when adopted by other schools. This book looks at why change does not occur on a large-scale basis and how the identified problems can be surmounted.

Elmore, Richard F. 1995. Getting to scale with good educational practice. Harvard Educational Review 66.1: 1–26.

DOI: 10.17763/haer.66.1.g73266758j348t33 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

Elmore analyzes the role of school organization and incentive structures in large-scale adoption of innovative practices. Two previous reform attempts are evaluated to demonstrate that large-scale reform efforts, under current conditions, will be ineffective and transient. The article concludes with recommendations for addressing the issue of scale.

Hargreaves, Andy. 2010. Change from without: Lessons from other countries, systems, and sectors. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 105–117. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

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This article reviews the research, including the author’s own, on how educational systems can learn from other systems and sectors without directly transposing solutions from one to the other.

Hargreaves, Andy, and Michael Fullan, eds. 2008. Change wars . Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Change Wars presents the insights and expertise of some of the leading educational thinkers and authors from around the world on system-wide change.

Hopkins, David. 2007. Every school a great school: Realizing the potential of system leadership . Maidenhead, UK: Open Univ. Press.

Drawing on his experience in educational research and senior-level policy leadership, David Hopkins argues that in order to achieve systemic, sustainable improvement, it is important not only to continue to raise standards, but also to build capacity within the system through personalized learning, professionalized teaching, networking and innovation, and intelligent accountability.

Malone, Helen Janc. 2013. Leading educational change: Global issues, challenges, and lessons on whole system reform . New York: Teachers College Press.

The collection of essays found in this book is organized into five themes: emerging issues in educational change, improving practice, equity and educational justice, accountability and assessment systems, and whole-system change. Contributors to this volume of work address contemporary issues in research, policy, and practice to promote discussions, analysis, and innovations within education reform.

Oakes, Jeannie, Karen Quartz, Steve Ryan, and Martin Lipton. 2000. Becoming good American schools: The struggle for civic virtue in educational reform . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This book tells the stories of sixteen US schools that sought to alter their structures and practices and become places fostering innovative ideas, caring people, principles of social justice, and democratic processes. Based on longitudinal, comparative case-study research, these accounts attest to the difficulty of achieving these ends in the face of normative, political and technical barriers to educational equity in schools.

Stein, Mary Kay, Leah Hubbard, and Judith Toure. 2010. Travel of district-wide approaches to instructional improvement: How can districts learn from one another? In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 781–805. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

The chapter is the most recent of a sequence that examines how reform models and practices spread or failed to spread from New York City’s District #2 to San Diego and beyond. It analyzes the range of factors that are present in the common practice of trying to transpose models across systems.

This section encompasses historical perspectives on systemic educational reform. To read about how systemic changes have thus far proven unsuccessful, as well as suggestions for improvement, see Hargreaves and Shirley 2009 , Payne 2008 , Ravitch 2010 , Ravitch 2000 , and Sarason 1990 . To read about how certain reforms have come to be permanent features of school, see Tyack and Tobin 1994 .

Hargreaves, Andy, and Dennis Shirley. 2009. The fourth way: The inspiring future for educational change . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

This book draws on research of thirty years of educational change to describe three ways of change in public policy that have proved unsuccessful: change through innovation and support, markets and standards, and data-driven improvement. It then interprets the authors’ research on successful practice in different countries and systems to describe a fourth way of inspiration and responsibility.

Payne, Charles M. 2008. So much reform, so little change: The persistence of failure in urban schools . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

This book draws on experiences of educational research and community organizing to argue that most education policy discussions are disconnected from the daily realities of urban schools, especially those in poor and beleaguered neighborhoods. Payne’s book highlights the often dysfunctional organizational environments of urban schools and school systems that undermine reform efforts.

Ravitch, Diane. 2000. Left back: A century of failed school reforms . New York: Simon & Schuster.

In this history of education in the 20th century, Diane Ravitch describes the ongoing battle of ideas over educational reform and explains why school reform has so often failed. See especially pp. 405–452.

Ravitch, Diane. 2010. The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education . New York: Basic Books.

In this book, historian and former Washington education leader Diane Ravitch reviews and revises her opinions on education reform over the years to critique contemporary reform efforts for being overly influenced and distorted by corporate interests, excessively hostile to the teaching profession, and fatally supportive of educational testing accountability practices that lower standards and inhibit innovation.

Sarason, Seymour B. 1990. The predictable failure of educational reform: Can we change course before it’s too late? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Sarason argues that schools have been intractable to change and the attainment of goals set by reformers. The reason is that reformers do not engage with the interconnectedness of what occurs in schools or with power relations in schooling. As a result, each new wave of reform learns nothing from earlier efforts and comes up with recommendations that have failed in the past.

Tyack, David, and William Tobin. 1994. The grammar of schooling: Why is it so hard to change? American Educational Research Journal 31.3: 453–479.

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Why have the established institutional reforms of schooling been so stable, and why did most challenges fade or become marginalized? The authors explain how some reforms, like the graded school and the Carnegie unit, lasted to become part of the grammar of schooling whereas some that attacked the grammar of schooling did not.

International Perspectives

This section provides international perspectives on systemic education reform, drawing largely from research in the United Kingdom and Canada since 1980. To further understand the challenges to education systems posed by increased globalization, see Arnove, et al. 2012 . To read about large-scale reform in the United Kingdom, see Barber 2009 ; Chapman and Gunter 2009 ; Earl, et al. 2003 ; and Gray 2010 . To read about Canadian systemic educational reform, see Fullan 2004 . For an inclusive educational perspective, see Sahlberg 2006 . For large-scale change efforts, see Hopkins 2011 .

Arnove, Robert F., Carlos Alberto Torres, and Stephen Franz. 2012. Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Authors discuss the challenges to education systems posed by increased globalization. Provides readers with a greater understanding of the complex interaction between global and local entities in education reform, particularly comparative education.

Barber, Michael. 2009. From system effectiveness to system improvement: Reform paradigms and relationships. In Change wars . Edited by Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan, 71–96. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

This article, from Tony Blair’s former education advisor, sets out the benefits and drawbacks of three paradigms for large-scale public service: command and control, quasi-markets, and devolution and transparency.

Chapman, Christopher, and Helen Gunter, eds. 2009. Radical reforms: Perspectives on an era of educational change . London and New York: Routledge.

This collection of papers by distinguished British researchers reviews and critiques systemic educational reform in England, and its different components, over the course of the Labour government in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Earl, Lorna M., Nancy Watson, Benjamin Levin, Kenneth Leithwood, and Michael Fullan. 2003. Watching and learning 3: The final report of the OISE/UT external evaluation of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies . London: Department for Education and Employment.

This is the officially commissioned evaluation of the United Kingdom’s influential National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, which was implemented in system-wide scope and detail across all of England’s primary schools.

Fullan, Michael. 2004. Leadership and sustainability: System thinkers in action . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Fullan’s book draws on his experiences of advising on large-scale systemic change in Ontario, as well as on reviewing the wider change literature to argue that effective systemic change grasps the interconnectedness of systems and takes moral responsibility for moving them in a positive direction.

Gray, John. 2010. Probing the limits of systemic reform: The English case. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 293–307. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

Gray undertakes a sober research-based review of the impact of the much-lauded systemic reform strategies in England, especially under its Labour government.

Hopkins, David. 2011. Powerful learning: Taking education reform to scale . Melbourne, Australia: Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.

Hopkins explores school reform at scale through the implementation of a system improvement model in Melbourne, Australia. Through his analysis he comments on the necessity to include both “bottom-up” and “top-down” approaches.

Sahlberg, Pasi. 2006. Education reform for raising economic competitiveness. Journal of Education Change 7.4: 259–287.

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This article argues that what schools are expected to do in order to promote economic competitiveness often contradicts commonly accepted global education reform thinking. The key features of education reform policies that are compatible with competitiveness are those that encourage flexibility in education systems, creativity in schools, and risk-taking without fear on the part of individuals.

Struggling schools face difficult choices when making decisions about school improvement. This section identifies several school improvement options, including turnaround. To read about turnaround leadership, see Fullan 2006 . To read about improving schools in challenging circumstances, see Harris, et al. 2006 . To challenge current thinking on leadership, see Harris, et al. 2003 . For perspectives on school improvement, see Hopkins 2001 . To read about the link between knowledge utilization and school improvement, see Louis 1998 . For views on the link between school effectiveness and school improvement see Reynolds, et al. 2000 ; Stoll and Fink 1996 ; and Townsend 2007 . To read a critique of turnaround strategies, see Mintrop 2004 .

Fullan, Michael. 2006. Turnaround leadership . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Foundational change theorist Michael Fullan critiques conventional literature and strategy regarding school turnaround for putting short-term gains ahead of sustainable improvement. Instead, he advocates effective leadership at all levels to combine pressure and support in bringing about effective and lasting change.

Harris, Alma, Christopher Day, David Hopkins, Mark Hadfield, Andy Hargreaves, and Christopher Chapman. 2003. Effective school leadership for school improvement . New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Presents leadership of the many as an alternative to conventional theories of leadership from a single individual. The authors consider contemporary theories and issues within four areas of concern: the changing context of leadership, contemporary views of leadership, building leadership capacity, and future directions and implications for leadership and school improvement. Readers are provided with ideas and perspectives on alternative forms of leadership in an effort to promote sustained school improvement.

Harris, Alma, Sue James, Judith Gunraj, Paul Clarke, and Belinda Harris. 2006. Improving schools in exceptionally challenging circumstances . London: Continuum.

This research-based investigation of schools working in exceptionally challenging circumstances sets out the issues facing such schools and the success that some can achieve despite significant odds.

Hopkins, David. 2001. School improvement for real . London: RoutledgeFalmer.

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Leading school improvement expert David Hopkins reviews the key issues in school improvement in this book, which makes a particularly original contribution to how to differentiate improvement strategies depending on the kind of school and context in which improvement or turnaround efforts are located

Louis, Karen Seashore. 1998. Reconnecting knowledge utilization and school improvement: Two steps forward, one step back. In The international handbook of educational change . Part 2. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 1074–1096. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

In this paper, Karen Seashore Louis “reconnects” knowledge utilization with school improvement and develops the relationship further. She reviews the current state of the art in knowledge utilization theory, and discusses how it is connected both to school effectiveness and improvement research.

Mintrop, Heinrich. 2004. Schools on probation . New York: Teachers College Press.

In a trenchant critique of school turnaround strategies, Mintrop notes that short-term gains are secured at the expense of long-term sustainability, with the result that teachers in schools on probation are faced with either raising test scores immediately by almost any means, or exiting the schools concerned.

Reynolds, David, Charles Teddlie, David Hopkins, and Sam Stringfield. 2000. Linking school effectiveness and school improvement. In The international handbook of school effectiveness research . Edited by David Reynolds and Charles Teddlie, 206–231. Lewes, UK: Falmer.

These four scholars in the fields of school effectiveness and improvement argue that research on school effectiveness and improvement has been separated owing to differences of methodology and perspective—in ways that have not benefited positive change efforts over time. The authors go on to propose an integration of these fields, with examples of where such integrations have been achieved.

Stoll, Louise, and Dean Fink. 1996. Changing our schools: Linking school effectiveness and school improvement . Buckingham, UK: Open Univ. Press.

This book advises people inside and outside schools on how to bring about positive change. The authors provide both a theoretical critique and practical advice to assist all those committed to changing and improving schools. The book makes an especially original contribution to distinguishing the different improvement and turnaround strategies that are needed in cruising, moving, struggling, and sinking schools.

Townsend, Tony, ed. 2007. International handbook of school effectiveness and improvement . Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

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This fifty-one-chapter handbook provides a state-of-the-art collection by both advocates and critics of school effectiveness and school improvement, and also of their interrelationship, from many different parts of the world.

Organizations can learn and improve by reflecting on their own practices, sharing ideas with individuals both inside and outside the organization through inquiry and networking, and building capacity by learning from within. To read about networking for educational change, see Chapman and Hadfield 2010 , Daly 2010 , and Lieberman and Wood 2002 . For perspectives on inquiry, see Cochran-Smith and Lytle 1992 . For perspectives on capacity building, see Elmore 2004 and Hatch 2009 . To read about how organizations learn and improve, see Mulford 1998 and Supovitz 2010 .

Chapman, Christopher, and Mark Hadfield. 2010. School–based networking for educational change. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 765–780. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This article, by two of the leading theorists and researchers on school-to-school networks, analyzes how networks can enhance educational change, but also what distinguishes effective from less effective networks.

Cochran-Smith, Marilyn, and Susan L. Lytle. 1992. Inside/outside: Teacher research and Knowledge . New York: Teachers College Press.

Cochran-Smith and Lytle argue that teacher research can transform, not simply add to, the present knowledge base in the field, linking research with practice and inquiry with reform. Inquiry, in this sense, is presented as a form of intended change, and is exemplified in the voices of teacher researchers within the book.

Daly, Alan J. 2010. Social network theory and educational change . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

This book explores how social networks in schools can impede or facilitate the work of education reform. It comprises a series of studies examining networks among teachers and school leaders and shows that the success or failure of education reform is not solely the result of technical plans and blueprints, but of the relational ties that support or constrain the pace, depth, and direction of change.

Elmore, Richard F. 2004. School reform from the inside out: Policy, practice and performance . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

In this book, Elmore makes the case that external accountability schemes cannot succeed in the absence of internal accountability, defined as the capacity for individual and collective responsibility for improving practice

Hatch, Thomas. 2009. Managing to change: How schools can survive (and sometimes thrive) in turbulent times . New York: Teachers College Press.

In contrast to a world of external reform that often undermines positive change efforts within schools, this book argues that schools can and should build their own capacity for change. Hatch makes two original contributions to the capacity debate: that it takes capacity to build capacity, and that increased capacity means reducing excessive demand as well as increasing supply.

Lieberman, Ann, and Diane Wood. 2002. From network learning to classroom teaching. Journal of Educational Change 3.3–4: 315–337.

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This two-year study of the National Writing Project examined what teachers learned from their involvement in various local network activities. Network activities helped teachers gain a set of principles and ways of working that they took back to their classrooms and gave teachers opportunities to lead professional development, explore special interest groups, and become members of a powerful learning community.

Mulford, William. 1998. Organizational learning and educational change. In The international handbook of educational change . Part 1. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 616–641. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

This chapter reviews state-of-the-art thinking on organizational learning and its contribution to educational change, and assesses its strengths and limitations.

Supovitz, Jonathan. 2010. Knowledge-based organizational learning for instructional Improvement. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 707–723. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This article draws on business literature to argue that system leaders, and especially district leaders in education, can improve effectiveness by accessing the knowledge that is diffused throughout and inexplicit within their organizations, so it is made explicit, accessibly stored, and easily diffused and developed among practitioners and leaders.

The works in this section represent multiple perspectives on educational change agents—those who initiate, implement, experience, and respond to educational changes. Included are articles, chapters, and books related to such topics as defining change agents and the skills associated with change agency; the impact of governments, communities, and schools on educational change and the role that each of these bodies has in educational change; and the impact of change on teachers and teachers’ agency in the context of reform. From these pivotal pieces, it is clear that the change both originates and is also felt deeply at all levels, from the macro level of nations down to the micro level of individual schools. It is also clear that the perspective of change agents themselves as they navigate the turbulent waters of complex and often contradictory educational changes must be taken into consideration, both by the communities in which these agents act and at the policy level, where decisions about these agents are typically determined.

This section describes the effects of change on teachers, as well as the skills educators need to become change agents. For an elucidation of the professionalism hypothesis, see Darling-Hammond 2009 . To read about the effects of change on teachers’ morale, job satisfaction, and motivation, see Evans 2000 . To read about the human meaning of change for educators, see Evans 1996 . For a view of the impact of change on teachers’ work in the postmodern age, see Hargreaves 1994 . For an examination of the relationship between professionals inside school and agents outside it, see Hargreaves and Fullan 1998 . Finally, to better understand the skills educational change agents need, see Miles, et al. 1988 .

Darling-Hammond, Linda. 2009. Teaching and the change wars: The professionalism hypothesis. In Change wars . Edited by Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan, 45–69. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Darling-Hammond argues against market-based and bureaucratically driven approaches to change in favor of a more democratic and professional approach that is essential for the types of goals that now confront education systems. She provides recommendations for pursuing a vision that empowers learners with deep knowledge, problem-solving skills, and the ability to guide their own learning.

Evans, Robert. 1996. The human side of school change: Reform, resistance, and the real-life problems of innovation . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Evans examines educational change from the perspective of its human meaning for educators who feel burdened and conflicted by the change process. He provides a new model of leadership and practical management strategies for building a framework of cooperation that includes educators more effectively in the change process.

Evans, Linda. 2000. The effects of educational change on morale, job satisfaction and motivation. Journal of Educational Change 1.2: 173–192.

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This article discusses job satisfaction, morale, and motivation among teachers in the compulsory schooling and higher education sectors in the United Kingdom. The author examines the ways in which individuals respond differently to the impact of change on their working lives depending on their prior experience of change in their work, against which current changes are compared as losses or otherwise.

Hargreaves, Andy. 1994. Changing teachers, changing times: Teachers’ work and culture in the postmodern age . New York: Teachers College Press.

Drawing on research with teachers at all levels, Hargreaves describes the impact of educational change on teachers’ work in the postmodern age in terms of their experiences of time, intensification, and guilt. He depicts key cultures of teaching, including individualism, balkanization, collaboration, and contrived collegiality, and he proposes how structures and cultures of teaching need to change.

Hargreaves, Andy, and Michael Fullan. 1998. What’s worth fighting for out there? New York: Teachers College Press.

This book examines the relationship between professionals within the school and other agents outside it in order to understand their coordinated impact on educational change efforts. The book argues that if educators are going to bring about significant improvements in teaching and learning within schools, they must forge strong, open, and interactive connections with communities beyond them.

Miles, Matthew, Ellen Rogers Saxl, and Ann Lieberman. 1988. What skills do educational “change agents” need? An empirical view. Curriculum Inquiry 18.2: 157–193.

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Though “change agents” are widely used to help with current school improvement programs, little was known empirically about the skills they need to function effectively, at the time this article was written. This classic article on change agentry reported findings from a study of seventeen change agents. A synthesis of findings resulted in a list of eighteen key skills, including six general and twelve specific skills.

National governments are among the most common agents, with great power not only to initiate but also to mediate change across the system. For an examination of what high-performing national school systems have in common, see Barber and Mourshed 2007 . For a look at Singapore’s school-based curriculum development, see Gopinathan and Deng 2006 . To better understand how school systems are improved around the world, see Mourshed, et al. 2010 . To understand Finland’s educational change experience, see Sahlberg 2010 . For international comparisons of student learning outcomes, see Schleicher 2010 . To view the state of curriculum research in a global context, see Pinar 2013 . To examine the problems of the American educational system in the context of the demands of the global knowledge economy, see Wagner 2008 . Finally, to see China as a case study of systemic educational reform, see Zhao and Qiu 2010 .

Barber, Michael, and Mona Mourshed. 2007. How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top . London: McKinsey.

This study examined what high-performing school systems have in common. They suggest what matters most is (1) getting the right people to become teachers, (2) developing them into effective instructors, and (3) ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child.

Gopinathan, Saravanan, and Zongyi Deng. 2006. Fostering school-based curriculum development in the context of new educational initiatives in Singapore. Planning and Changing 37.1–2: 93–110.

The article explores the meanings, challenges, and implications of school-based curriculum development (SBCD) within the context of new educational initiatives in the high-performing nation of Singapore. Challenges in adopting SBCD include inadequate time, expertise, finance, and a threatening school climate.

Mourshed, Mona, Chinezi Chijioke, and Michael Barber. 2010. How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better . London: McKinsey.

This influential report by McKinsey reviews and draws lessons from improving school systems at various stages of development around the world, drawing conclusions about the intervention strategies that are appropriate for countries and systems at different points of development.

Pinar, William F. 2013. International handbook of curriculum research . 2d ed. New York: Routledge.

Pinar presents the state of curriculum research in a global context in this collection of thirty-four essays from twenty-eight countries. This book provides a comprehensive report of the school curriculum initiatives and developments occurring worldwide. Countries previously absent from the original publication are included in this second edition.

Sahlberg, Pasi. 2010. Educational change in Finland. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 323–348. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

Sahlberg argues that Finland’s success on PISA tests of educational achievement is explained by contextual factors—especially sociocultural aspects and other public-sector policies—as well as by professional factors such as engaging highly qualified teachers in collective responsibility for local decision making. These factors serve a common social mission that fosters interdependency among education, other social sectors, and national economic development.

Schleicher, Andreas. 2010. International comparisons of student learning outcomes. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 485–504. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

Comparative international assessments can extend and enrich the national picture by providing a larger context within which to interpret national performance. International assessments can also provide countries with information that allows them to identify areas of relative strengths and weaknesses, monitor the pace of progress of their education system, and stimulate aspirations by showing what is possible.

Wagner, Tony. 2008. The global achievement gap: Why even our best schools don’t teach the new survival skills our children need—and what we can do about it . New York: Basic Books.

This book examines the problems of the American educational system in the context of the demands of the global knowledge economy. It assesses school performance in terms of the skills future workers will need and introduces a new model for schools that will help teach students how to solve problems and communicate effectively.

