Pedagogue Blog

The U.S Department of Education announced this week that the high school graduation rate reached another record high of 82 percent in the 2013-14 year, according to the Huffington Post.

The announcement follows October’s release of preliminary data by the Education Department that shows a decreasing gap in graduation rates between black and white and black and Hispanic students. The data shows that graduation rates climbed for the country as a whole.

The past four consecutive years have shown a continual increase in the U.S. high school graduate rate after the states and districts began using a new metric to measure this number in 2010.

The achievement gap in graduation rates between black and white and white and Hispanic students continues to steadily diminish. The 2010-11 school year there was a 17-point percentage gap in graduation rates between black and white students. The number fell to 14.8 by 2013-14.

New data shows that graduation rates have risen for the past few years for subgroups like low-income students, English language learners and students with disabilities.

Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education said, “America’s students have achieved another record milestone by improving gradation rates for a fourth year. The hard work of teachers, administrators, students, and their families has made the gains possible and as a result many more students will have a better chance of going to college, getting a good job, owning their own home, and supporting a family. We can take pride as a nation in knowing that we’re seeing promising gains, including for students of color.”

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

As experts evaluate academic performance in more and more honest and thorough ways, it becomes clearer and clearer that educational reform is a growing need in the U.S. However, pressing a problem as academic reform is, it’s not something that can be tackled with slap-dash solutions.

By taking time to establish the goals of the reform initiative, the stakeholder team implementing the reform is also creating the evaluation criteria by which success of the reform initiative can be evaluated. The overall, long-term goals can be subdivided into milestones to allow regular assessment of whether or not the reform progress is on target and on time. These goals form a key part of the reform road map.

A key question is who will perform the evaluation of the reform initiative. Independent district-level administrators could be engaged to perform this task, but it could also be performed by members of the community or, if the budget allows, by professional consultants. The team should avoid choosing members from within the reform team, who may be biased. The party undertaking the evaluation will be required to conduct the assessment fairly, honestly, and in a timely manner. Using the goals as a guideline, they will be required to provide feedback on whether or not the reform is proceeding according to plan and highlight any major issues.

Feedback from evaluations needs to be incorporated into the planning and implementation of the reform initiative. The timing of an evaluation is thus very important. Teachers are unlikely to have adequate time to give or respond to evaluator feedback during the very beginning or very end of the school term, because these are stressful times for both teachers and students.

Usually, if the reform initiative has been successfully managed before the evaluation, termination of the initiative won’t be necessary. But there are cases when it’s readily apparent that the reform initiative is failing and must, for various reasons, be dropped. Termination needs to be managed and communicated appropriately. The reasons for terminating the reform initiative need to be adequately documented and discussed with the whole team to ensure that all parties are aware of what went wrong but also to ensure that adequate time is given to review what went right. The lessons learned during the process, whatever the outcome, should be clearly documented and archived. These lessons may be shared with other schools seeking to implement similar reforms or may be used by the current team, or a future team, when implementing reform initiatives at the same school.

In the end, any reform that’s put into play needs to be well-thought-out and well-kept-up-with. Plans need to allow for constant analysis and change based on feedback. Reform, as it turns out, is a process, not a product.

Five key points will assist schools in implementing and sustaining school reform.

1. Commitment Level

The first is an adequate level of commitment. Commitment to reform involves all stakeholders’ agreeing to be available for the duration of the reform initiative to ensure a successful outcome. Stakeholders’ commitment is enhanced when the reform team has clearly explained the reasons for undertaking the reform initiative. Stakeholders should understand their roles and how they are individually important to the reform effort.

2. Continued Progress

The second factor is continued improvement or development. Although the road map may contain elements that are relatively fixed, further research during the course of implementation may reveal improvements that would benefit the reform as a whole. The team should allow for adequate flexibility to assess improvements and how to incorporate them into the present reform initiative, as well as to schedule adequate time and allocate adequate resources (people as well as funds) to ensure that any potential improvements are explored.

