Classroom Reform, School Reform, Education Reform

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 52 (47) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Wohlfarth
2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Mitchell ◽  
Cushla Kapitzke ◽  
Diane Mayer ◽  
Victoria Carrington ◽  
Lisa Stevens ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Maha Ellili-Cherif ◽  
Michael Henry Romanowski

The paper reports the results of a qualitative research study that explores principal, teacher, and parent perceptions with regard to Qatar’s education reform, Education for a New Era (EFNE) launched in 2004. The study focuses on the effects of the reform on each group, their perceived advantages and disadvantages of the reform, and the challenges they face in the implementation of EFNE. Data for this study was collected through an open-ended questionnaire. The results point to the positive effects of EFNE on improving instruction, principals' leadership style, and learner attitude to education. These stakeholders believe that the reform is too ambitious and sometimes unrealistic. The three groups also report challenges that revolve around the amount of extra effort and work it requires from them, the continuous reform changes, and the threats to the local culture and language. Discussion and conclusions are provided regarding EFNE.


The Forum ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin R. West ◽  
Michael Henderson ◽  
Paul E. Peterson

Do teachers and the public disagree on education reform? We use data from a nationally representative survey conducted in 2011 to identify the extent of the differences between the opinion of teachers and the general public on a wide range of education policies. The overall cleavage between teachers and the general public is wider than the cleavages between other relevant groups, including that between Democrats and Republicans. At least with respect to patterns of opinion on education reform, school politics is largely a conflict between producers within the system and consumers outside it – a classic iron triangle theme.


Author(s):  
Chloe Ahmann

AbstractThis article interrogates the discursive relationship between school reform and redemption in the United States by examining the personal narratives of Teach For America corps members. After tracing the history of Teach For America and describing the rites of passage in which teachers’ “redemptive stories” are told, I analyze the generic arc that underlies them and show that it mirrors broader processes of in-group socialization. In doing so, I argue that Teach For America’s brand of redemptive storytelling – in addition to crafting individual identity, contributing to group cohesion, and enlivening performance at ritualized events – also affects organizational authority. As corps members master their stories of reform and redemption, paralleling the path to becoming “master teachers,” they participate in a process of “becoming” that reproduces in micro-scale the maturation of Teach For America. More profoundly, these transformations represent a distinct response to traditions of American confessional storytelling and the accountability-based education movement. Redemptive stories thus bind the socialization of the individual reformer to issues afoot more broadly in the province of education policy.


2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Lupart ◽  
Charles Webber

This paper provides a synthesis of educational reforms in Canadian schools over the past century to present times. The unique emphasis is to document the broad movements of change in both special and regular education. We begin our analy-sis with a detailed discussion on the many meanings of school restructuring and highlight the ongoing nature of school reform. Following a selective chronology of general and special education reform, we attempt to capture what appear to be the key features of school reform and progressive inclusion. The numerous obsta-cles to school reform are outlined and the evolving roles of those most centrally connected with the school culture—teachers, students, and parents—are re-viewed. Several conditions for successful change are presented and the adoption of a balance of interests, policies, principles, and practices is recommended along with a transformation from dual systems to a unified system of education for all students. Regular and special educators are the professionals who must make school transformation reflect excellence and equity in our Canadian schools, and all available resources and support need to be deployed to this end.


1998 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisele A. Waters

The school reform movement has done little to provide an accurate analysis of the production of inequality or the reproduction of social injustice in the public schools or the larger social order. The ideology that influences this movement has often prevented the realization of any notion of an egalitarian ideal, the elimination of inequality, or the improvement of those who are least well-off. I ask educators and evaluators of education reform efforts to reconsider critically their roles in social science research, to reclaim the battleground of public school reform by focusing on the democratic purpose of public schooling, and the institutional problems in educational programs and practice that often inhibit action toward this ideal. The first part of this article includes an extensive argument explaining the "why" of critical evaluation. The theoretical literature on inquiry in science and social science, the ideology of critical theory, critical social psychology, and Freirean pedagogy are consulted as additional tools for augmenting the practice, policies, and responsibilities of evaluators in education. I review three contemporary perspectives of evaluation in order to begin rethinking the purposes and functions that evaluation serves in education. It also demonstrates how mainstream and contemporary evaluations can be used to serve a particular set of social and political values. The second part of this article begins a preliminary journey toward describing the "how" of critical evaluation. Critical evaluators can fight for social justice by combining the merit criteria of state and federal public education law, and the methods of an adversary oriented evaluation in order to transform educational environments that serve the future potentials of all children. Therefore education involves the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world (Freire, 1985).


2012 ◽  
Vol 114 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Ramón A. Martínez ◽  
Karen H. Quartz

Background/Context Over the past two decades, scholars have increasingly called for educational leaders to collaborate with community-based organizations in their efforts to bring about school reform. Observing that school reform efforts often fail to include those most impacted by failing policies and practices, these scholars have turned their attention to the role of community organizations that advocate on behalf of parents and students in under-served communities. These scholars have explored the potential of community organizing strategies for transforming public schools, documenting the crucial role of strategic alliances between community-based organizations and school district officials in bringing about greater equity and improved student outcomes. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of this study is to explore how educational leaders and community-based organizations collaborated to bring about unprecedented education reform in the nation's second largest school district. Research Design This historical case study is based on in-depth interviews with 11 high-profile school district, union, community, and other educational leaders across seven key partner institutions and organizations that were involved in the development of the Belmont Zone of Choice from 2001 to 2009. Conclusions/Recommendations This study reveals the kinds of obstacles facing reformers in large urban school districts, and it illustrates how concerned educators, community-based organizations, and educational reformers can form strategic alliances to fight for meaningful change in underserved communities. Rather than provide a simplistic or idealistic depiction of collaboration, however, this case study illustrates the tensions and struggles that emerged as diverse—and sometimes antagonistic—social actors collaborated to bring about education reform at the local level. It also illustrates that strategic alliances are not necessarily sufficient to ensure successful reform implementation within contexts of political and economic asymmetry. As such, the history of the Belmont Zone of Choice highlights both the promise and challenge of community organizing for school reform.


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