Zhao, Yong, and Wei Qiu. 2010. China as a case study of systemic educational reform. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 349–361. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

In this chapter, the authors review the major systemic educational reforms that China has undertaken since 1980 and analyze the reasons behind their different degrees of success. They focus on two major themes, decentralization and marketization, and identify and assess the driving forces of the reforms.

Parents and communities can act as agents of educational reform, spearheading efforts that reflect areas in need of improvement in light of community needs. For an examination of social movement organizing and equity-focused educational change, see Renee, et al. 2010 . On the role of community organizing in educational change, see Shirley 1997 . To look at educational change through the lens of alternate teacher education programs, see Skinner, et al. 2011 .

Renee, Michelle, Kevin Welner, and Jeannie Oakes. 2010. Social movement organizing and equity-focused educational change: Shifting the zone of mediation. In The second handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 153–168. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This chapter is a foundational article on the role of social movements in educational change. It explains the zone of mediation between schools and other domains, the types of forces that shape it, and the potential role of social movement organizations as one of those forces. The authors identify three elements key to the future success of social movement organizations in shifting the zone to make schools more equitable.

Shirley, Dennis. 1997. Community organizing for urban school reform . Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.

Most efforts at reform treat schools as isolated institutions, disconnected from their communities and the political realities that surround them. Using case studies, this book is one of the first accounts of the role of community organizing in educational change, where politically empowered low-income communities are at the heart of genuine school improvement and civic renewal.

Skinner, Elizabeth A., Maria Teresa Garreton, and Brain D. Schultz. 2011. Grow your own teachers: Grassroots change for teacher education . Teaching for Social Justice. New York: Teachers College Press.

This book uses the rich narratives of students, community leaders, and educators to offer a compelling look at alternative teacher education programs. Authors illustrate the successful collaboration of community-based organizations and local colleges of education in preparing a community’s members to teach local students.

Schools are not only places where educational change occurs. Rather, schools themselves can act as change agents by creating, supporting, challenging, or sustaining reform. To see how schools create conditions for change in schools, see Barth 1991 , Duke 1995 , and Reeves 2009 . For a view of the relationship between internally developed and externally imposed change, see Goodson 2002 . To see how schools work as professional learning communities to prepare students for a world of creativity and flexibility, see Hargreaves 2003 . For a look at how schools have amplified educational conservatism while altering its nature to fit the current culture and political economy of fast capitalism, see Hargreaves and Shirley 2009 . To see workplace conditions of school success, see Little 1982 . For an analysis of the organizational and political pressures facing non-traditional schools, such as magnet schools, see Metz 1986 .

Barth, Roland S. 1991. Improving schools from within . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Barth sets out principles and practices for change that are driven by teachers, principals, and schools themselves.

Duke, D. L. 1995. The school that refused to die . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

Duke describes the history of a high school and relates it to the larger picture of what is happening in urban education. A culture of academic excellence that had been painstakingly crafted during the school’s first thirty years was affected by court-ordered busing, student unrest, White flight, district-sponsored alternative schools, high school consolidation, budget crises, closure threats, magnet programs, and coexistence with a Governor’s School.

Goodson, Ivor F. 2002. Social histories of educational change. Journal of Educational Change 2.1: 45–63.

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Goodson examines the relationship between internally developed and externally imposed change, arguing that internal change is increasingly being preempted by external agendas and demands. The conclusion sets out a reintegration of internal and external change elements.

Hargreaves, Andy. 2003. Teaching in the knowledge society: Education in the age of insecurity . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book defines teaching in the new knowledge society as preparing students for a world of creativity and flexibility. Hargreaves provides examples of schools that operate as learning communities and sets out detailed evidence on how years of “soulless standardization” have driven nonaffluent schools in the opposite direction.

Hargreaves, Andy, and Dennis Shirley. 2009. The persistence of presentism. Teachers College Record 111.11: 2505–2534.

This study draws on Dan Lortie’s classic discussion of the role of presentism, individualism and conservatism in teaching and teacher change. The research identifies three kinds of presentism—endemic, adaptive, and addictive—that have amplified educational conservatism while altering its nature to fit the current culture and political economy of fast capitalism.

Little, Judith Warren. 1982. Norms of collegiality and experimentation: Workplace conditions of school success. American Educational Research Journal 19.3: 325–340.

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This article is one of the first discussions of the role of collegiality in school change. A focused ethnography of the school as a workplace, it examines organizational characteristics conducive to continued “learning on the job.” More successful schools, particularly those receptive to staff development, were differentiated from less successful (and less receptive) schools by patterned norms of interaction among staff.

Metz, Mary Haywood. 1986. Different by design: The context and character of three magnet schools . Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

This ethnographic study analyzes the organizational and political pressures that combined to make three magnet schools distinctive social environments—a rare glimpse of the critical processes with which teachers and students in both “regular” schools and schools of choice must struggle.

Reeves, Douglas B. 2009. Leading change in your school: How to conquer myths, build commitment, and get results . Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Drawing on his own experience and educational research, Reeves outlines with clear examples how leaders can achieve impressive results in their schools and their districts through a range of change strategies in four stages or processes: creating conditions, planning, implementing, and sustaining.

The impact of educational reform on teachers’ agency is varied. Reform can act as a powerful force on teachers, changing their practice in deep and meaningful ways. It can also have more negative effects, including isolation, attrition, marginalization, and de-professionalism. For an exploration of new teachers’ resistance to change, see Achinstein and Ogawa 2006 . To see the impact of mandated change on teachers, see Bailey 2000 . For an exploration of how teachers’ career stages, life factors, commitment, and professional working environments affect their efficacy, see Day, et al. 2007 . For teacher development viewed through innovative school efforts, see Fullan and Hargreaves 1992 . On the realities of change for reform-minded teachers, see Hargreaves, et al. 2001 . For an exploration of teachers’ emotional responses to change, see Hargreaves 2004 . For the impact of life, career, and generation on teachers’ emotional responses to educational change, see Hargreaves 2005 . For an exploration of the constraints and possibilities of educational practice in light of contemporary realities, see Lieberman and Miller 1999 . For an examination of conflict in teacher communities as a catalyst for school change, see Avila de Lima 2001 . To better understand autonomy and initiative in teachers’ professional relations, see Little 1990 . To further understand identity, diversity, and educational change, see Skerrett 2011 .

Achinstein, Betty, and Rodney T. Ogawa. 2006. (In)Fidelity: What the resistance of new teachers reveals about professional principles and prescriptive educational policies. Harvard Educational Review 76.1: 30–63.

DOI: 10.17763/haer.76.1.e14543458r811864 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

In this article, Achinstein and Ogawa explain teachers’ resistance to change as informed by professional principles. The authors describe the negative effects of prescriptive and control-oriented educational reforms on teachers, including professional isolation and attrition.

Avila de Lima, Jorge. 2001. Forgetting about friendship: Using conflict in teacher communities as a catalyst for school change. Journal of Educational Change 2.2.

It is widely recognized that teacher communities figure among the most vital factors for promoting educational change within schools. Avila discusses the role of friendship and conflict in teacher communities and argues for a rethinking of the way the intermingling of professional and interpersonal ties in schools contributes to change.

Bailey, Beverley. 2000. The impact of mandated change on teachers. In The sharp edge of educational change: Teaching, leading and the realities of reform . Edited by Nina Bascia and Andy Hargreaves, 112–129. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

This chapter reports on teachers’ experiences of mandated change. Teachers reported feeling marginalized and deprofessionalized by the mandated change process. Bailey argues that such marginalization contributes to the failure of school restructuring initiatives, as they pay scant attention to the working lives of teachers.

Day, Christopher, Pam Sammons, Gordon Stobart, Alison Kington, and Qing Gu. 2007. Teachers matter: Connecting lives, work and effectiveness . Maidenhead, UK: McGraw-Hill.

In this intensive landmark study of three hundred teachers in one hundred schools, Day and his colleagues make a major contribution to documenting how, over time, teachers’ career stages, life factors, forms of commitment, and professional working environments affect their efficacy, their schools’ capacity to improve, and student achievement.

Fullan, Michael, and Andy Hargreaves. 1992. Teacher development and educational change . New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

This book explores teacher development through innovation-focused efforts and a total-teacher/total-school analysis. Authors maintain that educational transformation must include teacher development.

Hargreaves, Andy. 2004. Inclusive and exclusive educational change: Emotional responses of teachers and implications for leadership. School Leadership and Management 24.3: 287–309.

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This article analyzes teachers’ emotional responses to educational change. More important for the experience and management of change is not whether change is external or internal in its source, but whether it is inclusive or exclusive of teachers in its design and conduct. Implications are drawn for educational leadership.

Hargreaves, Andy. 2005. Educational change takes ages: Life, career and generational factors in teachers’ emotional responses to educational change. Teaching and Teacher Education 21:967–983.

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This paper examines evidence on the relationship of the emotions of teaching to teachers’ age and career stages, based on experiences of educational change. Hargreaves analyzes how teachers respond emotionally to educational change at different ages and stages of career, and also how they attribute age and career-based responses to their colleagues.

Hargreaves, Andy, Lorna Earl, Shawn Moore, and Susan Manning. 2001. Learning to change: Teaching beyond subjects and standards . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The success of school reform measures greatly depends on the support and commitment of teachers. This book examines the realities of educational change from the frontline perspective of reform-minded teachers. It charts the perceptions and experiences of twenty-nine teachers in grades 7 and 8 from four school districts, showing how they grappled with such initiatives as integrated curriculum, common learning standards, and alternative assessments.

Lieberman, Ann, and Lynn Miller. 1999. Teachers: Transforming their world and their work . New York: Teachers College Press.

Lieberman and Miller address the contemporary realities of schools and teaching, focusing on both the constraints and the possibilities embedded in practice. The words and experiences of teachers and principals are used to show what growth and change look like from the inside—the teacher’s perspective.

Little, Judith Warren. 1990. The persistence of privacy: Autonomy and initiative in teachers’ professional relations. Teachers College Record 91.4: 509–536.

This widely cited paper discusses autonomy and initiative in teachers’ professional relations, and both articulates and investigates a continuum of collaborative relations in teachers’ practice.

Skerrett, Allison. 2011. On identity, diversity, and educational change. Journal of Educational Change 12.2: 211–220.

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Skerrett discusses those areas most influential to Hargreaves’s work on educational change: teacher identity and biography and educational change between 1960 and 1990. Skerrett explains how she integrates teacher identity in her courses and relates periods of optimism and innovation, complexity and contradiction, and marketization and standardization to policies and practice regarding student diversity.

The effects of change can be felt differently for teachers working at the primary and secondary levels. At the primary level, where teachers are not always subject-specific and where departmental cultures are not pervasive, primary teachers struggle with change in ways unique to their environment. For the challenges facing adolescents related to school reform, see Earl, et al. 1996 . For a description of how primary teachers see themselves and their work, see Nias 1989 . For an examination of primary teachers’ responses to change, see Woods, et al. 1997 .

Earl, Lorna, Andy Hargreaves, and Jim. Ryan. 1996. Schooling for change: Reinventing education for early adolescents . London: Routledge.

Drawing from years of conversations with educators, this book presents educational change and reform with practicality and relevance to teachers and administrators. Authors focus on the challenges facing adolescents in transition and how school reform can take into account their unique experiences.

Nias, Jennifer. 1989. Primary teachers talking . London: Routledge.

Drawing on a sample of British primary school teachers, Nias discusses how primary teachers see themselves and their work. She examines the subjective experience of “being a primary teacher,” the different kinds of commitment that these teachers hold, the main factors that contribute to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and teachers’ relationships with their colleagues.

Woods, Peter, Bob Jeffrey, Geoff Troman, and Mari Boyle. 1997. Restructuring schools, reconstructing teachers: Responding to change in the primary school . Bristol, UK: Open Univ. Press.

This study explores how UK policy changes affected primary school teachers and their work in the 1990s. The study’s major contribution is in documenting the different strategies of adaptation that teachers take toward external policy requirements and the reforms that follow from them. The authors argue that teachers’ own active involvement in policy change is required if their creative potential is to be realized.

Change is often difficult at the secondary level, where size, bureaucratic complexity, subject traditions, and identifications factor into relationships and decision making. For an understanding of change at the secondary level in the United States and Canada over a thirty-year period, see Goodson, et al. 2006 . To better understand the professional life cycle of teachers, see Huberman 1989 . To examine the career trajectories of secondary teachers who have experienced reform, see Little 1996 . For a look at teachers’ responses to change in a comprehensive school setting in the United Kingdom, see Riseborough 1981 .

Goodson, Ivor, Shawn Moore, and Andy Hargreaves. 2006. Teacher nostalgia and the sustainability of reform: The generation and degeneration of teachers’ missions, memory and meaning. Educational Administration Quarterly 42.1: 42–61.

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Drawing on the findings of a longitudinal study of educational change over time in eight US and Canadian secondary schools, the authors describe the change orientations of teachers in mid to late career depending on their generationally based sense of mission and their experiences of nostalgia for forms of teaching that sustained them in earlier careers.

Huberman, Michael. 1989. The professional life cycle of teachers. Teachers College Record 91.1: 31–57.

This article discusses trends in the literature related to phases or stages in the professional life of teachers and their impact on teachers’ orientations to development and change. It then presents the results of a study involving 160 secondary teachers in Switzerland. Findings suggest that four modal sequences are applicable to the professional life cycle of teachers.

Little, Judith Warren. 1996. The emotional contours and career trajectories of (disappointed) reform enthusiasts. Cambridge Journal of Education 26:345–359.

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Little examines the interplay of heightened emotionality and shifting career contours among secondary teachers engaged in reform movements; the nature and extent of reform-related conflict within work groups; the degree of equilibrium among multiple sources of pressure and support; and the capacity to manage the pace, scale and dynamics of reform.

Riseborough, George F. 1981. Teachers’ careers and comprehensive schooling: An empirical study. Sociology 15:325–381.

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This early ethnography of teachers’ careers and educational change in a reorganized comprehensive school explains the role of deviancy amplification among a group of mid-career teachers marginalized by a major organizational change, especially in relation to interactions with the school’s head teacher.

This section explores the different domains of activity and organization in which educational change occurs. Through the domains covered here, substantive evolutions of educational change over time are evident, in particular the impact of heightened accountability and standardization.

This section details curriculum and teaching, as well as learning, standards, and accountability, as important domains in which educational change occurs. To see the role of the system in supporting data-driven decision making, see Datnow and Park 2010 . For an exploration of the impact of state testing on inquiry-based science, refer to Falk and Drayton 2004 . To better understand the historical development and evolution of school subjects, see Goodson 1993 . To explore the concept of curriculum and the practice of curriculum theory, see Goodson 1997 . For perspectives on the impact of standardized testing, see McNeil 2000 . For an analysis of the current state of America’s school system, see Ravitch 2011 .

Datnow, Amanda, and Vicki Park. 2010. Large-scale reform in the era of accountability: The system role in supporting data-driven decision making. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 209–220. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This chapter opens the “black box” of large-scale educational change, specifically focusing on a reform movement that results from the current era of accountability: data-driven decision making. The focus is on the system or school district level, where large-scale efforts to engage educators in the use of data often are initiated.

Falk, Joni K., and Brian Drayton. 2004. State testing and inquiry-based science: Are they complementary or competing reforms? Journal of Educational Change 5.4: 345–387.

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The effect of district strategies for improving high-stakes test scores on science teachers’ practice is explored. Results suggest that districts chose markedly different strategies for raising test scores, and that the approaches taken by districts influenced the nature of pedagogical and curriculum changes.

Goodson, Ivor F. 1993. School subjects and curriculum change: Studies in curriculum history . 3d ed. London: Taylor & Francis.

Goodson investigates the historical development and evolution of school subjects, highlighting the ways in which subjects as we understand them are a result of competing forms of status and power in the development of “worthwhile” knowledge.

Goodson, Ivor F. 1997. The changing curriculum . New York: Peter Lang.

Goodson reviews the emergence of the concept of curriculum and the practice of curriculum theory. In doing so, he develops a contextual understanding of curriculum that is the product of change.

McNeil, Linda M. 2000. Contradictions of school reform: The educational costs of standardized testing . New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

This book examines the reality, for students as well as teachers, of standardized testing. It argues that the preparation of students for standardized tests engenders teaching methods that compromise the quality of education.

Ravitch, Diane. 2011. The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education . New York: Basic Books.

This book is an analysis of the current state of America’s education system. Ravitch critiques popular contemporary reforms including standardized testing, punitive accountability, and privatization using examples from America’s major cities.

This section explores the different domains of activity and organization in which educational change occurs, focusing on the role and impact of school organization in educational change. In each domain, scholars have looked at school organization and culture to consider their role in promoting, supporting, resisting, achieving, and sustaining meaningful change. For an exploration of the micro-politics of school, see Ball 1987 . To better understand politics, markets, and the organization of schools, see Chubb and Moe 1988 . For a description of the evolution of innovation strategies and a look at which strategies will most effectively develop the 21st-century school, see Dalin 1998 . For a detailed description of whole-school reform focused on the collaboration of educators and politicians, see Fullan 2010 . For an exploration of the role of departmental cultures in reform, see McLaughlin and Talbert 2001 . To look at the impact of reforms on individuals, classrooms, and schools, and in particular the Coalition of Essential Schools, see McQuillan and Muncey 1996 . For an analysis of social, economic, and educational trends worldwide, see Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 1991 . To look at the challenges facing the modern American high school, see Powell, et al. 1985 . For an analysis of the way contemporary schools run and the impact of these practices on student learning, see Sizer 1984 .

Ball, Stephen J. 1987. The micro-politics of the school: Towards a theory of school organization . London: Methuen.

In this book, Ball explores the interests and concerns of teachers and current problems through the concept of micropolitics in schools. He challenges educators to consider the existing forms of organizational control in schools and whether these forms are adequate or appropriate.

Chubb, John E., and Terry M. Moe. 1988. Politics, markets, and the organization of schools. American Political Science Review 82.4: 1065–1087.

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This analysis found that public and private schools differ in environment and organization, with private schools more likely to possess characteristics believed to produce effectiveness. The key differences lie in social control: public schools are subordinates in a hierarchic system, whereas private schools are autonomous actors “controlled” by the market.

Dalin, Per. 1998. Developing the twenty-first century school: A challenge to reformers. In The international handbook of educational change . Part 2. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Michael Fullan, Ann Lieberman, and David Hopkins, 1059–1073. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Dalin reviews three decades of research on and involvement in educational innovation. He traces the evolution of innovation strategies and describes the range of challenges currently facing educational reformers. Dalin outlines strategies that will assist educational reformers to more effectively develop the 21st-century school.

Fullan, Michael. 2010. All systems go: The change imperative for whole system reform . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Fullan examines whole-system reform at the school, district, and state levels. With relevance to educators and change agents at all levels of schooling, he discusses the need for politicians and professionals in the field to collaborate and share decision making and create policy together.

McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin, and Joan E. Talbert. 2001. Professional communities and the work of high school teaching . Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

McLaughlin and Talbert argue that it is not the state or district but the most local contexts—schools, departments, and communities—that matter most to teachers’ performance and professional satisfaction. Their findings show that departmental cultures play a crucial role in classroom settings and expectations.

Muncey, Donna E., and Patrick J. McQuillan. 1996. Reform and resistance in schools and classrooms: An ethnographic view of the Coalition of Essential Schools . New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.

This book charts the course of reform at eight charter-member schools of the Coalition of Essential Schools. Muncey and McQuillan’s study is the culmination of five years of ethnographic research on the impact of reforms on individuals, classrooms, and the schools themselves.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 1991. What schools for the future? Paris: OECD.

Drawing on an extensive body of statistical and research evidence, the book analyzes the social, economic, and educational trends of the 21st century. It presents six possible scenarios for school systems over the next ten to twenty years. The analysis is completed by contributions from eight international experts, looking at the challenges facing schools.

Powell, Arthur G., Eleanor Farrar, and David K. Cohen. 1985. The shopping mall high school: Winners and losers in the educational marketplace . Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

This book suggests the modern high school is like a shopping mall, offering immense variety but virtually no direction. Consequently, all too many students simply “hang out” in school. This situation continues because of teachers’ overwork and apathy, administrative concern with enrollment figures, and the societal attitude that high school is merely a rite of passage to adulthood.

Sizer, Theodore R. 1984. Horace’s compromise . Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

In this book, Sizer reveals the all too familiar workings of schools: the often ineffective teaching practices, the rushed procession of fifty-two-minute classes, and the mindless, brief tests that do little to enhance students’ understanding. Sizer insists that we do more than compromise for our children’s educational futures.

Demographics

One of the greatest factors influencing educational change is the demographics of the people who populate the region served. This section explores the role of these demographic factors in educational change. Included are the need to consider race, class, language, and gender in reform and how to create more equitable teaching and learning for urban schools and underserved populations through inclusive education practices.

This section considers the role of race, class, and language in educational change. For an insightful theory of change through the lens of race, see Connolly and Troyna 1998 . To further understand the culture of power and pedagogy in teaching Black and poor students, see Delpit 1988 and Fordham 1996 . For a look at how language and culture influence student learning, see Fecho 2003 and Philips 1983 . For suggestions on policy reform and teacher preparation in diverse international settings, see Skerret 2008 and Skerret and Hargreaves 2008 .

Connolly, Paul, and Barry Troyna. 1998. Researching racism in education: Politics, theory and practice . Bristol, UK: Open Univ. Press.

A key chapter in this book argues that literature on race has no theory of change and that literature on change has no theory of race or diversity, and Troyna sets out some ways to develop a theory of change that is based on more than guilt or persuasion.

Delpit, Lisa D. 1988. The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. Harvard Education Review 58.3: 280–298.

DOI: 10.17763/haer.58.3.c43481778r528qw4 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

Delpit discusses the “culture of power” in society and education in the United States. She provides five complex rules of power that influence the teaching and learning of black and poor students. She suggests that educators must gain an understanding of these power relationships in order to provide more equitable schools.

Fecho, Bob. 2003. Is this English? Race, language, and culture in the classroom . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book describes how a white high school English teacher and his students of color used “critical inquiry” in the classroom. This method allowed the students and teacher to take intellectual and social risks by crossing cultural boundaries, and over time, it empowered the students and transformed literacy education in their school.

Fordham, Signithia. 1996. Blacked out: Dilemmas of race, identity, and success at Capitol High . Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Fordham describes the symbolic role of academic achievement within the black community in an inner-city high school. This ethnography details the struggles of students to construct their identities in the midst of cultural conflicts between a community that encourages egalitarianism and group cohesion and a school that encourages individualism and competition for academic success.

Philips, Susan U. 1983. The invisible culture: Communication in classroom and community on the Warm Springs Indian reservation . Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.

Philips offers insights for educators on the role of language and culture in educational settings by sharing the experiences of Warm Springs Native American children and their teachers in an American school. She explains that the organization of communication in the classroom places these children in a subordinate position both socially and culturally.

Skerrett, Allison. 2008. “Going the race way”: Biographical influences on multicultural and antiracist English curriculum practices. Teaching and Teacher Education 24.7: 1813–1826.

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This article considers the importance of teacher agency in relation to teaching to student diversity during a time of increased curriculum standardization. Drawing from an international study conducted in the United States and Canada, Skerrett explains how teacher agency in two racially diverse schools was directly related to professional preparation, prior experiences with diversity, and generational status.

Skerrett, Allison, and Andy Hargreaves. 2008. Student diversity and secondary school change in a context of increasingly standardized reform. American Educational Research Journal 45.4: 913–945.

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This article analyzes three decades of educational reform strategies pertaining to ethnocultural diversity in the United States and Canada and how they affect the efforts of four secondary schools, two in each context, to respond to increasing student diversity. The authors describe the current effects of increasing standardization on racially diverse schools and offer recommendations for policy reform that embraces post-standardization.

Reforms embracing a multicultural perspective help to create more equitable teaching and learning for all students. For practical suggestions and tools to provide inclusive and multicultural teaching, see Banks 2004 . For advice on policy development and teaching for empowerment in diverse linguistic and cultural contexts, see Cummins 1996 , Nieto 2005 , and Nieto 2010 . For ideas on community involvement in schools with diverse student populations, see Valdés 1996 . To further understand the importance of culturally responsive and socioculturally conscious teaching, see Valenzuela 1999 and Villegas and Lucas 2002 . To explore student-centered, critical, and democratic pedagogy, see Shor 2012 .

Banks, James A. 2004. Multicultural education: Historical developments, dimensions, and practice. In Handbook of research on multicultural education . 2d ed. Edited by James A. Banks and Cherry A. McGee Banks, 3–29. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This book provides educators with knowledge and tools to become effective practitioners in an increasingly diverse society. Authors discuss the concepts of school culture and the influence of race, class, gender, religion, and exceptionality and how these influence teaching, learning, and student behavior. Suggestions are advanced for educational reform that embraces a multicultural perspective.

Cummins, Jim. 1996. Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society . Ontario: California Association for Bilingual Education.

Cummins explains that the current methods of teaching English language learners from diverse cultures and countries are not working. He suggests the need for teachers to create a learning environment for students that encourages them to learn from the diversity of cultures in the classroom, as opposed to pressuring for assimilation.

Nieto, Sonia. 2005. Cultural difference and educational change in a sociopolitical context. In Extending educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, 138–159. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

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Nieto discusses the phenomenon of growing cultural diversity and the challenges it presents for educational change. She explains the benefits of student learning and achievement in reforms that take into account cultural and linguistic diversity and argues for pre-service teacher education that prepares teachers to work effectively in diverse contexts, as well as for policies that are sensitive to diversity issues.

Nieto, Sonia. 2010. The light in their eyes: Creating multicultural learning Communities . 2d ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

In this book, Sonia Nieto explains how student learning should be at the center of multicultural education. She describes multicultural education as a transformative process influenced by social context, culture, critical pedagogy, and educational equity.

Shor, Ira. 2012. Empowering education: Critical teaching for social change . Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Shor explores empowering education as a function of student-centered, critical, and democratic pedagogy. The author argues that through interactive dialogue with teachers, students become proactive in their learning. This book provides strategies to assist students in developing critical thinking skills through an analysis of the obstacles in promoting empowering education.

Valdés, Guadalupe. 1996. Con respeto: Bridging the distances between culturally diverse families and schools . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book is an ethnographic portrait of ten Mexican immigrant families. It describes the challenges of survival and learning in a new country and uncovers common cultural misunderstandings in schools that may have long-term negative consequences on immigrant children. It provides information for educators on creating multicultural learning communities.

Valenzuela, Angela. 1999. Subtractive schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and the politics of caring . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

Valenzuela examines how school is an uncaring place for many students. She describes two conceptions of school: one that embraces the different languages and cultures of students, and one that encourages mainstreaming into the dominant society without consideration of student differences.

Villegas, Ana María, and Tamara Lucas. 2002. Preparing culturally responsive teachers. Journal of Teacher Education 53.1: 20–32.

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In this article, Villegas and Lucas discuss the importance of culturally responsive teaching in teacher education programs. They demonstrate the need for programs to move beyond the current fragmented treatment of diversity and create a vision for socioculturally conscious teaching that affirms student differences and promotes equity.

There is a great need for equity-focused reforms and policies in many urban schools. This section highlights works that consider new paradigms for understanding social and educational injustice (see Anyon 2005 ) and suggestions for closing the achievement gap in urban schools (see Noguera 2003 ). For a history of class politics and public schooling in the United States, see Wrigley 1982 . For a grounded theory of critical literacy pedagogy, see Morrell 2008 . For suggestions on creating more equitable schools using social and political movements outside the field of education, see Oakes and Lipton 2002 . For a cultural ecological model of school change, see Ogbu 1974 . For a discussion on education reform and social change, see Walsh 1996 .

This book provides a new paradigm for understanding educational injustice and working toward equity in schools and communities. Anyon explains the many unintended consequences of policies and practices on poor communities. She describes five current social movements in the United States that are demonstrating success and offers suggestions for educators striving to obtain educational justice in struggling schools.

Morrell, Ernest. 2008. Critical literacy and urban youth: Pedagogies of access, dissent, and liberation . New York: Routledge.

In this book, Morrell presents a grounded theory of critical literacy pedagogy developed from his own work. The author offers implications for literary research, teacher education, classroom practices, and social and community change.

Noguera, Pedro A. 2003. City schools and the American dream: Reclaiming the promise of public education . New York: Teachers College Press.

In this book, Pedro Noguera considers how urban schools can reach the academic standards required by new state and national educational standards. He discusses the role of classroom teachers in helping to close the achievement gap and the need for substantial investment in communities to combat social forces such as poverty, violence, and social inequality.

Oakes, Jeannie, and Martin Lipton. 2002. Struggling for educational equity in diverse communities: School reforms as social movement. Journal of Educational Change 3:383–406.

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Oakes and Lipton present the need for equity-focused school reformers to learn from the logic and strategies of change efforts outside the field of education. The authors suggest using social and political movements as lenses for reform efforts because they may have more success challenging and disrupting the norms and prevailing power structures than do traditional organizational change models.

Ogbu, John. 1974. The next generation . New York: Academic Press.

Ogbu, in this foundational article, explains how his theories on minority education developed, including his cultural ecological model. Dialogue between Ogbu and the scholarly community frames the debate on academic achievement, school engagement, and oppositional culture.

Walsh, Catherine E. 1996. Education reform and social change: Multicultural voices, struggles, and visions . Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

This book uses case studies to emphasize multicultural, collaborative, grassroots approaches to education reform. Through firsthand documentation, Walsh gives voice to stakeholders, including students, and their efforts to implement equitable improvements to education. He encourages reflective thought regarding these issues and provides readers with guiding questions for thoughtful engagement.

Wrigley, Julia. 1982. Class politics and public schools: Chicago 1900–1950 . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.

In a classic in the field of sociology of education, Wrigley examines how social class struggles and long-term power structures defined educational development in the United States.

The works in this section consider the role of gender in educational change and reform. For a historical examination of women in educational administration, see Blackmore 1996 and Shakeshaft 1989 . For a discussion on the relationship of gender to micro-politics in secondary schools, see Datnow 2003 .

Blackmore, Jill. 1996. Doing “emotional labour” in the education market place: Stories from the field of women in management. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 17(3): 337–349.

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Blackmore discusses how the construction of an educational labor market has shaped educational practice. The author considers the difficulties female principals face when dealing with educational quasi-markets and the contradiction of caring and sharing leadership during a time of state-imposed educational reforms based upon market liberalism.

Datnow, Amanda. 2003. The gender politics of educational change . Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis.

Datnow contrasts the efforts of two gender-based groups in their efforts to implement school improvements. She details how these improvements quickly became a political match between female-dominated and male-dominated groups. This book gives researchers and practitioners a new perspective from which to view a school’s culture and leadership dynamics.

Shakeshaft, Charol. 1989. Women in educational administration . Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.

This book was one of the first to focus on women in educational administration. This updated edition summarizes and analyzes the history of women in educational leadership and the status of women in the field compared to men. Social barriers and strategies for overcoming these barriers are suggested.

This works in this section consider the need for sustainable change and fostering inclusive values and practices in schools. For a broader definition of inclusion, including issues of equity, participation, and the role of community in sustaining equitable reform, see Ainscow, et al. 2006 . For the role of organizational cultures and leadership in developing inclusive educational practices, see Ainscow and Sandill 2010 .

Ainscow, Mel, Tony Booth, Alan Dyson, et al. 2006. Improving schools, developing inclusion . London: Routledge.

Much of the literature on inclusive practices in schools has been narrowly concerned with the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs. This book takes the view that marginalization, exclusion, and underachievement take many forms and affect many different kinds of children. As such, a definition of inclusion should also touch upon issues of equity, participation, community, entitlement, compassion, respect for diversity, and sustainability.

Ainscow, Mel, and Abha Sandill. 2010. Developing inclusive education systems: The role of organisational cultures and leadership. International Journal of Inclusive Education 14.4: 401–416.

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Drawing on research evidence and ideas from a range of international literature, this paper argues that leadership practice is a crucial element in gearing education systems toward inclusive values and bringing about sustainable change. The paper considers the organizational conditions that are needed in order to bring about such developments, focusing in particular on the role of leadership in fostering inclusive cultures.

Theories of Change

This section includes key books, articles, and book chapters that discuss theories of educational change. Included are topics on non-change, stage development and institutional theories, concepts of personal, emotional, and psychodynamic reactions to change, and orientations to and responses to change. Pivotal historical works on change theories are also included.

The works in this section consider educational change from the perspective of growth, learning, and stage development. For details on how to use social network theory to enact and sustain educational change, see Daly 2010 . For an understanding of the five dimensions of schooling in implementing reform, see Eisner 1992 . For a look at how partnerships among educators, communities, and governments can create learning societies and sustain reform, see Fullan 1993 and Senge 2010 . To further understand large-scale transformation and complex change, see Fullan 2001 . For a synthesis of existing theoretical perspectives on educational change, see Paulson 1977 .

Daly, Alan J., ed. 2010. Social network theory and educational change . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education.

Uses case study to explore the networks developed by teachers and school leaders. Daly contrasts informal and formal organizational structures and observes the flow of influence, ideas, and information between both individuals and groups. He emphasizes that school reform must be viewed from the relationships between stakeholders.

Eisner, Elliot W. 1992. Educational reform and the ecology of schooling. Teachers College Record 93.4: 610–627.

Eisner discusses the need to consider five dimensions of schooling—the intentional, structural, pedagogical, and evaluative—in implementing meaningful and significant school reform. The author explains the factors that make educational change difficult, including teacher isolation, the persistence of school and teacher norms, and a lack of meaningful professional development for teachers.

Fullan, Michael. 1993. Change forces: Probing the depths of educational reform . London: Falmer.

In this first book in his Change Forces trilogy, Fullan draws on and articulates the principles of chaos theory to explain that transforming the educational system will require partnerships among educators, community agencies, and governments. The author identifies eight basic lessons of a new change paradigm aimed at creating learning societies and sustaining educational change.

Drawing on leadership and change theories and examples of large-scale transformation, Fullan addresses how school leaders can deal with complex change. He offers five core competencies for educators: attending to a broader moral purpose, keeping on top of the change process, cultivating relationships, sharing knowledge, and setting a vision and context for creating coherence in organizations.

Paulson, Rolland 1977. Social and educational change: Conceptual frameworks. Comparative Education Review 21.2–3: 370–395.

This review provides a synthesis of existing theoretical perspectives on social and educational change. Eight frameworks are examined, including evolutionary, neo-evolutionary, structural-functionist systems, Marxian, neo-Marxian, cultural revitalization, and anarchistic-utopian.

Senge, Peter M. 2010. Education for an interdependent world: Developing systems citizens. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 131–151. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

In this article, Senge points to the need to create a regenerative society where community leaders from education, business, civil society, and local governments work together to support innovation in public schooling. He stresses the importance of systems thinking in approaching the task of building an education system that encourages and sustains community and global citizenship.

The success of educational reform depends on those implementing the reform: the teachers and administrators. The works in this section discuss these educators’ emotions and psychodynamic responses to change. For insight into reform behind the scenes and suggestions for those leading and managing change, see James 2010 . For details on teachers’ emotions in the context of reform and the implications of change for these individuals, see van Veen and Sleegers 2006 and Zembylas 2010 .

James, Chris 2010. The psychodynamics of educational change. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Michael Fullan, Ann Lieberman, and David Hopkins, 47–64. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This chapter explores the reasons for the high level of affective intensity in educational institutions. It then sets out what may lie behind responses to educational change and, using concepts from systems psychodynamic theory, explores those responses in greater depth. This chapter also seeks to offer pointers for those leading and managing change in schools and colleges.

van Veen, Klaas, and Peter Sleegers. 2006. How does it feel? Teacher’s emotions in a context of change. Journal of Curriculum Studies 38:85–111.

DOI: 10.1080/00220270500109304 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

This paper describes how six Dutch secondary school teachers perceive their work within the current educational reform environment. Using a cognitive social-psychological approach to emotions, Van Keen and Sleegers share how these educators appraised the relations between their perceived role as teachers and their situational demands.

Zembylas, Michalinos. 2010. Teacher emotions in the context of educational reforms. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Michael Fullan, Ann Lieberman, and David Hopkins, 221–236. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

In this paper, the author explains that although there is a clear need for teachers and administrators to be involved in the educational reform process, the emotions of change for these individuals and the implications of reform for their wellbeing are rarely addressed.

This section includes works that consider the social and organizational behavior of principals and schools as influenced by the wider social structure such as rules, norms, and routines. For consideration of the effects of control-oriented principals on teacher performance, see Blasé 1990 . To see how institutional theory may be applied to educational reform initiatives, see Burch 2007 . For a framework on how to lead, evaluate, and explain the success or failure of educational reform, see Duke 2004 .

Blasé, Joseph J. 1990. Some negative effects of principals’ control-oriented and protective political behavior. American Educational Research Journal 27.4: 727–753.

DOI: 10.3102/00028312027004727 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

Blasé describes the use of control-manipulative political behaviors by some principals and the negative effects their actions had on involvement and performance of teachers and on school standards.

Burch, Patricia. 2007. Educational policy and practice from the perspective of institutional theory: Crafting a wider lens. Educational Researcher 36.2: 84–95.

DOI: 10.3102/0013189X07299792 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

In this paper, Burch provides a framework that integrates recent institutional theory with current issues in public education in the United States. The author identifies the potential gains from increasing the utility of institutional perspectives in educational reform.

Duke, Daniel Linden. 2004. The challenges of educational change . Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Using a five-phase model of the change process practical examples as frameworks, Duke helps the reader understand how to lead reform, evaluate process and outcomes, and explain the success and/or failure of educational change initiatives.

There are many reasons for the lack of change in schools. This works in this section review some of these reasons, including the difficulty of challenging long-held power structures, and the attrition of innovative practices over time. Angus and Mirel 1999 explains some the reasons for the failure and loss of momentum of differentiated curriculum and makes suggestions for future reform efforts. Fink 2000 discusses the “attrition of change” using six conceptual structures.

Angus, David L., and Jeffrey Mirel. 1999. The failed promise of the American high school, 1890–1995 . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book traces the history of schooling in the United States from the professionalization of curriculum planning by elites in the 1890s to the era of standardization, 1975–1995. The authors summarize the failures of the differentiated curriculum at the high school level and make suggestions for promising educational reform.

Fink, Dean. 2000. Good schools, real schools: Why school reform doesn’t last . New York: Teachers College Press.

In this book, Fink explains some of the reasons for the failure and loss of momentum of innovative educational practices in many high schools. He uses six conceptual structures to describe this “attrition of change,” including context, meaning, leadership, structure, culture, and the lives and work of teachers.

This works in this section offer an examination of the history, role, and controversies of public schooling in American society. For a synopsis of US educational reform, see Miles 1998 and Ravitch 1983 . For insight into how economics, community, and power structures have influenced American schooling, see Nespor 1997 and Tyack and Cuban 1995 . For a look at the historical development of US curriculum, see Willis, et al. 1994 .

Miles, M. 1998. Finding keys to school change: A 40-year odyssey. In The international handbook of educational change . Part 1. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 37–69. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Miles reflects upon his forty years of work and research on educational change. This book chapter offers a poignant synopsis of reform for researchers and practitioners alike from the perspective of an expert in educational change.

Nespor, Jan. 1997. Tangled up in school: Politics, space, bodies, and signs in the educational process . Sociocultural, Political, and Historical Studies in Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This book offers a singular examination of the role of schools in American society. Nespor gives insight into how economics, community, power structures, and agendas and culture play out at the school level.

Ravitch, Diane. 1983. The troubled crusade: American education, 1945–1980 . New York: Basic Books.

Ravitch describes the history and controversies of American schools and universities since World War II.

Tyack, David B., and Larry Cuban. 1995. Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

Tyack and Cuban explore the nature of educational reform, including the cyclical nature of reform and the reasons for the difficulty of breaking traditional molds of schooling. The authors propose focusing on improving teacher instruction from the inside out and keeping the democratic purposes of education at the center of any future change efforts.

Willis, George, William Schubert, Robert Bullough, Craig Kridel, and John Holton, eds. 1994. The American curriculum: A documentary history . Westport, CT: Greenwood.

This book includes thirty-six primary source documents from the historical development of curriculum in the United States. Materials range in date from 1642 to 1983 and include a short summary of significance prior to each paper.

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Achieving High Educational Standards for All: Conference Summary (2002)

Chapter: education reform in context: research, politics, and civil rights, education reform in context: research, politics, and civil rights.

Christopher Edley, Jr.

THE CONTEXT

The modern civil rights movement made popular the aspiration that we improve educational outcomes for children from communities to whom America historically denied equal rights and equal opportunities to advance. Political tides notwithstanding, the moral claim has grown stronger with time, not weaker. And now the structural changes in the economy combine with inexorable, almost breathtaking demographic changes to add a material urgency making that moral claim an imperative for all.

Disparities as Reflection of History and Portent for the Future

The conference papers and presentations highlighted matters of context that, in a reasonable world, would lead to a redoubling of efforts to promote equal opportunity. First, the dramatic racial disparities, summarized in Chapter 2 , speak to our past, present, and future. They are the evidence of the lingering effects of historical sins, and of the legacy of racial caste. The disparities also signal painful imperfections in the ma-chinery of opportunity today. But for the future, and especially in light of the demographics, the disparities measure a challenge to the nation’s future greatness: deepening, persistent divisions threaten our collective economic prosperity, social stability, and capacity for democratic self-governance. Moreover, this is a challenge to our national character. If we

accept that racial and ethnic disparities are impervious to intergenerational mobility, then we confess that the American myth is a lie.

A dimension of this future threat is our growing separateness by color and class in our schools. The consequences are evident in learning outcomes, but also in such broader societal outcomes as shared community and intercultural competence in the workplace, the political arena, and the civic sphere generally. Nonwhite students already constitute majorities in California, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Hawaii, and New Mexico and make up 67 percent of all students in the nation’s 100 largest school districts. 1 Schools with large majorities of minority children are far more likely to have high concentrations of poverty, which in turn makes those schools far less likely to be successful. 2

We know that the workforce will be increasingly Hispanic and black, but will these workers have the skills to be competitive and to keep America competitive? The wage advantage of young adult men with bachelor’s degrees over young men who did not complete high school increased from 40 percent in 1973 to 124 percent in 1998. 3 Moreover, the data indicate that minority drop out rates exceed college completion rates ( Table 1 ). Without more effective public policies and private practices,

TABLE 1 Percent of High School and College Graduates, Ages 18-29 by Age, Race and Hispanic Origin

our divisions will widen as the growing market premium on education makes poor schooling a socioeconomic death sentence.

Political Context

A second salient aspect of the context is the politics of school reform. In the 2000 national election and in the opening months of the Bush presidency there was partisan competition to be passionate and “bold” on the subject of school improvement. 4 Such competition, while a good place to start, does not necessarily translate into thoughtful proposals.

Although through much of the 1980s and 1990s there were partisan battles over whether to eliminate the federal Department of Education, President George W. Bush abandoned that oft-stated GOP position and instead proposed greater percentage increases in education funding than for any other domestic program in his first budget. 5 Congressional Democrats successfully sought still more, but this merely confirmed a recent pattern of bipartisan congressional interest in an expanded federal financial role in K-12 education, even while the form for federal activity remains hotly debated. The prototype Republican plan tends toward block grants with few federal requirements apart from intensive state-defined testing programs for public disclosure and accountability purposes, and perhaps augmented by encouragement for private school vouchers. The prototype Democratic plan tends toward substantial additional funding for more specific needs widely thought to be critical ingredients for school improvement, including more and better-trained teachers, capital investments in facilities and technology, and smaller class size in the early grades. The legislative compromise lies between these positions, and includes more resources, substantial emphasis on testing, and flexibility short of block grants. 6 The general nature of this national legislative consensus seems likely to remain stable for several years, and much of the programmatic and structural change will continue to be driven at the state level, with some significant but not revolutionary expansions in federal support for those efforts.

A key unresolved question, however, is whether the equity and disparity issues beginning to emerge in the national discussions, and a few states, including Texas under former Governor Bush, will become a powerful force shaping state and local policies. At this writing, new federal legislation seems likely to include a requirement that state accountability systems report the results of their frequent student tests disaggregated by race, disability, English language proficiency, and class. 7 Civil rights and other advocates unsuccessfully urged Congress to go a step farther by requiring that published evidence of disparity be more than a hoped-for prod for popular political accountability. In addition, some of these advo-

cates and observers argued that the change in achievement disparities should be an ingredient of the statutory requirement that states make “adequate yearly progress” in school improvement or face administrative and fiscal sanctions from the federal Department of Education. Traditional conservatives have been opposed to such prescriptiveness, and the traditional liberals have been opposed to fiscal sanctions which, they believe, ultimately hurt needy children and school districts.

All of this points to the need for an ambitious research agenda along the lines of the work discussed in this volume in order to continue to refine the newly ambitious federal role and the increasingly activist state reform role over the coming decade.

The Civil Rights Connection

A third area of concern, even for a convocation primarily of social scientists, is the civil rights context. The foundation of the modern civil rights movement was the attack on school segregation, not because black leaders believed that black children could only learn if seated next to a white child, but because they believed that apartheid in education would mean apartheid in opportunity; that separate could never be equal; and that unequal education would perpetuate the entire structure of injustice for generations to come. Contemporary racial justice advocates, following decades of attack on barriers in voting, employment, housing, entrepreneurship, criminal justice, and so forth, are now revisiting education issues with renewed vigor. There is a growing consensus within that community that equal education opportunity and the elimination of disparities in achievement and attainment must be the number one agenda item for the civil rights movement in the decade ahead. 8 As some have put it, algebra is a civil right. 9 While liberals stress the mantra that “every child can learn,” 10 conservatives argue that poor and minority families deserve private school vouchers so that they will supposedly have choices like other families to escape failing schools, and people across the spectrum proclaim that we must “leave no child behind.” 11

Another aspect of the civil rights context, however, is less about the rekindled aspirations for educational successes than about insistence that the antidiscrimination and equality norms familiar to civil rights law be given their appropriate, contemporary interpretation and aggressively enforced. One prominent example concerns testing.

When President Clinton proposed a voluntary national test (VNT) in his 1997 State of the Union Address, 12 he viewed it as an important device to promote comparability and accountability, and a needed spur to the standards-based school reform movement. Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus, among other leaders in minority communities,

opposed the VNT. Among their reasons were the risk that such tests would be used not only for diagnostic and intervention purposes, but for high stakes imposed on students who may not have had the opportunity to learn the material included on the tests—denial of diplomas, tracking into dead-end curricula, and retention in grade. Thus, went the critique, the tests would almost surely be used to penalize the very students who were being ill-served by failing schools, rather than used to identify underperformance by teachers, administrators, and officials at all levels. President Clinton and Secretary Riley reacted to such civil rights concerns rather dismissively, suggesting privately that perhaps these leaders were not committed to excellence or high standards. 13

This charge was, of course, utterly false. The civil rights claim has three central components. First, conventional civil rights antidiscrimination law suggests that when a policy, although race-neutral on its face, is applied and produces racially disparate results, there is a prima facie case of discrimination under regulations implementing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 14 The burden then shifts to the policy maker—in this case school authorities—to demonstrate that the policy is “educationally necessary” to the legitimate purposes of the government. If officials meet this burden, then the civil rights plaintiff would have the burden of showing that, even if educationally necessary, there are alternative means of pursuing the legitimate goals without so serious a disparate impact. There are, of course, “antitesting” advocates who oppose so-called standardized testing in most forms and contexts. The civil rights complaint, however, is not against the test, but against the high-stakes use of the test for retention in grade or denial of diplomas, rather than for the wide range of other accountability and intervention measures that would not punish the ill-taught or poorly performing student. Relatedly, the civil rights claim is that a high-stakes regime cannot be “educationally necessary” if the assessments fail to satisfy the generally accepted professional norms of the psychometric and testing community—see the principles in the “Joint Standards” and in various NRC publications. 15

The important civil rights thesis, underlying all antidiscrimination law, is this: When a policy or practice is favored by powerful interests but noxious to a “discrete and insular minority,” 16 we cannot be confident that the ordinary rules of majority politics and democratic policy making will produce just outcomes, even over an extended period of time. Put bluntly, if the victims of a policy are largely minority and poor, the self-correcting mechanisms of deliberation and reform may not work so well. Antidiscrimination laws, whether rooted in the Constitution or in statute, are intended to be antidotes to the antiminority tilt of democratic rule— in, for example, a subordinate jurisdiction, or at some future moment. In that special sense, antidiscrimination laws are antidemocratic and at cer-

tain times and in certain places contrary to popular wisdom or a majority’s preferences. That’s their purpose.

The structure of this legal argument has become clear over the past few years. The relationship between scientifically sound testing practices and civil rights law was examined in an important 1999 publication by the National Research Council (NRC), High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion and Graduation , edited by Robert Hauser and Jay Heubert. That same analysis was largely adopted in a formally published guidance on test use produced by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in December 2000, since “archived” by the new Bush administration pending detailed review. 17 It has met with little success in the courts, however, because judges so naturally tend to defer to the expertise of state and local school officials, and the judges themselves are, like politicians and much of the public, seemingly in the thrall of testing. 18

To be sure, there is a largely unexamined empirical assertion underlying the arguments of high-stakes proponents: attaching high-stakes consequences for the students provides an indispensable, otherwise unobtainable incentive for students, parents, and teachers to pay careful attention to learning tasks. For the countless parents, policy makers, and observers who approach these debates as instrumentalists, the accuracy of this assertion is a central mystery as we struggle to close the education gap.

High-stakes testing is also problematic from a civil rights perspective if curriculum is not aligned with the test, or if instruction is not aligned with the curriculum. 19 The simple insight, reflected in both case law and professional testing standards, is that it is a denial of due process to punish a student when he or she has not even had a chance to prepare for the exam. This is the most pointed form of a general concern about providing adequate and equitable opportunity to students before imposing on them a potentially devastating decision about tracking, retention in grade (with, many believe, resulting increases in the risk of dropping out), 20 or diploma denial. While liberal education reformers tried during the first Clinton administration to include general “opportunity to learn” provisions as a condition of federal financial assistance to the states and a necessary complement to standards-based accountability, this linkage was soundly rejected in Congress and has not generally been made in state policies. The narrower legal claim of civil rights and other advocates is that, in some circumstances, opportunities may be so inadequate in relation to the high-stakes test as to amount to fundamental unfairness in a constitutional sense. Court decisions and state policy makers have often responded by building a lag into the schedule between announcement of a high-stakes test and its implementation, presumably to permit alignment of curriculum and instruction so that everyone has a fair chance to

get ready. 21 The deeper question, requiring case-specific research, is whether the alignment and preparation really take place for the neediest and least powerful before the accountability axe falls.

This issue of adequate opportunity has civil rights resonance outside of the testing arena. For example, Michael Rebell’s contribution in Part III of this volume describes a thus far successful effort in New York state courts to demand greater equality in the provision of the minimum adequate education guaranteed by that state’s constitution. Failure to do so is a denial of rights. I would add that, given this right under state law, it therefore because a denial of federal constitutional due process rights to deprive a child of that right, and a violation of federal civil rights statutes as well. 22 Indeed, there are at least two major strands of civil rights claims being pursued under various state constitutional law theories: failure to provide disadvantaged students with a minimally adequate basic education, and failure to assure some rough comparability in education finances or services across school districts. These interdistrict equity claims, while impossible under the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of federal equal protection doctrine, 23 have met with significant success in the state courts, as Rebell details.

It is important to bear in mind, however, that attention to these fancy, still evolving civil rights claims should not cause us to ignore the myriad garden variety discrimination claims based on intradistrict inequalities (e.g., minority schools without text books or certified teachers), 24 or discrimination in the administration of ability grouping, special education, school discipline, and so forth. Beneath much of the subtle discrimination, which advocates believe is all too common among educators and officials, is a form of racial stereotyping or “academic racial profiling” in which expectations are lower for students of color. 25 Against this backdrop, thoughtful focus on racial disparities, as represented in this volume, is a vital antidote.

The gravamen of all this is that the success or failures of minority children in our schools must be understood to be a matter of civil rights urgency—and the concerns are far broader than the historical attention to racial isolation and state-sponsored segregation. The agenda in this new century encompasses a whole vision of opportunity and achievement.

The Urgency of School Improvement

A fourth and final aspect of the context is the broad sense that there is a crisis in public education. Polling evidence suggests that many parents feel that, while my child’s school is fine, public schools in general are in serious trouble. 26 Another piece of evidence is the continuing interest in private school vouchers, public school choice, charter schools, and other

strategies that, in one way or another, amount to a rejection of business as usual in the public school system and in particular a skepticism that the customary strategies for bureaucratic innovation and reform will suffice. At present, the bulk of leadership in minority communities, both nationally and regionally, support public schools, oppose private school vouchers, and voice at least cautious commitment to the ordinary processes of incremental progressive reform. It seems likely, however, that the erosion of this commitment will accelerate unless leaders and their constituents see substantial gains in minority achievement and reductions in disparities within the next few years. There has been too little attention in policy and political debates to the rate of school improvement, as though truly modest movement in the right direction is cause for celebration and self-satisfied media events by officials from the White House to the school house. 27 The linchpin of federal accountability imposed on the states, in fact, has been the requirement that states adopt some kind of assessment system and demonstrate “adequate yearly progress.” To any dispassionate observer of such policy outputs, this is all but laughable: “progress” has only the thinnest of statutory definitions, and “adequate” has no definition whatsoever. 28 Surely, the findings surveyed in this volume suggest that the dismaying disparities along lines of color and class are too dangerous for half measure or slow cures. Yet, curiously, there is little public debate and little research about the rate of change we should require of school reform efforts in order to win the continuing support of voters and taxpayers. Part of the context for this examination, I suggest, is that patience is wearing thin, and is not inexhaustible. In short, improvements must be pursued and indeed accomplished with a sense of urgency, lest the consensus for supporting public education vanish over the course of the next generation—or sooner.

Our task in light of this context is to take a set of normative propositions—about the opportunity, achievement, and justice we want—and recast them so that they are more than mere statements of aspiration, hortatory in character. Instead, they must be scientifically descriptive statements about closing achievement gaps that are then married to an enforceable regulatory regime. Surely the facts presented in this volume and at the conference suggest no less.

HOW STRONG IS THE RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR CHANGE?

From the perspective of the National Research Council, however, this raises the question of whether we have a research predicate for the dramatic if not revolutionary K-12 change I believe the context demands. We might consider research in three dimensions: it is a foundation for policy

choice, a critical guide for implementation engineering, and a foundation for enforcement.

There is more to this than an academic’s standard plea for more research. Return, for example, to the issue of a minimally adequate education under state constitutional and federal due process theories. Unless there is a research predicate to help define and measure the vague “adequacy” concept derived from legal doctrine (not to mention education policy), it will be impossible to create a judicially manageable standard or a useful set of objectives for policy makers to attend to. Or, to use another example, understanding scientific principles regarding the predicate for appropriate use of tests (construct validity, reliability, alignment, inferential validity, etc.) is necessary. But it is obviously not a sufficient predicate for enforcing fidelity to those norms in the political, bureaucratic, or legal processes that shape school change. Is the research predicate adequate? The conference and this volume suggest that it is actually pretty good. This requires some caveats. Not withstanding daunting uncertainties, the findings are good enough for policy making—good enough for government work, as the expression goes. This is because if politics presses, politicians will act; when the research base is nonexistent or inconveniently inaccessible, then the dispositive “research” is provided by pollsters who ferret out hot-button phrases and symbolic gimmicks, not research-based policy proposals. Pollsters drive the policy choices, rather than research evidence. My favorite example is the early Clinton administration, strapped for cash, touting school uniforms as though it were a central component for bold federal leadership on school improvement. Why? It polled well, and fit with the desired political message. 29 Anecdotal evidence sufficed.

There is a further, crucial caveat. Certainly much research remains to be done—conceptualized, even—in the continuing effort to give educators and parents the insights needed to promote learning. The exploding diversity in school districts and classrooms makes some dimensions of the research urgent.

Research on Achievement and Learning

This volume, building on the conference, does much to illuminate the gap, its dynamic over time, and to some extent its determinants. This kind of research is critical in order (a) to target treatments; (b) to some extent to actually design the treatments; and (c) importantly, to help build political will for needed changes by demonstrating that the problems are frightening but the possibilities for success are real. Many policy interventions do not depend upon a detailed understanding of how the achievement gap comes to be. Instead, there are some treatments likely to be helpful no

matter what the origin of the disease, so to speak. Moreover, even if we are not using the evidence about the etiology of disparities to target or design our treatments, research that goes only to the magnitudes helps build the moral consensus needed if we are to find and apply resources in a sustainable way. Certainly, we must continue with an even more ambitious research agenda. But meanwhile, leaders must be prepared to act.

Following discussion of the achievement gap, the conference turned to the subject of learning: the research on how we learn, on early childhood learning and appropriate interventions, and on reading specifically as the indispensable foundation (see Chapter 3 ). Of course there are, again, continuing disagreements about what the research demonstrates, but a substantial body of work, including important reports by the NRC (see Box 1-1 in Chapter 1, Part I, of this volume), offer important findings that do deserve wide acceptance. In particular, Lauren Resnick made a critical observation: we now have a conceptual and an empirical foundation to substantiate the claim that virtually all students can learn at high levels (see Chapter 6 , Part I). This conclusion is of singular importance for policy makers and politicians. The principle is more than an eloquent turn of phrase.

Tools for Policy Change

Turning to particular programmatic strategies to address adequacy and equity, the conference discussion covered the five most salient strands of the broader policy debate—choice, teaching, assessment, accountability, and integration.

One of these topics, choice in its various forms sparked little discussion, perhaps because from a research perspective it is speculative. Indeed, much of the school choice debate has long struck me as an ideological matter in a central sense, in particular those species of “choice” embodied in private school vouchers and in large-scale public school choice. The commanding question for reformers is whether quasi-market incentive and signaling schemes based on family decision makers will be more effective at driving change than the alternative reform schemes. Those alternatives promise school improvement driven by politico-professional and bureaucratic methods, including, of course, assorted incentive elements. This question of comparative efficacy—the market or not the market—simply has not been answered by research, leaving the strategic choice even more open than most to ideological battle and policy prejudice.

For many serious policy analysts, the choice issue is uninteresting because there is so little good science to digest, the methodological challenges seem all but imponderable, and purists insist that there should be

large-scale randomized experiments, which seem impossible on practical grounds. The few studies to date have feuled a firestorm of controversy out of proportion to the available evidence. 30 This is unfortunate because coarse political decision making will flourish in such science-starved environments—like a staph infection with no disinfectants in sight. So the politico-policy system will muddle through, perhaps making some dangerous choices along the way. And we should not count on bold new research and evaluation efforts to detect and correct promptly the errors of our ways, especially with poor and powerless victims. Here is where the enormous decentralization and diversity in the public school system may be a blessing indeed.

On the question of teaching, the most important insight is that basic “research” result: In order to improve student achievement, pick better students; failing that, do better and more teaching of the students you are stuck with. The former strategy is illustrated by retention, over-referrals to special education, “push-out” strategies, and choice schemes that involve overt or subtle screening on family, motivational, or academic variables. The latter strategy is illustrated by reducing class size, investments in greater teacher professionalism and development, extended school day or school year, research-proven instructional strategies, curriculum that is aligned with the achievement goals, and so forth. It is not difficult to inventory the list of “do’s” and even many of the “don’ts.” The question is largely one of will (resources, leadership) and implementation—which is not to gainsay the difficulties there.

That brings us to assessment and accountability. The conference discussion included substantial attention to the critical distinction between using tests for diagnostic or assessment purposes on the one hand, and attaching high-stakes consequences to those test results. High stakes for students raise concerns among those in the civil rights community, as discussed earlier. High stakes for teachers raise concerns among many teachers and unions, and not simply for job security reasons. There are daunting methodological questions 31 of how to measure “value added,” ranging from assessment validity to fluid student enrollments, and those problems of method are considered by many to be unacceptable if the purpose of the measurement has high stakes for some powerful constituency. Finally, in any high-stakes context, there are serious questions of testing reliability—the random and other variability one might observe between hypothetical administrations of a test—the political policy makers seem never to confront.

Children, of course, are less powerful, so doubts about student-edged high stakes have far less political potency. Nevertheless, there is growing discussion of evidence concerning the misuse of such tests, as judged by reference to the Joint Standards, 32 and especially the question of how such

tests may drive up retention rates and special education referral rates, while driving down diploma completion rates. 33 I refer to diploma completion, because most official data on dropouts is seriously incomplete and misleading, 34 and because the GED is a far less valuable credential in the labor market. 35

The concerns over assessment and student-edged accountability are only heightened by the intriguing work presented by Claude Steele concerning stereotype threat and disidentification, described in Chapter 4 , Part I, of this volume. There should be little doubt that test-driven standards-based reforms taken as a whole are spurring important school improvement in a great many places. There is, however, collateral damage. Steele’s work raises questions both about a particular form of collateral damage among traumatized test-takers, and even more fundamental questions about the validity of the underlying assessments and inferences from them. If, as he suggests, the test and its context produce psychological responses that depress the performance of the test-taker, then the resulting measurement has a systematic error that biases the results downward, generally to an unknown degree. Warning lights, hazard signals, and sirens going off continuously. And they have to be louder and brighter, because of the imperatives for revolutionary change and coupled with the fairness demands of a civil rights sensibility.

Integration

With respect to school integration by class and race, the most important point to be gleaned from the conference is that there is far too little attention in political and policy debates to the importance of integration as a tool for improving learning outcomes and, ultimately as important if not more so, as a tool for improving societal outcomes. Without an integration strategy responsive to our exploding diversity, one must worry about civic virtues and about our personal and collective capacity to thrive.

SPECULATIONS AND FURTHER WORK

Finally, we turn to a few speculations, focusing on several matters for further investigation and consideration.

English Language Learners (ELLs)

The political and policy conflict over how best to educate students who are not proficient in English continues, 36 while the number of ELLs enrolled in public schools increases. Between 1980 and 1995, students

speaking a language other than English at home increased from 8.8 percent of the total student population to 13.3 percent. 37 Meanwhile, to date, research shows that the difference in academic learning acquired through bilingual education programs that use native language support and English immersion programs are not that significant. 38 However, the knowledge gap between ELLs and their non-ELL peers is great. One leading expert, Kenji Hakuta, has noted several findings he believes are well supported and widely accepted in the research community (if not among politicians and policy makers), including:

There is significant variation in the definition and implementation details of ELL programs, creating enormous difficulties for research and evaluation. 39

77 percent of ELLs come from low-income backgrounds and are generally concentrated in linguistically segregated schools in which most of the school population comes from low-income backgrounds. 40 Among ELL programs, students receiving transitional bilingual education are more socioeconomically disadvantaged and attend higher-poverty schools than students in ESL. As between the two dominant models, transitional bilingual education and ESL, the former appears to be modestly better, but neither makes a substantial dent in the achievement gap between poor ELL and middle-class English speakers. In other words, the furious political debate between bilingual strategies is, from the perspective of student achievement, almost entirely beside the point. 41

The research evidence is that no-support, sink-or-swim “immersion” strategies are distinctly inferior for the typical student; indeed, this was the basis for the Supreme Court’s 1974 decision in Lau v. Nichols .

How long does the language transition take? The evidence is that the time needed to achieve English proficiency depends on many factors, including age of the child, level and quality of prior schooling of the child, education level obtained by the parents, type of language instruction provided, the child’s exposure to English in his or her community, quality of the teachers, and quality of the instruction, including the bilingual education instruction, that a child receives. 42 Given all these variables, researchers generally agree that the time it takes to become proficient in English ranges from two to eight years. 43 There is no substantial research support for a one- or two-year time limit on bilingual services applicable to all students.

The legal principles are simple to state, if not apply: students with limited English proficiency may not be denied access to an education due to failure of the schools to make reasonable accommodations through some form of language or translation assistance. The leading case,

Castenada v. Pickard , established a three-part test for determining whether a school district “has taken appropriate action to overcome language barriers” (648F.2d989[5th Cir. 1981]). It requires that the school district’s program (1) be based on sound educational theories, (2) effectively implement the education theories, and (3) produce results showing that language barriers are being overcome. Given the state of social science research, these legal principles suggest that no one approach to bilingual education should be mandated. Implementing strict one-year English immersion programs or mandating three-year time limits on bilingual education instruction would likely violate the rights of many children granted under the Equal Educational Opportunities Act. 44

So, interestingly, the antidiscimination legal framework puts the minimal adequacy of policy research directly at issue, at least in principle. (Ultimately, judges tend to defer to government policy makers, rather than make a more independent judgment, based on expert testimony, of which choices the research supports.) The political framework, however, is far less attentive to research evidence. And when social scientists for good and principled reasons dither with definitiveness, they invite irrelevance in policy debates, and there is more space for error and even demagoguery, as in the sometimes xenophobic demands for English-only laws.

Looking to the future, this situation must not stand. Language barriers are an increasingly important component of the racial and ethnic gap in achievement, the sharp wedge that widens economic and social divisions. We must have research of sufficient quantity and quality to match the growing challenge that this represents in so many communities.

High Stakes and Accountability for Others Besides Students

While there has been much attention to high-stakes testing for students, and an enormous scientific enterprise of psychometric and other disciplines focused on student assessments in that context, there is far less intellectual capital concerning high stakes for teachers, schools, districts, and states. For example, researchers have raised important questions about “value added” models that attempt to make valid inferences about achievement gains over time. 45 Despite the scientific difficulties, the very structure of federal legislation now demands that states demonstrate “adequate yearly progress” in student achievement. 46 Many states—among them Kentucky, Texas, New York, Florida, and California—purport to attach financial and administrative rewards and sanctions to measured changes in school and district performance on tests. 47 The standards-based reform movement finds its motive force in accountability, which requires that the targeted actors above students demonstrate improvement over time.

Why is the emphasis on high stakes for students —diploma denials, retention in grade, tracking, even alternative schools—rather than high stakes for other actors? In part it is because students are the least politically powerful in the system, especially if they are poor and minority. 48 An additional explanation, however, is that the problems of measurement are supposedly even more daunting when we contemplate high-stakes judgments at higher organizational levels: the number of exogenous variables seems to mount exponentially as one moves up the chain of responsibility; the data problems multiply (flux in student population, for example); authority is often diffuse; and so forth. All of this makes establishing causation, attribution, and culpability arguably more difficult—or so teachers, administrators and elected officials say when deflecting calls for high stakes directed at them rather than the students.

I am not persuaded that these defenses are true, that accountability is from a scientific perspective dramatically more difficult for teachers or districts than for students. Indeed, from a purely analytical perspective, some of the “noise” and randomness of individual test results and micro-level data becomes less of a problem when you aggregate inferences more supportable than those we make at the student level. Analytics aside, however, anyone on the receiving end of a sanction can offer explanations and excuses, be they student or state commissioner or anyone in between. The scientific question is how to gauge the truth of the excuses. The policy and political question is how much weight to accord them in light of the science.

The science is too thin. We are in the midst of dramatic increases in K-12 expenditures in an effort to spur reform, but support for these welcome investments will soon evaporate unless the public sees effective accountability and meaningful improvements. Perhaps it is a good gamble that states and districts will drive change forward by focusing the high stakes principally on powerless children, with far less attention to carrots and sticks for other actors. (I am doubtful, and in any case it seems a cruel gamble.) Surely, however, our investment will be more secure if research provides more guidance in constructing higher-level accountability methods. This is an urgent matter.

Reconsidering Radical Decentralization

A more radical suggestion, perhaps, is that we make a less romantic and more scientific assessment of the decentralization in our 15,000-district education sector. The choice by national and state governments to decentralize should be considered one of several possible “treatments” or engineering strategies in school reform, just as a multinational conglomerate might adopt a strategy concerning centralization versus site-based

autonomy. Is the strategy we’ve had the one we should choose in this new century?

Imagine the perspective of a passionate, concerned parent, hearing a claim that school improvement will come from devolving more discretion to principals and teachers. “Why?” asks the parent. “I’m not all that interested in giving principals or teachers the freedom to be stupid at the expense of my kid. I’m just not. It’s too important. Indeed, I’m not all that interested in giving my local school board the autonomous discretion to continue its history of bad administration, because the people in my community and I don’t have the practical political power to force our school board to do better.”

Here is an analogy. I am not interested in giving my local oncologist the freedom to experiment and innovate. I would prefer that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) be giving some guidance, that the oncologist feel considerable pressure to follow that guidance, and that the Food and Drug Administration mark some treatments clearly out of bounds because they are ineffective or dangerous. Ideally, I want the local oncologist to be aware of all the treatment options, and fully skilled at selecting among them. Absent the ideal clinician, however, I want a quality safety net. (I also want to be able to sue the doctor if she’s negligent.) And I want all of this, thank you very much, because it matters to me what choices are made, intensely. I feel only slightly less frantic about the wisdom of the choices shaping my child’s education.

This could be put another way. Starting with an acknowledgement of education problems in the decentralized system we have, where is the research evidence that just letting 15,000 flowers bloom is the better strategy for bringing about the tremendous changes needed to close the racial gaps in achievement, or the broader change the public demands?

Toward a Science of Diffusion

Finally, retreating from radicalism to accept the more realistic assumption of a high degree of decentralization, do we know enough about how change occurs? About the processes for the diffusion of reform strategies, especially the diffusion of research about successful practices under a variety of different circumstances? There is an enormous education policy literature, of course, but far less rigorous attention to the question of how insight about success in district A can be analyzed, transmitted, and applied to inform practice in district Z.

Between promising research and program evaluation on one end, and successful implementation on the other, a diffusion and refinement of knowledge takes place through a variety of processes varying in their formality and quality-assuring characteristics. These processes deserve

far more study and self-conscious design effort than we have seen, including consideration of the need for more powerful intermediary institutions. 49 Leaving it to schools of education and a meager jumble of inservice training investments will not do. Again, the magnitude of the challenges, combined with the coming of major new investments, make this an important avenue for work.

Consider once more a medical analogy. How does clinical research about the latest strategies for combating a particular type of cancer in a particular type of patient find its way to the practice group in your local hospital, and to the desktop and the mind of the physician who is going to treat you? Well, it is a complicated process, with elaborate mechanisms involving a combination of institutions. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn’t. But it is far less ad hoc than the diffusion of new practices to schools and teachers.

In medicine, NIH and other agencies are thinking hard about how to harness technology to shrink the length of time that it takes for the effective dissemination of new clinical strategies. There is no assumption that every patient ought to be treated the same and, in the case of cancer, there is a recognition that it is not a single disease, but a constellation of diseases. Some of the mechanisms of disease are shared, but some of them are different. And the treatments vary enormously, from the high end modern genetic interventions of the sort that we are going to be seeing increasingly over the next few years, to the common sense we-need-more-prevention. In this incredibly complex system, progress is not left to decentralized, unanalyzed processes of diffusion. There is focused attention to the problem of getting news out and into practice.

Now, we stand at the threshold of many tens of billions of dollars of new investments in school improvement, in the teaching profession, and in experimentation and research. A key question, therefore, is whether we are smart enough to make the best possible use of those new investments by devising better strategies and mediating institutions to take the best ideas and implement them. That problem, that puzzle, I think, is a research set of questions. The diffusion delays we see in education would be unacceptable for promising new treatments of cancer, heart disease, or even acne.

“Millennium Conference” is an awfully ambitious title, but for good reason. The conference organizers hoped we would recognize this as an occasion for making new commitments, and for rededicating ourselves to some things that are fundamental . The ideas of opportunity, achievement, and justice certainly do qualify. Americans have learned the hard way

that when we are missing those things, this isn’t the kind of nation we want and we don’t have the kinds of communities our children deserve to grow up in.

The sponsorship by the Department of Education was a welcome opportunity to focus the National Academies on the importance of closing the opportunity gap. One can find in the work of the National Research Council much reason to be encouraged about the possible contributions of research science to that undertaking. Any and all possible undertakings in this regard must be encouraged, because it is difficult—I would say impossible—to imagine a more important set of challenges for the opening decades of this millennium.

1. Digest of Education Statistics, 2000 . NCES 2001-034. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2001. Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the United States: 1998-1999 . NCES 2000-345, by Beth Aronstamm-Young. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2000.

2. Gary Orfield and John T. Yun, Resegregation in American Schools . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Civil Rights Project, 1999. Also see Lloyd, et al., this volume.

3. The Use of Tests as Part of High-Stakes Decision-Making for Students: A Resource Guide for Educators and Policy-Makers, Office for Civil Rights, Washington, DC, 2000. Available at www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/testing/index1.html Accessed June 14, 2001.

4. Joetta L. Sack, “Candidates’ K-12 Policies Share Themes,” Education Week 9/6/00; David E. Rosenbaum, “The 2000 Campaign: The Education Policies; Bush and Gore Stake Claim to the Federal Role in Education,” New York Times 8/30/00, A1; Jacques Steinberg, “The 2000 Campaign: Education,” New York Times 11/5/00, A44; David E. Sanger, “The New Administration: The Plan; Bush Pushes Ambitious Education Plan,” New York Times 1/24/01, A1. J. Sack, “Democrats’ ‘Three R’s’ Bill Regains Currency,” Education Week 3/21/01.

5. Department of Education Press Release (April 9, 2001) (available at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OUS/budget02/summary ); Office of Management and Budget, “A Blueprint for New Beginnings: A Responsible Budget for America’s Priorities” 2001, pp. 29-43. (available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/usbudget/blueprint/budtoc.html ).

6. Lizette Alvarez, “Testing Requirement to Stay in House Bill,” New York Times , May 23, 2001, A22; Lizette Alvarez, “On Way to Passage, Bush’s Education Plan Gets a Makeover,” New York Times , May 4, 2001, A16.

7. H.R. 1, 107th Cong., § 111 (2001). The Texas accountability system, while in other respects criticized by some civil rights commentators, does have achievement data disaggregated by race and poverty, and does tie rewards and sanctions to performance of law-defined achieving students.

8. Kwase Mfume, Presidential Address to the 4th Annual Daisy Bates Education Summit, May 17, 2001. See < www.naacp.orgcommunications/press_releases/edu4th052401.asp > Accessed June 13, 2001. Also, Hugh B. Price, National Urban League Opportunity Agenda. Available at < www.nul.org/econsummit >. Accessed June 13, 2001.

9. Moses, Robert P., and Charles E. Cobb, Jr., Radical Equations - Organizing Math Literacy and Civil Rights . Boston: Beacon Press, 2001.

10. The opening paragraph of A Nation at Risk intones:

All, regardless of race or class or economic status, are entitled to a fair chance and to the tools for developing their individual powers of mind and spirit to the utmost. This promise means that all children by virtue of their own efforts, competently guided, can hope to attain the mature and informed judgement needed to secure gainful employment, and to manage their own lives, thereby serving not only their own interests but also the progress of society itself.

A Nation at Risk , 1983: http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html . This document is generally thought to mark the national ascendancy of the standards-based reform movement.

11. This Bush presidential campaign slogan was appropriated from the liberal Children’s Defense Fund. http://www.childrensdefense.org .

12. William J. Clinton, State of the Union Address (Feb. 4, 1997).

13. I had several conversations with President Clinton and Secretary Riley on this subject during 1997 and 1998, and each of them offered the same characterization to me of the civil rights concerns. My rebuttals were ineffective.

14. 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d to 2000d-1. Administrative regulations to enforce Title VI contain standards for disparate impact cases. For example, the Department of Education’s regulations state that programs which have “the effect of subjecting individuals to discrimination because of their race, color, or national origin” can violate Title VI. 34 C.F.R. § 100.3. The U.S. Supreme Court recently limited the availability of private lawsuits to enforce disparate impact regulations, but the Court did not limit government enforcement of the regulations nor address the legality of the regulations themselves. Alexander v. Sandoval , 121 S. Ct. 1511 (2001). Title VI’s protections are limited to race, color, or national origin. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects individuals based on sex. 20 U.S.C. § 1681. Persons with disabilities are protected in various ways by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101-12213, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1401-1420.

15. American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education, Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing . (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1999); National Research Council, Committee on Appropriate Test Use, High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and Graduation , Jay P. Heubert and Robert M. Hauser, eds. (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1999).

16. United States v. Carolene Products Co. , 304 U.S. 144, 152 n.4 (1938). For an analysis of the Carolene Products case and the role of judicial review in addressing problems with the majoritarian process, see John Hart Ely, Democracy and Distrust (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).

17. “The Use of Tests When Making High-Stakes Decisions for Students: A Resource Guide for Educators and Policymakers.” (available at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/testing/TestingResource.pdf ).

18. GI Forum v. Texas Education Agency, 87 F. Supp. 667 (W.D. Tex. 2000); Parents for Education Justice v. Picard , (No. 00-0633, E.D. La. 2000). Moreover, unless overturned by Congressional amendments to Title VI, the Supreme Court’s decision in the recent Sandoval case means that court challenges to testing policies based on the disparate impact regulations can be brought only by federal enforcement officials. Private persons may complain to the Office for Civil Rights, but may not themselves pursue the matter in court unless the basis for their claim involves intentional discrimination, rather than the effects-based or disparate impact discrimination discussed here. Alexander v. Sandoval , 121 S. Ct. 1511 (2001).

19. The related concern of education policy, as distinct from civil rights polity, is that would-be reformers often treat the test as the statement of learning goals and then insist that the curriculum in some sense be “aligned” with the test. This is nonsensical to testing experts, who recognize that any test instrument is just a sample over some learning domain. In practice, this inverted perspective is driven by high stakes use of a test and can produce a narrowing of the curriculum and teaching to the test.

20. C. Thomas Holmes, “ Grade Level Retention Effects: A Meta-Analysis of Research Studies” in Shepard and Smith, Flunking Grades: Research and Policies on Retention (London: Falmer Press, 1989), pp. 16-33; Robert M. Hauser, “Should We End Social Promotion? Truth and Consequences,” in Gary Orfield and Mindy Kornhaber (eds.), Raising Standards or Raising Barriers? Inequality and High-Stakes Testing in Public Education (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2001), pp. 151-178.

21. Debra P. v. Turlington , 644 F.2d 397 (5th Cir.1981). In Massachusetts, students graduating in 2003 will be the first students required to have passed the high stakes examination. In California and New York, the testing requirement first applies to students graduating in 2004. Similar delays in implementation can be found in proposed federal legislation, which does not require states to adopt content standards in history or science until the beginning of the 2005-2006 school year. H.R. 1, 107th Cong. § 111 (2001).

22. See Board of Regents v. Roth , 408 U.S. 564 (1972). Violations of constitutional due process rights are enforced through Reconstruction-era federal civil rights legislation. 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

23. San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez , 411 U.S. 1 (1973). See also , Rebell’s paper in this volume.

24. Historically, of course, it is well established that before Brown , expenditures for minority students attending segregated schools were grossly unequal. See, e.g., Gary Orfield, Dismantling Desegregation, 36-37; Michael Middleton, Brown v. Board: Revisited, 20 S. Ill. U. L. J. 19, 32 (1995) (describing how black children received inferior education under segregated systems because of severe underfunding). Today, by far the stronger relationship is between poverty and underfunding. More important, there is a strong interaction effect produced by the disproportionate concentration of poverty in heavily minority schools. See, e.g., Gary Orfield, Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation at 39-40 (July 2001, The Civil Rights Project at Harvard) ( www.law.harvard.edu/civilrights/publications/pressseg.html ). The percent of poor children in the school of the average African American student is twice that for the average white student, and the disparity is slightly greater for Latino children. Among highly racially isolated schools (90 percent or more white, or 90 percent black and Latino), only 17 percent of those white schools have half or more poor children, compared with 88 percent of minority schools. Id ., at 40 (using 1998-99 NCES Common Core of Data). Contemporary court decisions support the observation that race is correlated with resource disparities. See, e.g . , Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v. State of New York, (2001 N.Y. Misc. Lexis 1); Robinson v. Kansas, 117 F. Supp. 2d 1124 (D. Kan. 2000) (Title VI claim alleging disproportionate resources). Indeed the relationship is accepted knowledge in the civil rights enforcement community. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the problem of unequal resources affects minority and low-income students the hardest. See U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Intradistrict Resource Comparability Investigative Resources at 3 (2000).

25. See, e.g., Ronald Ferguson, “Teachers’ Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test Score Gap,” in Jenks and Phillips (eds.), The Black-White Test Score Gap at 273 (Brookings 1998).

26. Mark Gillespie, “Local Schools Get Passing Grades,” September 8, 1999 (available at http://www.Gallup.com/poll/releases/pr990908.asp )

27. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/reports/no-child-left-behind.html .

28. 20 U.S.C. § 6311. The statute only states that “adequate yearly progress” shall be defined in a manner: “(i) that is consistent with guidelines established by the Secretary that result in continuous and substantial yearly improvement of each local educational agency and school sufficient to achieve the goal of all children served under this part meeting the State’s proficient and advanced levels of performance, particularly economically disadvantaged and limited English proficient children; and (ii) that links progress primarily to performance on the assessments carried out under this section while permitting progress to be established in part through the use of other measures.”

29. William J. Clinton, Text of Presidential Memo to Secretary of Education on School Uniforms (Washington, DC: U.S. Newswire, 1996).

30. William G. Howell, Patrick J. Wolf, Paul E. Peterson and David E. Campbell, “Test-Score Effects of School Vouchers in Dayton, Ohio, New York City, and Washington D.C.: Evidence from Randomized Field Trials.” Paper Prepared for the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, September 2000; Paul E. Peterson and Bryan Hassel, eds., Learning from School Choice (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998); Cecilia Rouse, “Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement: An Evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program,” Quarterly Journal of Economics , v. 113, no. 1, February 1998; Kate Zernicke, “New Doubt is Cast on Study that Backs Voucher Effects,” The New York Times , September 15, 2000.

31. Daniel M. Koretz and Sheila I. Barron, The Validity of Gains in Scores on the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1998).

32. National Research Council, Committee on Appropriate Test Use, High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and Graduation , Jay P. Heubert and Robert M. Hauser, eds. (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999): American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education, Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing . (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1999).

33. John Bishop and Ferran Mane, “The Impacts of Minimum Competency Exam Graduation Requirements on College Attendance and Early Labor Market Success of Disadvantaged Students,” in Gary Orfield and Mindy L. Kornhaber (eds.), Raising Standards or Raising Barriers? Inequality and High Stakes Testing in Public Education (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2001); Hauser, op cit.; Gary Natriello and Aaron M. Pallas, “The Development and Impact of High Stakes Testing,” in Gary Orfield and Mindy L. Kornhaber (eds.), Raising Standards or Raising Barriers? Inequality and High Stakes Testing in Public Education (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2001); C. Thomas Holmers, op. cit. Note that the magnitude of these effects is disputed, especially as regards drop outs. Deciding this is an important empirical question for policy, but it is complicated by problems with drop out data, and by the problem of holding constant exogenous variables, especially the impact of a tight labor market on propensity to drop out.

34. Phillip Kaufman, “The National Dropout Data Collection System: Assessing Consistency,” A paper prepared for Achieve and The Civil Rights Project Conference, Dropout Research: Accurate Counts and Positive Interventions, January 13, 2001.

35. Richard Murnane, John B. Willett and K. P. Boudett (1995). “Do High School Dropouts Benefit from Obtaining a GED?” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis , 17 , 133-147; Richard J. Murnane, John B. Willett, and John H. Tyler (2000). “Who Benefits from Obtaining a GED? Evidence from High School and Beyond.” The Review of Economics and Statistics , 82, 23-37.

36. For example, California Proposition 227 passed on June 2, 1998 codified at Cal. Educ. Code section 300, et seq. (popularly known as the Unz Initiative, after businessman Ron Unz) which essentially eliminated bilingual education programs and mandated struc

tured English immersion programs with the goal of moving limited-English-proficient students into mainstream classes after one year; Arizona Proposition 203 passed on November 7, 2000 codified at Title 15, chapter 7 Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. Section 15-751, et seq., (2001), Article 3.1 which is similar to California’s Proposition 227.

37. J. Ruiz de Velasco and M. Fix, eds., Overlooked and Underserved: Immigrant Children in U.S. Secondary Schools . Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2001.

38. While bilingual education programs generally have produced better outcomes in academic achievement, it is not clear how much better these programs are. See Testimony of Kenji Hakuta to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, “The Education of Language Minority Students,” April 13, 2001, www.stanford.edu/~hakuta/Docs/CivilRightsCommission.htm . Also see, Jorge Amselle and Amy Allison, “Two Years of Success: An Analysis of California Test Scores After Proposition 227,” http://www.ceousa.org/html/227rep.html , August 2000; Californians Together, “Schools with Large Enrollments of English Learners and Substantial Bilingual Instruction are Effective in Teaching English,” August 21, 2000; and Orr, Butler, Bousquet, and Hakuta, “What Can We Learn About the Impact of Proposition 227 from SAT-9 Scores?” August, 2000 analyzing student achievement scores on the Stanford 9 after the implementation of Proposition 227.

39. Educating Language Minority Children . Committee on Developing a Research Agenda on the Education of Limited-English Proficient and Bilingual Students, D. August and K. Hakuta, eds. Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998.

40. Educating Language Minority Children , p. 5; Ruiz de Velasco and Fix, op. cit. pp. 14, 30.

41. Kenji Hakuta, Improving Education for All Children: Meeting the Needs of Language Minority Children. Available at: < www.stanford.edu/~hakuta/Aspen.html >

42. Some may define proficiency as proficiency in conversational skills while others define proficiency as having appropriate oral, written, and reading skills for a native speaker of English at a particular grade or age level. Still more relevant in the context of achievement testing, however, is proficiency sufficient for academic learning in English.

43. Public Education: Meeting the Needs of Students with Limited English Proficiency. Washington, DC: Government Accounting Office, pp. 5-6, 2001.

44. While the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in Valeria G. v. Wilson , 12 F.Supp.2d 1007 (July 15, 1998), that Proposition 227 on its face did not violate the EEOA, the case has been appealed and it is unclear whether another court would make the same finding. The Court in Valeria G . found that Proposition 227 did not violate the EEOA because the defendants presented evidence that structured immersion is the “predominant method of teaching immigrant children in many countries in Western Europe, Canada and Israel.” Id . at 1018. It also found that because the initiative was flexible and allowed schools and school districts to make choices about the type of curriculum they would implement that “this court can not conclude that no possible choice could constitute ‘appropriate action’ under Section 1703(f).” Id . at 1019.

45. D. Koretz, “Educational practices, trends in achievement, and the potential of the reform movement.” Educational Administration Quarterly 24(3):350-359, 1988; William L Sanders and Sandra P. Horn, “Research Findings from the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment (TVAAS) Database Implications for Educational Evaluation and Research.” Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education 12(3):247-256.

46. 20 U.S.C. § 6311. The 2001 reauthorization, pending as of this writing, will continue and strengthen this requirement.

47. Ulrich Boser, 2001, “Pressure without Support.” In Quality Counts, 2001 , V. Edwards, ed. Bethesda, MD: Editorial Projects in Education; Jeff Archer, “Teacher-Quality Bill Comes Down To Wire in New Mexico,” Education Week , March 21, 2001; Ann Bradly,

“Denver Teachers to Pilot Pay-for-Performance Plan,” Education Week , September 22, 1999; Beth Reinhard, “Texas Proposal Ties Teacher Performance to School Scores,” Education Week February 12, 1997; Mark Stricherz, “Top Oakland Administrators to Receive Bonuses Tied to Test Scores,” Education Week , January 24, 2001; Mark Stricherz, “N.Y.C. Administrators to Receive Merit Pay for Boosting Scores,” Education Week , June 6, 2001.

48. My earlier discussion included the claim that only student-focused incentives will command the attention of students, and will also focus the energy of parents, teachers and administrators.

49. For an overview of the approaches adopted by the National Institutes of Health for the dissemination of biomedical and clinical research, see http://www.nih.gov/about/NIHoverview.html .

This volume summarizes a range of scientific perspectives on the important goal of achieving high educational standards for all students. Based on a conference held at the request of the U.S. Department of Education, it addresses three questions: What progress has been made in advancing the education of minority and disadvantaged students since the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision nearly 50 years ago? What does research say about the reasons of successes and failures? What are some of the strategies and practices that hold the promise of producing continued improvements? The volume draws on the conclusions of a number of important recent NRC reports, including How People Learn, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, Eager to Learn, and From Neurons to Neighborhoods, among others. It includes an overview of the conference presentations and discussions, the perspectives of the two co-moderators, and a set of background papers on more detailed issues.

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What Will It Take to Fix Public Education?

The last two presidents have introduced major education reform efforts. Are we making progress toward a better and more equitable education system? Yale Insights talked with former secretary of education John King, now president and CEO of the Education Trust, about the challenges that remain, and the impact of the Trump Administration.

• John B. King President and CEO, The Education Trust

This interview was conducted at the Yale Higher Education Leadership Summit , hosted by Yale SOM’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute on January 30, 2018.

On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush traveled to Hamilton High School in Hamilton, Ohio, to sign the No Child Left Behind Act , a bipartisan bill (Senator Edward Kennedy was a co-sponsor) requiring, among other things, that states test students for proficiency in reading and math and track their progress. Schools that failed to reach their goals would be overhauled or even shut down.

“No longer is it acceptable to hide poor performance,” Bush said. “[W]hen we find poor performance, a school will be given time and incentives and resources to correct their problems.… If, however, schools don’t perform, if, however, given the new resources, focused resources, they are unable to solve the problem of not educating their children, there must be real consequences.”

Did No Child Left Behind make a difference? In 2015, Monty Neil of the anti-standardized testing group FairTest argued that while students made progress after the law was passed, it was slower than in the period before the law . And the No Child Left Behind was the focus of criticism for increasing federal control over schools and an emphasis on standardized testing. Its successor, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, shifted power back to the states.

President Barack Obama had his own signature education law: the grant program Race to the Top, originally part of the 2009 stimulus package, which offered funds to states that undertook various reforms, including expanding charter schools, adopting the Common Core curriculum standards, and reforming teacher evaluation.

One study showed that Race to the Top had a dramatic effect on state practices : even states that didn’t receive the grants adopted reforms. But another said that the actual impact on outcomes were limited —and that there were overly high expectations given the scope of the reforms. “Heightened pressure on districts to produce impossible gains from an overly narrow policy agenda has made implementation difficult and often counterproductive,” wrote Elaine Weiss.

Are we making progress toward a better and more equitable education system? And how will the Trump Administration’s policies alter the trajectory? Yale Insights talked with John King, the secretary of education in the latter years of the Obama administration, who is now president and CEO of the nonprofit Education Trust .

Q: The last two presidents have introduced major education reform efforts. Do you think we’re getting closer to a consensus on the systematic changes that are needed in education?

Well, I’d say we’ve made progress in some important areas over the last couple of decades. We have highest graduation from high school we’ve ever had as a country. Over the last eight years, we had a million African-American and Latino students go on to college. S0 there are signs of progress.

That said, I’m very worried about the current moment. I think there’s a lack of a clear vision from the current administration, the Trump administration, about what direction education should head. And to the extent that they have an articulate vision, I think it’s actually counter to the interests of low-income students and students of color: a dismantling of federal protection of civil rights, a backing-away from the federal commitment to provide aid for students to go to higher education, and undermining of the public commitment to public schools.

That’s a departure. Over the last couple of decades, we’ve had a bipartisan consensus, whether it was in the Bush administration or the Obama administration, that the job of the Department of Education was to advance education equity and to protect student civil rights. The current administration is walking away from both of those things.

I don’t see that as a partisan issue. That’s about this administration and their priorities. Among the first things they did was to reduce civil rights protections for transgender students, to withdraw civil rights protections for victims of sexual assault on higher education campuses. They proposed a budget that cuts funding for students to go to higher education, eliminates all federal support for teacher professional development, and eliminates federal funding for after-school and summer programs.

Q: Some aspects of education reform have focused on improving performance in traditional public schools and others prioritize options like charter schools and private school vouchers. Do you think both of those are needed?

I distinguish between different types of school choice. The vast majority of kids are in traditional, district public schools. We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to strengthen those schools and ensure their success.

Then I think there is an important role that high-quality public charters can play if there’s rigorous oversight. And if you think about, say, Massachusetts or New York, there’s a high bar to get a charter, there’s rigorous supervision of the academics and operations of the schools and a willingness to close schools that are low-performing. So for me, those high-quality public charters can contribute as a laboratory for innovation and work in partnership with the broader traditional system.

There’s something very different going on in a place like Michigan, where you’ve got a proliferation of low-quality, for-profit charters run by for-profit companies. Their poorly regulated schools are allowed to continue operating that are doing a terrible job, that are taking advantage of students and families. That’s not what we need. And my view is that states that have those kinds of weak charter laws need to change them and move toward something like Massachusetts where there’s a high bar and meaningful accountability for charters.

And then there’s a whole other category of vouchers, which is using public money for students to go to private school, and to my mind, that is a mistake. We ought to have public dollars going to public schools with public accountability.

Q: When you have a state like Michigan in which you’ve got a lot of very poor charter schools, does that hurt a particular type of student more than others?

It has a disproportionate negative effect on low-income students and students of color. Many of those schools are concentrated in high-needs communities and, unfortunately, it’s really presenting a false choice to parents, a mirage, if you will, because they’re told, “Oh, come to this school, it will be different” or, “it will be better,” and actually it’s not. Ed Trust has an office in Michigan, where we have spent a long time trying to make the case to elected officials that they need to strengthen their charter law and charter accountability.

Unfortunately, there’s a very high level of spending by the for-profit charter industry and their supporters on political campaigns. And so far there’s not been a lot of traction to try to strengthen the charter oversight in Michigan. We see that problem in other states around the country, but at the same time we know there are models that work. We know that in Massachusetts, where there’s a high standard for charters, their Boston charters are some of the highest performing charters in the country, getting great outcomes for high-need students. So it’s possible to do chartering well, but it requires thoughtful leadership from governors and legislators.

Q: What’s your view on how students should be evaluated?

Well, I think we have to have a holistic view. The goal ought to be to prepare students for success in college, in careers, and as citizens. So we want students to have the core academic skills, like English and math, but they also need the knowledge that you gain from science and social studies. They need the experiences that they have in art and music and physical education and health. They need that well-rounded education to be prepared to succeed at what’s next after high school. They also need to be prepared to be critical readers, critical thinkers, to debate ideas with their fellow citizens, to advocate for their ideas in a thoughtful, constructive way—all the tools that you need to be a good citizen.

In order to evaluate all of that, you need multiple measures; you can’t just look at test scores. Obviously you want students to gain reading and math skills, but you also need to look at what courses they’re taking. Are they taking a wide range of courses that will prepare them for success? Do they have access to things like AP courses or International Baccalaureate courses that will prepare them for college-level work? Do they acquire socio-emotional skills? Are they able to navigate when they have a conflict with a peer? Are they able to work collaboratively with peers to solve problems?

So you want to look at grades; you want to look at teachers’ perceptions of students. You want to look at the work that they’re doing in class: is it rigorous, is it really preparing them for life after high school? And one of the challenges in education is, to have those kinds of multiple measures, you need very thoughtful leadership at every level—at state level, district level, and at the school level.

Q: How should we be evaluating teachers?

I started out as a high school social studies teacher, and I thought a lot about this question of what’s the right evaluation method. I think the key is this: you want, as a teacher, to get feedback on how you’re doing and what’s happening in your classroom. Too often teaching can feel very isolated, where it’s just you and the students. It’s important to have systems in place where a mentor teacher, a master teacher, a principal, a department chair is in the classroom observing and giving feedback to teachers and having a continuous conversation about how to improve teaching. That should be a part of an evaluation system.

But so too should be how students are doing, whether or not students are making progress. I know folks worry that that could be reduced to just looking at test scores. I think that would be a mistake, but we ought to ask, if you’re a seventh-grade math teacher, if students are making progress in seventh-grade math.

Now, as we look at that, we have to take into consideration the skills the students brought with them to the classroom, the challenges they face outside of the classroom. But I think what you see in schools that are succeeding is that they have a thoughtful, multiple-measures approach to giving teachers feedback on how they’re doing and see it as a tool for continuous improvement to ensure that everybody is constantly learning.

Q: Do you think the core issue in improving schools is funding? Or are there separate systemic issues that need to be solved?

It varies a lot state to state, but the Education Trust has done extensive analysis of school spending, and what we see is that on average, districts serving low-income students are spending significantly less than more affluent districts across the country, about $1,200 less per student. And in some states, that can be $3,000 less, $5,000 less, $10,000 less per student for the highest-needs kids. We also see a gap around funding for communities that serve large numbers of students of color. Actually, the average gap nationally is larger for districts serving large numbers of students of color—it’s about $2,000 less than those districts that serve fewer students of color.

So we do have a gap in terms of resources coming in, but it’s not just about money; it’s also how you use the money. And we know that, sadly, in many places, the dollars aren’t getting to the highest needs, even within a district. And then once they get to the school level, the question is, are they being spent on teachers and teacher professional development, and things that are going to serve students directly, or are they being spent on central office needs that actually aren’t serving students? So we’ve got to make sure they have more resources for the highest-needs kids, but we’ve also got to make sure that the resources are well-used.

Q: Does it make it significantly harder that so much of the decisions are made on the local level or the state level when you’re trying to create a change across the country?

It’s certainly a challenge. You want to try to balance local leadership with common goals. And you want, as a country, to be able to say, look, you may choose different books to read in class, you may choose different experiments to do in science, but we need all students to have the fundamental skills that they’ll need for success in college and careers and we ought to all be able to agree that all schools should be focused on those skills. Even that can be politically challenging.

We also know that from a funding standpoint, having funding decided mostly on the local level can actually create greater inequality, particularly when you’re relying on local property taxes. You’ll have a very wealthy community that’s spending dramatically more than a neighboring community that has many more low-income families. One of the ways to get around that is to have the state or the federal government account for a larger share of funding so that you can have an equalizing role. That was the original goal of Title I funding at the federal level—to try to get resources to the highest-needs kids.

The other challenge we see is around race and income diversity or isolation. And sadly, in many states, Connecticut included, you have very sharp divisions along race and class lines between districts and so kids may go to school and never see someone different from them. That is a significant problem. We know there are places that are trying to solve that. Hartford, Connecticut, for example, has, because of a court decision, a very extensive effort to get kids from Hartford to go out to suburban schools and suburban kids to come to Hartford schools. And they’ve designed programs that will attract folks across community lines, programs that focus on Montessori or art or early college programs. We can do better, but we need leadership around that.

Q: Are you seeing concrete results from programs like Hartford?

What we know is that low-income students who have the opportunity to go to schools that serve a mixed-income population do better academically. And we also know that all students in schools that are socioeconomically and racially diverse gain additional skills outside the purely academic skills around how to work with peers, cross-racial understanding, empathy.

So, yes, we are seeing those results. The sad thing is, it’s not fast enough; it’s not happening at enough places. We in the Obama administration had proposed a $120 million grant program to school diversity initiatives around the country. We couldn’t get Congress to fund it. We had a small planning grant program that we created at the Education Department that was one of the first things the Trump administration undid when they came into office. So we’re going backwards at the federal level, but there’s a lot of energy around school diversity initiatives at the community level. And that’s where we’re seeing progress around the country.

Q: Do you think the education system should aim to send as many people to college as possible? Should we think of it as being necessary for everyone or should we find ways to prepare students for a wider range of careers?

What’s clear is that everybody going into the 21st-century economy needs some level of post-secondary training. That may be a four-year degree. It could also be a two-year community college degree, or it could be some meaningful career credential that actually leads to a job that provides a family-sustaining wage. But there are very, very few jobs that are going to provide that family-sustaining wage that don’t require some level of post-secondary training. My view is, we have a public responsibility to make sure folks have access to those post-secondary training opportunities. That’s why the Pell Grant program is so important, because it provides funding for low-income students to be able to pursue higher education.

We also need to do a better job in the connection between high school and post-secondary opportunities. A lot of times students leave high school unclear on what they’re going to do and where they should go. We can do a much better job having students have college experiences while in high school and then prepare them to transition into meaningful post-secondary career training.

Q: What’s the one policy change you would made to help students of color and students in poverty, if you had to choose one thing?

There’s no one single silver bullet for sure, but one of the highest return investments we know we can make as a country is in early learning. We know, for example, that high quality pre-K can have an eight-to-one, nine-to-one return on investment. President Obama proposed something called Preschool for All, which would have gotten us toward universal access to quality pre-K for low- and middle-income four-year olds. That’s something we ought to do because if we can give kids a good foundation, that puts them in a better place to succeed in K-12 and to go on to college.

But I have a long list of policy changes I would want to make. I think, fundamentally, we haven’t made that commitment as a country, at the federal level, state level, or local level, to ensuring equitable opportunity for low-income students and students of color. And if we made that commitment, then there’s a series of policy changes that would flow from that.

Interviewed and edited by Ben Mattison.

Visit edtrust.org to learn more about the Education Trust. Follow John B. King Jr. on Twitter: @JohnBKing .

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Home > CMC > CMC_STUDENT > CMC_THESES > 429

CMC Senior Theses

Leadership in 21st century education reform: washington, d.c. and the case of michelle rhee.

Crystal Adams , Claremont McKenna College Follow

Graduation Year

Spring 2012

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Jon A. Shields

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© 2012 Crystal Adams

This thesis will examine Washington, D.C. as a test case for effective education reform with a focus on the leadership of Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools. Rhee’s leadership is of particular interest because she served in an unusual political and institutional setting in which D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty gained mayoral control of the school district. This paper examines Rhee's reform efforts with respect to the bureaucratic limitations and institutional confines she faced, as well as the resources she had at her disposal. The results of this test case strengthen the arguments of scholars like Rick Hess and Terry Moe, who assert that the foundational structures of the American public school system are not only outdated but broken. Additionally, Michelle Rhee's struggles as Chancellor legitimize elements of the arguments of education policy expert and historian Diane Ravitch, a strong defender of the traditional structures of the nation’s public school system and their contributions to the country's fundamental democratic principles. This analysis of education reform in Washington, D.C. acknowledges that Rhee achieved numerous small victories over the course of her tenure, but she lacked the capacity to fix larger systemic obstacles on her own.

Recommended Citation

Adams, Crystal, "Leadership in 21st Century Education Reform: Washington, D.C. and the Case of Michelle Rhee" (2012). CMC Senior Theses . 429. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/429

This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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Kamala harris picks tim walz as running mate but can he really bring the financial interest back to education, tips for college freshman: from social life to studying, how to write a song title in an essay, education reform thesis statement examples.

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Education reform is a compelling topic that aims to improve the way students acquire skills, knowledge, and competency. A precise and engaging thesis statement is essential to draw attention to the pressing need for reforms in education and to guide your audience through your research’s significance and methodology. Here are examples of good and bad thesis statements related to education reform, along with detailed explanations of their effectiveness.

Good Thesis Statement Examples

Good: “This thesis explores the impact of classroom size reduction on students’ academic performance in low-income school districts.” Bad: “Smaller classes are better for students.”

The good statement offers specificity regarding the targeted school districts (low-income) and the measured outcome (students’ academic performance). Conversely, the bad example is too general and lacks clarity on the demographic and expected outcomes.

Good: “Implementing a year-round school calendar enhances student retention rates and alleviates teacher burnout.” Bad: “Year-round schooling can be beneficial.”

The good statement makes a clear, debatable claim regarding year-round schooling, allowing for argumentation and research on student retention and teacher burnout. The bad example, while positive, lacks specificity and a clear claim.

Good: “Incorporating technology in elementary education significantly improves students’ engagement and learning outcomes in STEM subjects.” Bad: “Technology in classrooms is good for student learning.”

The good example is focused and researchable, targeting elementary education, technology incorporation, and specific subject areas (STEM). The bad statement is vague and does not provide clear variables for study.

Bad Thesis Statement Examples

Overly Broad: “Education reform is necessary for student success.”

Though true, this statement is overly broad, failing to identify specific areas of education reform or define ‘student success’.

Lack of Clear Argument: “Schools need to change.”

While this statement might be generally accepted, it lacks a clear argument or focus, serving as a poor guide for research direction.

Unmeasurable and Unresearchable: “A good education is the key to a successful life.”

While philosophically sound, this statement is unmeasurable and broad, making it inappropriate for scholarly research.

Creating an effective thesis statement for research on education reform is crucial for guiding your exploration and clarifying your study’s objective and scope. Effective thesis statements should be specific, arguable, and researchable. In contrast, ineffective ones are often too broad, lack clear arguments, and aren’t designed for empirical study. With careful consideration of the above examples, students can articulate compelling thesis statements that serve as robust foundations for their research on the important issue of education reform.

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Local Control Funding Formula

First big reform of California’s education funding law awaits governor’s signature

Gov. newsom's advisors urge vetoing a bill strongly backed by student advocacy groups.

John Fensterwald

September 16, 2020.

The first significant change to the state’s 7-year-old K-12 funding system, the Local Control Funding Formula, is a signature away from becoming law.

But if Gov. Gavin Newsom accepts the recommendation of his advisers at the California Department of Finance and ignores the Legislature’s near-unanimous vote favoring the significant reform, he’ll veto the legislation within the next few weeks. Hundreds of nonprofits and civil rights groups signed a letter last week urging him not to do that; signing it instead would ensure that funding for “our highest-need, most vulnerable students is actually directed to support them,” the letter said.

Assembly Bill 1835 would end what advocates for years have called a glaring loophole that undermines the funding law’s cardinal purpose, which is to provide additional funding for four groups of underserved students: English learners, low-income students, homeless and foster children.

Under the Local Control Funding Formula, the funding law that former Gov. Jerry Brown persuaded the Legislature to pass in 2013, districts and charter schools where these “high needs” students predominate receive about 40% more funding per student than districts where few of these students are enrolled.

The funding formula requires districts and charter schools to proportionally increase programs and services for them. But there’s an escape hatch: whatever funding is not spent by year-end can be rolled over into a pool of unrestricted money that districts can use however they want the following year, including on employee raises and benefits.

In reports over the years, civil rights and student advocacy groups, such as Public Advocates, Education Trust-West and Children Now, have complained that this provision creates a perverse incentive not to spend the money on high-needs students and not to be straight with the public about what it’s doing. The Department of Finance defends the practice as compatible with the law, which gives districts funding flexibility.

But last year, State Auditor Elaine Howle joined those calling for reform in issuing the findings of an audit that the Legislature requested on spending by three representative districts. She concluded that the districts — Oakland, Clovis and San Diego — had not been transparent about spending “supplemental and concentration” money, as the additional funding is called. They had collectively carried over hundreds of millions of unspent funding for high-needs students over multiple years and, except for San Diego Unified, had not designated it for the future needs of those students. The audit also faulted county offices of education and the California Department of Education for lax oversight.

The bill, co-authored by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, and Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton, and co-sponsored by Children Now, Education Trust-West and Teach Plus, would put two of Howle’s recommendations into law. It would require districts and charter schools to earmark unspent funding for high-needs students and spend it on those students in future years. And it would require that they track how they spend the money in districts’ annual spending plan, called the Local Control and Accountability Plan, or LCAP, and report the data to the state every year. Doing so, the audit said, would provide the public and legislators with a statewide picture on whether districts are doing what the law intends and, if not, what should be done to narrow achievement gaps.

An issue of timing?

In its opposition letter, the Department of Finance said that forcing districts to adopt a uniform system of reporting how they spend supplemental and concentration funding would be “a major shift in policy” and add “significant, unknown costs” to districts and the state. Creating this law during a pandemic, with possible budget cutbacks, would be “ill-advised,” the department said.

The California Association of School Business Officials also cited bad timing in a letter it sent last month to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Were it not for a pandemic and its uncertain long-term impact on state funding, the organization would not have opposed the bill, it said. While districts should go to great lengths to protect the interests of high-needs students, potentially huge cuts in basic funding will determine what’s possible, it said.

But Weber argues that the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on the learning loss of poor children and English learners is all the more reason to fix a flawed law now. “We have to ensure that these students — who consistently underperform — have the resources they need for academic success. We cannot allow school districts to continue to have an incentive to misappropriate these funds for other purposes,” she said in a statement.

More than 40 civil rights and advocacy organizations agreed in a letter supporting the bill. “The immediate and long-term consequences of shuttered schools, uneven distance learning opportunities and a severe economic crisis is falling disproportionately on California’s most vulnerable student populations,” they wrote.

In his initial state budget summary in January, Newsom didn’t explicitly refer to Howle’s audit, but he said his administration would explore ways to strengthen accountability for spending money for high-priority students, “particularly when actions described in an LCAP are not implemented as planned.”

But in the days leading up to AB 1835’s passage, Weber said she rejected amendments that Newsom’s aides proposed that would have weakened the bill. She said she hopes to have a personal meeting with Newsom to persuade him to sign it by the Sept. 30 deadline.

Jasmine Dellafosse is hoping Weber convinces him. She’s a leader of the Stockton Educational Equity Coalition, a group that includes community organizations and the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, that has been battling Stockton Unified over what it has done with supplemental and concentration funding it carried over from year to year.

Last year, the group assumed it had reached an agreement with former Superintendent John Deasy that $6.7 million of “misallocated” funding would be spent on high-needs students. But the district reneged, and last month, in response to the coalition’s formal complaint , its lawyer cited the lack of a written agreement and the fact that AB 1835 hadn’t become law as evidence that the district hadn’t done anything improper (see page 12).

“We are really frustrated with the loophole,” Dellafosse said. “The district recognizes that it is ethically and morally ­but not legally bound, so it just spends the money as it chooses.”

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Brenda 4 years ago 4 years ago

Mr Fensterwald, can you please specifically define who the “highest need most vulnerable students” are that are being referenced in this article? As a SpEd teacher, I don’t want to make any assumptions, as Calif bureaucrats are quite known for changing definitions without telling anyone. Thank you providing this piece of info for your readers. And sorry if I missed it somewhere.

John Fensterwald 4 years ago 4 years ago

Brenda, the Local Control Funding Formula provides additional money to districts based on the number of four groups of students: low-income children, foster youths, homeless children and English learners. The story did state that “high-needs students” cover these four groups – sorry it was not clearer. The formula does not provide additional money for students with disabilities under the assumption that they will receive funding they need as provided by state and federal laws.

Dr. Bill Conrad 4 years ago 4 years ago

This funding sounds like the work of an Organized Crime Network. Looking at the eclectic planning and lack of implementation and monitoring embedded within the Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) of school districts, one can easily see why there is a bundle of cash unspent at the end of the year in many school districts. It is a travesty that must be corrected but of course won’t because there is absolutely no accountability. The overall … Read More

This funding sounds like the work of an Organized Crime Network.

Looking at the eclectic planning and lack of implementation and monitoring embedded within the Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) of school districts, one can easily see why there is a bundle of cash unspent at the end of the year in many school districts. It is a travesty that must be corrected but of course won’t because there is absolutely no accountability.

The overall K-12 education system operates within a fog that makes it super easy to misallocate funds. If the funds were used systematically to improve curricula, professional practices, and assessments, all children would benefit especially our children of color who depend on getting quality instruction. As it is, they will still get the least qualified novice teachers and least resources even with a state allocation designed to support them directly. The selfishness, greed, and racism in K-12 are now too hard-wired even to be recognized.

Bringing coherence and closely monitored implementation and accountability to the LCAPs would be helpful. Teaching school districts how to build quality Strategic Plans might be a good place to begin. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of expertise or interest in building quality strategic plans especially at the state level. I dare anyone to actually try and read an actual school district LCAP without falling asleep before page 178.

As the Assessment Director for Santa Clara Unified, I learned that the district regularly failed to allocate millions of restricted funds annually to their schools in support of English Learners. It is unclear how the district allocated the funds but they did not go to the English Learners who needed the funding. When caught by the state in an audit, SCUSD was given permission to cook their books post hoc.They were not asked to rectify previous years of financial skullduggery.

Unfortunately, the larceny is now legislated and condoned. There will be no turning back as the gumbas of K-12 education have an insatiable appetite for free taxpayer money.

As a health/PE teacher and former board member, isn’t Assemblywoman Shirley Weber the one who was awarded by Healthy Teen Network, the group who helped write our K-12 Sex Ed Standards (located in our new Health Framework) and recommends to teens that “sexting” is a great Covid-19 activity to spice up your life and alleviate boredom? https://www.healthyteennetwork.org/blog/sexual-health-covid-19/ (Click ideas under “sexting”).

I do not trust this woman’s judgment at all. https://www.healthyteennetwork.org/blog/shirley-nash-weber/

Jim 4 years ago 4 years ago

Seven years ago I was part of a LAUSD parents group. Even then we were aware little or none of the money would be going to kids and the intention of the LCFF was to divert money to unions and other insiders. The article omits the role of Tom Torlakson in facilitating the diversion.

Paul Muench 4 years ago 4 years ago

Is this a loophole or a black hole? What percent of the budgets is the 100s of millions carried over by Clovis, Oakland and San Diego? Either way the public trust is broken and should be fixed, but how up in arms should we be?

Gail Monohon 4 years ago 4 years ago

This glaring loophole helps to allow obscenely high administrative salaries so disproportionate to other school employee wages.

Susan M Calles 4 years ago 4 years ago

Open our California schools now!!! I am surprised to hear San Diego Superintendent Cindy Marten did the right thing. Although my son is disabled, the district refuses to make accommodations for him. Very sad.

Ann 4 years ago 4 years ago

Deasy? Who knew? This was Brown’s baby. Remember ‘subsidiarity’? I wonder when there will be a journalist brave enough to give an honest accounting of the wasted spending and damaging pollicies Jerry left behind. As of now his entire existence has been sanitized and lionized.

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Radical Eyes for Equity: Third Grade Retention: The Fool’s Gold of Reading Reform

• Grade Retention
• Reading Instruction

Here is a report on reading reform across the US that is very important, but likely not in the ways intended:  The Effects of Early Literacy Policies on Student Achievement , John Westall and Amy Cummings.

A key value in this report is the comprehensive data on reading reform in the US, such as these two figures:

Notably, most of the US has early literacy policy, significantly clustered since about 2010. While this is important context, the figures also reveal a key problem with this report—the source being a conservative think tank, ExcelinEd.

ExcelinEd  is a Jeb Bush venture and represents the political and ideological connections among third grade retention, reading policy, and political gain.

I want here to focus on that dynamic, specifically how this report provides further evidence of the need for intense and critical re-evaluation of third grade retention.

ExcelinEd is grounded in Florida’s reading reform and high rates of grade retention that have produced exceptionally high NAEP scores in grade 4 reading (an outcome this report confirms across the US), but the  largest decrease from grade 4 to grade 8 reading scores .

Let’s here note what Westall and Cummings detail about grade retention:

• Third grade retention (required by 22 states) significantly contributes to increases in early grade high-stakes assessment scores as part of comprehensive early literacy policy.
• Retention does  not  appear to drive similar increases in low-stakes assessments.
• No direct causal claim is made about the impact of retention since other policy and practices linked to retention may drive the increases.

Here is where this report is important, I think, but, again, not as intended:

Similar to the results for states with comprehensive early literacy policies, states whose policies mandate third-grade retention see significant and persistent increases in high-stakes reading scores in all cohorts. The magnitude of these estimates is similar to that of the “any early literacy policy” estimates described in Section 4.1.1 above, suggesting that states with retention components essentially explain all the average effects of early literacy policies on high-stakes reading scores. By contrast, there is no consistent evidence that high-stakes reading scores increase in states without a retention component.

Grade retention has immediate political appeal since we as a nation primarily discuss and judge schools and students based on high-stakes testing data.

What is lost in that political appeal is that this report clearly notes that we still have significant gaps in understanding the role of retention in raising test scores, evidence that early test score increases fade by middle grade testing, and evidence that retention creates inequity and non-academic harm in students.

Therefore, third grade retention is the Fool’s Gold of reading reform.

What I suspect you will not see emphasized by the most ardent reading reform advocates is the closing concessions in this report:

Although our study sheds light on the potential benefits of early literacy policies, there are some limitations that point to areas for future research. For example, while we provide evidence that comprehensive early literacy policies and retention mandates play an important role in improving state summative assessment scores, we cannot examine the mechanisms by which these policy components improve outcomes. Further research on the implementation of these policy components is therefore vital to understanding how early literacy policies operate. Additionally, we only focus on short-run test-score outcomes. However, prior work has established the importance of early literacy skills in determining non-cognitive outcomes and long-term student success (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Fiester & Smith, 2010; Hernandez, 2011; Sparks et al., 2014). To fully understand the benefits of early literacy policies, it is important to enumerate their non-cognitive and long-term impacts. Finally, this study does not examine the costs associated with early literacy policies.

I want here to emphasize the need to critically examine “mechanisms by which these policy components improve outcomes.”

Again, as I have stressed before, we need a more standard and understandable set of terminology and assessments that produce NAEP and state-level high-stakes testing data that can help drive authentic reform (not misleading early gains and then drops in later grades).

Currently, NAEP “proficient” remains misleading and the terminology used in state-level testing is incredibly mixed and difficult for the media, the public, and political leaders to navigate (see the information provided  here ).

Next, since England has implemented early literacy reform at a comprehensive and national level beginning in 2006, we must heed to  lessons found in their outcomes .

In terms of the impact of grade retention on high-stakes testing, the UK implements phonics checks that have shown  score increases by age month , suggesting that age-based development could be driving scores instead of any policy or instruction:

And thus, I agree with this argument from the UK:

There is certainly a strong argument for changing primary assessment to take account of age to lessen the risk of singling out summer born pupils as the low achievers. Assessments should be fewer in number, standardised, comparable with one another and generate norm-referenced age-standardised scores. And even then, the phrase ‘ below age-related expectations ‘ would be a misnomer; pupils with low attainment for their age would be more appropriate. This is not about re-designing the assessment system for Ofsted; this is about creating a more efficient and effective approach that would provide accurate, timely data capable of ironing out the creases caused by differences in age and allow attainment to be tracked over time. Yes, it would allow Inspectors  – and teachers – to identify those in the lowest 20% nationally – for their age! – but it would also have an interesting side-effect: a move to age standardisation would signal the end of expected standards as we know them.

My concern has always been that since NAEP is grade-based, grade retention removes the lowest scoring students from the testing pool and then reintroduces them when they are biologically older than their grade peers. Both of those skew test data by distorting the testing pool.

The  NAEP Long-term trend (LTT) data  is age-based and often reveals different outcomes that grade-based NAEP.

Finally, we must start with better data but also be more honest about what we know and do not know.

The first thing we know is that high-stakes testing data is causally related to  out-of-school factors at 60%+ rate .

And as this report concludes, we do not know how the matrix of policy reforms [1] impact high- and low-stake testing:

This report is incredibly important in that it does suggest that despite that complex list of different policy elements, grade retention may be the single policy that produces the outcomes that are politically attractive (this same dynamic holds in college admission where despite using a matrix of admission criteria, SAT/ACT scores often are the determining data point).

Finally, although this report identifies evidence on grade retention as mixed, the  body of research  over decades confirms significant negative consequences from retention.

Therefore, until we can answer these questions, we are making political and not educational decisions about early literacy in the US:

• How causally linked is biological age with high-stakes assessment, and thus, how does grade retention distort grade-level testing?
• What are the criteria for assessments that are labeled “reading” and does that criteria impact the ability to increase test scores without improving student achievement?
• Are there policies and practices linked to grade retention that can support student achievement without negative outcomes for those students?
• How do we reform reading in the US by focusing more on equity than high-stakes testing data?

I predict that if we answered these questions we would expose grade retention as Fool’s gold in reading policy.

And unless we change how we are debating and mandating reading policy, those students who need and deserve reform the most will continue to be cheated by education reform as industry.

[1] Note that although most of the current state-level reading policy is identified as conforming to the “science of reading,” many of the mandates support practices not supported by the current body of research (LETRS training, Orton-Gillingham phonics, decodable texts, etc.):

This blog post has been shared by permission from the author. Readers wishing to comment on the content are encouraged to do so via the link to the original post. Find the original post here:

The views expressed by the blogger are not necessarily those of NEPC.

P.L. Thomas

Chin, J. L. & Trimble, J. (2014) Diversity and Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Tim Walz wrote a master’s thesis on Holocaust education, just as his own school’s approach drew criticism

In Judi Agustin’s freshman year at Mankato West High School, her teacher instructed her to wear a yellow star.

It was part of a Holocaust curriculum at the school, located in a remote area of Minnesota with barely any Jews. For a week, freshmen were asked to wear the yellow stars, which were reminiscent of the ones the Nazis made the Jews wear. Seniors played the part of the Gestapo, charged with persecuting the “Jews.”

Unlike everyone else in her class in the 2001-2002 school year, Agustin was Jewish. The experience “was incredibly hurtful and offensive and scary,” she recalled on Tuesday. Her father complained to the district, and wrote a letter to the local paper decrying the lesson.

In response, she recalled, a teacher intervened. That teacher, according to her recollection: current vice presidential nominee Tim Walz.

“When Tim Walz found out about it, he squashed it real quick, and as far as I understand they never did it again,” Agustin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “So he was an advocate for my experience, as one of four Jewish kids in the entire school district. And I always felt like he had our back.”

A progressive favorite in Minnesota, where he is now governor, Walz is also heralded for his background as a public school educator. Lesser known is the fact that, while teaching in rural, largely white Midwestern school districts, Walz developed a particular interest in Holocaust and genocide education.

Walz is on the campaign trail this week with Vice President Kamala Harris, his running mate, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. JTA could not independently verify that he was the teacher who stopped the Mankato West lesson.

But it’s clear that how to teach the Holocaust well has occupied Walz for decades. In 1993, while teaching in Nebraska, he was part of an inaugural conference of U.S. educators convened by the soon-to-open U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Eight years later, after moving to Minnesota, he wrote a thesis arguing for changes in Holocaust education. And as governor, he backed a push to mandate teaching about the Holocaust in Minnesota schools.

Through it all, Walz modeled and argued for careful instruction that treated the Holocaust as one of multiple genocides worth understanding.

“Schools are teaching about the Jewish Holocaust, but the way it is traditionally being taught is not leading to increased knowledge of the causes of genocide in all parts of the world,” Walz wrote in his thesis, submitted in 2001.

The thesis was the culmination of Walz’s master’s degree focused on Holocaust and genocide education at Minnesota State University, Mankato, which he earned while teaching at Mankato West. His 27-page thesis, which JTA obtained, is titled “Improving Human Rights and Genocide Studies in the American High School Classroom.”

In it, Walz argues that the lessons of the “Jewish Holocaust” should be taught “in the greater context of human rights abuses,” rather than as a unique historical anomaly or as part of a larger unit on World War II. “To exclude other acts of genocide severely limited students’ ability to synthesize the lessons of the Holocaust and the ability to apply them elsewhere,” he wrote.

He then took a position that he noted was “controversial” among Holocaust scholars: that the Holocaust should not be taught as unique, but used to help students identify “clear patterns” with other historical genocides like the Armenian and Rwandan genocides.

Walz was describing, in effect, his own approach to teaching the Holocaust that he implemented in Alliance, Nebraska, years earlier. In the state’s remote northwest region, Walz asked his global geography class to study the common factors that linked the Holocaust to other historical genocides , including economic strife, totalitarian ideology and colonialism. The year was 1993. At year’s end, Walz and his class correctly predicted that Rwanda was most at risk of sliding into genocide.

“The Holocaust is taught too often purely as a historical event, an anomaly, a moment in time,” Walz Told the New York Times in 2008, reflecting on those Alliance lessons. “That relieves us of responsibility. Obviously, the mastermind was sociopathic, but on the scale for it to happen, there had to be a lot of people in the country who chose to go down that path.”

In his thesis, he noted that he intended to bring this curriculum to the Mankato school district as a “sample unit.” But another kind of lesson was unfolding there at the same time.

For years at Mankato West, high school students had been engaged in a peculiar lesson that was, all the same, not unusual for its time: In an effort to teach students who had never met a Jewish person what it might have been like to live under the Nazis, teachers had them role play.

For a week, freshmen wore the yellow stars, and seniors playing the Gestapo were given permission to torment them.

Such lessons had been going on since at least the 1990s, recalled Leah Solo, a Jewish student who graduated from Mankato West in 1998. For Solo, these lessons weren’t so bad.

“People knew I was Jewish, people knew to be sensitive around me,” Solo told JTA. Her teacher, who was not Walz and whom she liked, “was doing his best to try to teach a really hard subject to folks who had no idea. Most of these kids had never met a Jew before.” In her senior year she was given the choice of whether she wanted to play a Nazi or another kind of role, and chose the latter.

Things were different by the time Agustin took the class several years later. By then, the Holocaust role-playing wasn’t just limited to the confines of the classroom.

“They could come up to you in the lunchroom,” recalled Anne Heintz, a fellow student at the time. Local students whispered about the lesson before they got to high school, she said.

One senior, in Agustin’s recollection, got violent and started shoving the “Jewish” freshmen into lockers.

Outraged, her father wrote a letter to the local newspaper, and some parents complained to the school district. Agustin left the high school after her sophomore year. None of this happened in Walz’s classroom, according to the students, and Heintz recalled that the lessons had ended by the time she graduated in 2004.

“I’m not sure what his involvement was. I know it just ended,” Heintz, who is not Jewish, told JTA. “He was teaching at the time it ended.”

JTA could not verify whether Walz knew about the lessons, which had been going on for years, before they were stopped. A spokesperson for the high school told JTA they “don’t have any information” on the details of the lessons, but noted, “When Governor Walz was at Mankato West High School he was primarily a Global Geography Teacher and Football Coach. Subjects such as the Holocaust were taught in history courses.”

Agustin’s father, Stewart Ross, told JTA that he did not recall Walz being involved. Neither did Bob Ihrig, one of the teachers who taught the lesson as part of a World War II unit. He said it continued in a limited, classroom-only version until his retirement in 2014.

Ross, Ihrig and all three Mankato West High students spoke highly of Walz as a teacher and community leader, though only one, Heintz, actually had him in the classroom.

“What I remember most is, he always made all the subjects that we talked about super engaging,” she said. “It always seemed like he was able to make a subject really exciting for folks and really engage everyone in class. And I think that is part of how he speaks now that he’s on a national stage as well.”

Solo, who had Walz’s wife Gwen for a different class, took a student trip led by the couple to China, where Tim Walz taught for a year early in his career. She recalled how, in 2004, Walz stood up for her when she was working with John Kerry’s presidential campaign and security for a George W. Bush rally tried to boot them from the premises.

“When security also tried to kick him out, he was like, ‘I am a former Teacher of the Year who just returned from being deployed. I don’t think you want to kick me out,’” Solo recalled, describing an incident that made local news at the time. “And then after the rally, he came and signed up to volunteer with the Kerry campaign, because he did not appreciate that.”

Volunteering with Kerry’s campaign led directly to Walz’s entrance into politics . Solo would go on to work for Walz’s congressional campaigns.

Walz stuck with teaching as he began his political career; when he was elected to represent Mankato in 2006, he was the only active educator in Congress.

Last year, as Minnesota’s governor, Walz returned to Holocaust education, and supported and signed a law requiring the state’s middle and high schools to teach about the Holocaust. The law, initiated and championed by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, also encourages schools to teach about other genocides. A working group for the curriculum hit snags earlier this summer when a pro-Palestinian activist was removed from the committee amid debates on whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide.

The mandate is still anticipated to go into effect in the 2025-2026 school year. “This is going to work out, this is going to be good, because the governor and his staff are highly attuned to the concerns and sensitivities of the Jewish community,” Ethan Roberts, the JCRC’s deputy executive director, told JTA.

Speaking at a JCRC event in June, Walz said he had been “privileged and proud” to have participated in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum training early in his career. But he said more needed to be done, and he emphasized that the curriculum chosen to accomplish the requirement would determine its success.

“We need to do better on Holocaust education. We need to do better on ethnic studies,” he told the crowd. “And I tell you this as a teacher and as governor, too, we don’t need test scores or anything to tell us that we’re failing.”

It was the kind of message that former Mankato West students said they came to expect from him.

“He is what you hope a great teacher is,” said Solo, “which is someone who’s not only teaching, but also learning at all times.”

With additional reporting by Jackie Hajdenberg. 

Correction and updates (Aug. 8): This story has been corrected to remove a reference to Tim Walz as department chair. It has also been updated to reflect additional sources about Holocaust instruction at Mankato West High School.

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Indiana looks to swiss experts to create thousands of student apprenticeships.

The Indiana Capital Chronicle recently featured an article by Patrick O'Donnell highlighting the collaboration between CEMETS and Indiana to reform education.

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Virginia Secretary of Education warns universities to brace for more chaotic anti-Israel protests this fall

Virginia secretary of education aimee guidera warned virginia universities to enhance campus safety ahead of the fall semester, anticipating continued and potentially more chaotic anti-israel protests..

Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera sent a warning to universities in the state, telling them the anti-Israel protests that took place during the spring semester will likely continue in the fall and perhaps become “even more chaotic.”

The email was obtained and published by The  Washington Free Beacon .

“As we prepare for students’ return to our college and university campuses, I want to emphasize the importance of every institution strengthening campus safety and security measures ahead of the fall semester,” Guidera wrote in the email.

In the email, Secretary Guidera explained that Virginia’s government has done substantial work to ensure that colleges can operate safely in the upcoming months. Guidera specifically cites reports that the fall semester will be “even more chaotic” than the spring semester.

[RELATED: Columbia University professor advised students to avoid mainstream media outlets because ‘it is owned by Jews’: Report]

“Considering the challenges faced on college and university campuses last academic year and reports that the fall will be even more chaotic,” Guidera wrote in the email, “we have asked each institution take proactive steps to update policies and improve communication channels before students return this fall.”

Guidera specifically urges Virginia universities to “update their codes of conduct” to address “disruptions of school functions,” violations of the law, “unlawful masking,” “erection of encampments,” and “facility usage by affiliated and non-affiliated persons/groups.”

Guidera is not the first person to predict that the pro-Palestine protests that surged throughout the nation during the spring will continue—and perhaps even redouble—in the fall.

Campus Reform has previously reported about the encampment that was set up at the University of Virginia during the spring 2024 semester, and the university’s subsequent decision to withhold degrees from some of the protestors.

“Sadly, we expect anti-Israel activity will re-emerge at some colleges and universities as the fall semester begins,” the American Jewish Committee told Campus Reform earlier this month. “This semester, the response needs to be different.”

[RELATED: Jewish leaders anticipate return of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel college protests]

Guidera’s warning could become relevant since experts have noted that some universities have failed to take proactive steps to preempt a new onslaught of anti-Israel protests.

For instance, Julia Jassey, CEO of Jewish on Campus, argued that university administrations have failed to adequately brace themselves.

“We haven’t seen much from universities yet. We haven’t seen many that are proactive,” Jassey said . “We had hoped that heading into the school year that universities would be better prepared than last year.”

Patrick McDonald '26

Patrick McDonald is a junior at Hillsdale College pursuing a major in History and a minor in Politics. He competes full-time on the Hillsdale College Mock Trial team and the Hillsdale College Debate team. In high school, Patrick competed in the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association (NCFCA) in 13 different speech and debate events. He won numerous awards, including four national championships. Patrick also competed ...

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Tim Walz's wife Gwen, a former teacher, is a 'champion' of college behind bars

When Max Kenner  met Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's wife Gwen more than a decade ago, he immediately knew he’d found an ally. A former teacher like her then-Congressman husband, Gwen Walz, wanted to know everything about Kenner's initiative to educate prisoners in New York state.

And now that Tim Walz has been picked by Vice President Kamala Harris as her running mate in her bid for the White House, there could be a member of the second family with the greatest commitment yet to prison education.

Kenner founded the Bard Prison Initiative in 1999 as an undergrad at Bard College, a liberal arts college located in the Hudson Valley, after a 1994 federal ban on Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated students and a 1995 New York state ban on Tuition Assistance Program decimated in-prison education. 

Over the past decade, Kenner met with Walz numerous times to discuss access to higher education in prison, he said.

“She was a devoted Midwestern public school teacher who approached education without prejudice or presumption about what kind of students might achieve what kinds of things and a real optimism for all kinds of students,” Kenner recalled. “She also had a real frustration, or even feeling of disappointment, of how much we've failed in this country to create real educational opportunities for so many people, particularly access to college.”

With Gwen Walz as a "champion" of higher education opportunities for incarcerated people, that became a major part of Governor Walz's criminal justice agenda, said Kenner.

As first lady of Minnesota, she toured state prisons, held regular calls with leading Corrections Department officials on strategic planning, chaired a task force on recidivism and helped recruit an assistant commissioner to install a new college curriculum behind prison walls.

“I think it’s a crucial conversation to have,” Gwen Walz said in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio in 2019. “I’m convinced that people are looking for ways to address all kinds of different issues within corrections and within criminal justice.”

On such program in Minnesota is the TREC (Transformation and Reentry Through Education and Community), a collaboration between Minneapolis College, Metro State University, University of Minnesota, and Lino Lakes Correctional Facility that was started in 2021.

In an interview with PBS in 2019, she summed up her motivation to help educate incarcerated people this way:

"Education is transformational. And I believe that in every sense of the word," she said. And if we're going to solve problems, we have to look at real ways to solve problems. And education is a real predictor of not going back to prison."

According to the Bard Prison Initiative, recidivism is less than 4% for all students who are enrolled, and 2.5% for graduates.

Walz was governor in 2020 when the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer sparked months of racial justice protests nationwide. He has been criticized for his handling of the riots in the initial days by Republicans, who say he didn't act fast enough to deploy the National Guard. In 2023, Walz signed into law a major criminal justice reform bill including elimination of juvenile life without parole, the restriction of probation terms to five years or less and the creation of an Office of Restorative Practices.

Gwen Walz, whose first public event as first lady of Minnesota was a rally for restoring voting rights for people convicted of felonies after they’d served their sentences, is widely viewed as a close politcial advisor to the governor. She even keeps an office in the Minnesota State Capitol -- a first for a first spouse in the state.

On Tuesday, after he was introduced by Harris as her running mate at a rally in Philadelphia , Walz told the crowd he couldn't wait for America to get to know his wife, a 29-year public school educator.

"Don't ever underestimate teachers," he said.

Restoration of pell grant for incarcerated students

From 1999 to 2020, all college programs in New York prisons through Bard were funded privately and the initiative was limited in scope due to financial constraints.

In 2020, Congress under the Trump administration reinstated Pell grants for incarcerated people enabling a wider adoption of the program nationwide.

According to a RAND Corporation study , inmates who participate in correctional education programs had a 43% lower chance of recidivating than those who did not.

“There was a real bipartisan consensus on the issue,” Kenner said. “The restoration of Pell for people in prison made real educational opportunity possible in prisons in New York, Minnesota, and red and blue states all across the country.”

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY.   You can follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @SwapnaVenugopal

Half Their Land Burned in a Decade: The California Counties Constantly on Fire

By Elena Shao

TEHAMA COUNTY

PLUMAS COUNTY

Extent as of

Aug. 12, 2024

National Forest

BUTTE COUNTY

GLENN COUNTY

SIERRA COUNTY

COLUSA COUNTY

North Complex

of wildfires

The Park fire started in late July outside Chico, Calif., and in just 10 days exploded to become the fourth largest in the state’s history.

Three years before, the Dixie fire grew so large that it became the first fire to leap over the Sierra Nevada mountains.

In 2020, the North Complex fires, sparked by lightning in Plumas National Forest, destroyed more than 2,300 structures and killed more than a dozen people.

And in 2018, the Camp fire razed the town of Paradise and killed 85 people, becoming the state’s deadliest fire to date.

These four historic California fires burned in Butte County, which, along with neighboring counties near the foothills of the Sierras, has in the past decade seen much of its land engulfed in flames.

Since 2014, fires have burned through nearly forty percent of Butte County, according to a New York Times analysis of wildfire perimeters. An even larger share has burned in two neighboring counties, Plumas and Tehama, and in counties farther to the west, including in the heart of wine country.

Lake County

63 percent burned

Plumas County

Napa County

Dixie fire (2021)

Mendocino Complex

fires (2018)

fires (2020)

Trinity County

Tehama County

Butte County

Weaverville

fire (2021)

August Complex fire (2020)

Park fire (2024)

North Complex (2020)

L.N.U. Lightning

Complex (2020)

August Complex (2020)

Park (2024)

40 percent burned

Perimeters of fires

Monument (2021)

Mendocino Complex (2018)

L.N.U. Lightning Complex (2020)

Sources: National Interagency Fire Center and Cal Fire.

Note: A fire’s perimeter is defined as its entire outer edge or boundary, but that does not necessarily mean that the entire area within the perimeter was completely burned. Counties are shown with their relative sizes.

By The New York Times

Fires, of course, don’t know or stick to county lines. But calculating the share of counties affected by wildfires can provide insight into the growing wildfire risk statewide and across the American West.

The area that burned in Butte and Plumas Counties is more than four times as large as the area that had burned in the previous decade, the Times analysis shows, and the area burned in Tehama is more than five times as large. Over the past decade, most California counties have seen double the area burned compared with the area burned in the previous decade.

It’s not necessarily the case that more large fires are burning now than in previous decades, but the ones that do ignite are charring through much more land, according to Tirtha Banerjee, a professor and wildfire researcher at the University of California, Irvine. “What that says to me is that fires are getting more intense and more severe, and behaving in more unexpected ways,” he said.

A warming climate has fueled bigger and hotter wildfires , with increasingly intense spells of heat and drought turning forests into tinderboxes. The fire season arrives earlier in the year and lasts longer.

In California, decades of fire suppression policies have exacerbated the issue, leaving behind overgrown thickets of vegetation. Much of the area in the Park fire’s path, for example, hadn’t been burned for decades or longer, said Taylor Nilsson, the director of Butte County’s Fire Safe Council. That allowed large amounts of dense vegetation to accumulate, providing ample fuel for the fire.

Climate change and forest management are not the only risk factors. There is inevitably a bit of luck involved: High wind speeds can enable fires to spread farther and more rapidly.

All fires also require a spark in order to ignite. The movement of people into fire-prone areas near forests, grasslands and shrublands has bent that element of luck, making it more likely that a fire will spark.

While lightning caused several recent wildfires of historic proportions, human activity is the source for a vast majority of ignitions in the U.S. Of the 20 largest wildfires in California, seven were caused directly by people, and three by damaged power lines.

20 Largest Fires in California History

People were responsible for many of the state’s largest wildfires.

Source: Cal Fire

Note: Data accessed on Aug. 12, 2024. The Park fire is still active, and its acreage count is not final. Acres burned for the Rush fire includes areas in California and Nevada.

California’s wildfire history is punctuated by both “good” and “bad” fire seasons, but the overall size of burned areas has trended upward. In recent decades, quieter fire seasons have been followed by explosive and destructive ones. Often, a small number of extraordinarily large fires account for much of the area burned in a year.

Acres Burned by Wildfires in California

4 million acres

rolling average

acres burned

so far in 2024

Note: Data accessed on Aug. 12, 2024.

This year, the number of acres burned by wildfires has more than doubled from the previous year. Two years of wet winters in 2022 and 2023 likely contributed to vegetation growth and the buildup of fuel, said Alex Hall, the director of the Center for Climate Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Intense heat in the weeks before the Park fire sparked — most days in July in Chico climbed over 100 degrees Fahrenheit — greatly accelerated the drying process.

There are still several months left in this year’s fire season. On Aug. 1, the National Interagency Fire Center, which helps to coordinate federal fire response, issued new warnings about fire risk for this season, saying that it expects much of California and the Western United States to be under significant threat through at least the end of September.

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How To Tackle The Weirdest Supplemental Essay Prompts For This Application Cycle

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Writing the college essay

How do you write a letter to a friend that shows you’re a good candidate for the University of Pennsylvania? What reading list will help the Columbia University admissions committee understand your interdisciplinary interests? How can you convey your desire to attend Yale by inventing a course description for a topic you’re interested in studying?

These are the challenges students must overcome when writing their supplemental essays . Supplemental essays are a critical component of college applications—like the personal statement, they provide students with the opportunity to showcase their authentic voice and perspective beyond the quantitative elements of their applications. However, unlike the personal essay, supplemental essays allow colleges to read students’ responses to targeted prompts and evaluate their candidacy for their specific institution. For this reason, supplemental essay prompts are often abstract, requiring students to get creative, read between the lines, and ditch the traditional essay-writing format when crafting their responses.

While many schools simply want to know “why do you want to attend our school?” others break the mold, inviting students to think outside of the box and answer prompts that are original, head-scratching, or downright weird. This year, the following five colleges pushed students to get creative—if you’re struggling to rise to the challenge, here are some tips for tackling their unique prompts:

University of Chicago

Prompt: We’re all familiar with green-eyed envy or feeling blue, but what about being “caught purple-handed”? Or “tickled orange”? Give an old color-infused expression a new hue and tell us what it represents. – Inspired by Ramsey Bottorff, Class of 2026

What Makes it Unique: No discussion of unique supplemental essay prompts would be complete without mentioning the University of Chicago, a school notorious for its puzzling and original prompts (perhaps the most well-known of these has been the recurring prompt “Find x”). This prompt challenges you to invent a new color-based expression, encouraging both linguistic creativity and a deep dive into the emotional or cultural connotations of color. It’s a prompt that allows you to play with language, think abstractly, and show off your ability to forge connections between concepts that aren’t typically linked—all qualities that likewise demonstrate your preparedness for UChicago’s unique academic environment.

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How to Answer it: While it may be easy to get distracted by the open-ended nature of the prompt, remember that both the substance and structure of your response should give some insight into your personality, perspective, and characteristics. With this in mind, begin by considering the emotions, experiences, or ideas that most resonate with you. Then, use your imagination to consider how a specific color could represent that feeling or concept. Remember that the prompt is ultimately an opportunity to showcase your creativity and original way of looking at the world, so your explanation does not need to be unnecessarily deep or complex—if you have a playful personality, convey your playfulness in your response; if you are known for your sarcasm, consider how you can weave in your biting wit; if you are an amateur poet, consider how you might take inspiration from poetry as you write, or offer a response in the form of a poem.

The goal is to take a familiar concept and turn it into something new and meaningful through a creative lens. Use this essay to showcase your ability to think inventively and to draw surprising connections between language and life.

Harvard University

Prompt: Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.

What Makes it Unique: This prompt is unique in both form and substance—first, you only have 150 words to write about all 3 things. Consider using a form other than a traditional essay or short answer response, such as a bullet list or short letter. Additionally, note that the things your roommate might like to learn about you do not necessarily overlap with the things you would traditionally share with an admissions committee. The aim of the prompt is to get to know your quirks and foibles—who are you as a person and a friend? What distinguishes you outside of academics and accolades?

How to Answer it: First and foremost, feel free to get creative with your response to this prompt. While you are producing a supplemental essay and thus a professional piece of writing, the prompt invites you to share more personal qualities, and you should aim to demonstrate your unique characteristics in your own voice. Consider things such as: How would your friends describe you? What funny stories do your parents and siblings share that encapsulate your personality? Or, consider what someone might want to know about living with you: do you snore? Do you have a collection of vintage posters? Are you particularly fastidious? While these may seem like trivial things to mention, the true creativity is in how you connect these qualities to deeper truths about yourself—perhaps your sleepwalking is consistent with your reputation for being the first to raise your hand in class or speak up about a cause you’re passionate about. Perhaps your living conditions are a metaphor for how your brain works—though it looks like a mess to everyone else, you have a place for everything and know exactly where to find it. Whatever qualities you choose, embrace the opportunity to think outside of the box and showcase something that admissions officers won’t learn about anywhere else on your application.

University of Pennsylvania

Prompt: Write a short thank-you note to someone you have not yet thanked and would like to acknowledge.

What Makes it Unique: Breaking from the traditional essay format, this supplement invites you to write directly to a third party in the form of a 150-200 word long letter. The challenge in answering this distinct prompt is to remember that your letter should say as much about you, your unique qualities and what you value as it does about the recipient—all while not seeming overly boastful or contrived.

How to Answer it: As you select a recipient, consider the relationships that have been most formative in your high school experience—writing to someone who has played a large part in your story will allow the admissions committee some insight into your development and the meaningful relationships that guided you on your journey. Once you’ve identified the person, craft a thank-you note that is specific and heartfelt—unlike other essays, this prompt invites you to be sentimental and emotional, as long as doing so would authentically convey your feelings of gratitude. Describe the impact they’ve had on you, what you’ve learned from them, and how their influence has shaped your path. For example, if you’re thanking a teacher, don’t just say they helped you become a better student—explain how their encouragement gave you the confidence to pursue your passions. Keep the tone sincere and personal, avoid clichés and focus on the unique role this person has played in your life.

University of Notre Dame

Prompt: What compliment are you most proud of receiving, and why does it mean so much to you?

What Makes it Unique: This prompt is unique in that it invites students to share something about themselves by reflecting on someone else’s words in 50-100 words.

How to Answer it: The key to answering this prompt is to avoid focusing too much on the complement itself and instead focus on your response to receiving it and why it was so important to you. Note that this prompt is not an opportunity to brag about your achievements, but instead to showcase what truly matters to you. Select a compliment that truly speaks to who you are and what you value. It could be related to your character, work ethic, kindness, creativity, or any other quality that you hold in high regard. The compliment doesn’t have to be grand or come from someone with authority—it could be something small but significant that left a lasting impression on you, or it could have particular meaning for you because it came from someone you didn’t expect it to come from. Be brief in setting the stage and explaining the context of the compliment—what is most important is your reflection on its significance and how it shaped your understanding of yourself.

Stanford University

Prompt: List five things that are important to you.

What Makes it Unique: This prompt’s simplicity is what makes it so challenging. Stanford asks for a list, not an essay, which means you have very limited space (50 words) to convey something meaningful about yourself. Additionally, the prompt does not specify what these “things” must be—they could be a physical item, an idea, a concept, or even a pastime. Whatever you choose, these five items should add depth to your identity, values, and priorities.

How to Answer it: Start by brainstorming what matters most to you—these could be values, activities, people, places, or even abstract concepts. The key is to choose items or concepts that, when considered together, provide a comprehensive snapshot of who you are. For example, you might select something tangible and specific such as “an antique telescope gifted by my grandfather” alongside something conceptual such as “the willingness to admit when you’re wrong.” The beauty of this prompt is that it doesn’t require complex sentences or elaborate explanations—just a clear and honest reflection of what you hold dear. Be thoughtful in your selections, and use this prompt to showcase your creativity and core values.

While the supplemental essays should convey something meaningful about you, your values, and your unique qualifications for the university to which you are applying, the best essays are those that are playful, original, and unexpected. By starting early and taking the time to draft and revise their ideas, students can showcase their authentic personalities and distinguish themselves from other applicants through their supplemental essays.

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