3. Time Scale

The third factor is the amount of time that a reform initiative may take to accomplish. Every stakeholder will have individual demands placed on his or her time. In particular, teachers participating in the reform will need to ensure that they are provided with adequate time to continue to plan their lessons and give due attention to their students. Giving teachers the time they need to understand and incorporate reform initiatives into their current practices increases the likelihood that reform will succeed.

4. Team Consistency

The fourth factor is retention of the core reform team, which contributes to success of the initiative. Appointing an effective leader to drive reform initiatives may be done at a state, district, school, or community level. This leader needs to understand the demands that will be placed on his or her time and commit to manage these demands effectively for the duration of the reform initiative. Consider the impact of losing teachers who were part of the reform initiative a third of the way into the implementation and having to bring new teachers up to speed. This loss could cause the reform initiative to lose time and might also be frustrating to the new teachers who may be uncertain of what they’re mandated to teach. Extra planning would be required to ensure that the reform effort proceeds smoothly in the face of these potential disruptions.

5. Budget

Finally, adequate funding is required to ensure success of the reform initiative. Prioritizing which outcomes to achieve and when helps to ensure that financial pressure is spread across the period of reform. Avoiding the dismissal of staff as a cost-cutting exercise is prudent, because this could undermine the reform initiative as a whole. Support of the school district or state could have advantages in terms of ensuring the availability of adequate funds to complete the reform initiative. Funding may, unfortunately, be undermined by corruption at various levels in the team initiating the reform. The team should promote transparency regarding how much money is being spent and why at the outset, and should allow each party to have a chance to voice their opinion regarding how money will be spent. Although one or more individuals may have greater leverage regarding allocation and spending of funds, no single individual should ever be solely responsible for making decisions regarding finances.

The Secret Sixth Factor: Communication

Ultimately, however, communication is an underlying key factor in sustaining reform initiatives. The duration of implementation will likely range from a number of months to a number of years, so to sustain reform, it’s critical to keep all stakeholders informed regarding reform progress, changes in the road map, and changes in their roles or responsibilities. Without regular, relevant, and effective communication, reform initiatives can’t be sustained. Communication involves allowing grievances or complaints to be heard and addressed in a timely manner. It also involves acknowledging and addressing teachers who raise the need for additional support to continue to implement reform, which may involve members of the community.

Successfully implementing school reform will take a balanced approach that takes into account each of the five factors and is the product of a clear and honest discussion. Transparent discussion will ensure that all of the problems are brought to light and the resulting plan doesn’t skirt around any issues, but instead covers all the bases bluntly and head-on.

Education in the U.S. is in dire need of reform. Individuals from within education as well as a slew of other professions all agree: American schooling must change. They may have different reasons for why change is needed, but they all agree that an educational overhaul is definitely a must. However, what that reform should look like is still under debate.

Before embarking on any reform initiative, the reform team must establish a clear framework. This presents all stakeholders with a road map of how the reform effort is likely to proceed. One of the first steps should be to undertake a detailed study of the school’s current processes, procedures, and possibly even the school culture. This will help determine which areas are working well and which areas need improvement. The study will require the participation of all the teachers at the school as well as members of the student body and the community being served. It’s important to highlight early the importance of student and community involvement in reform initiatives, because, without strong student–teacher relationships and school–community partnerships, planned reform will amount to little. The reform team will need to conduct adequate research to determine whether or not a particular reform will be a good fit for the school or district in question. The team may also obtain case studies and personal accounts of implementation for review and consideration.

It’s important to determine the scope or extent of the reform initiative. Attempting a complete overhaul of all the aspects of the way the school works will likely be an exhausting and futile exercise, leading to a lack of confidence in reform as a whole. Embarking on a very small-scale reform effort, however, will be unrewarding to both staff and students of the school, who expect to benefit from the reform effort. Implementing too many initiatives simultaneously can also be counterproductive, especially if the resources of the school have not been adequately taken into account. It’s worthwhile to spend time brainstorming with stakeholders on which reform efforts to prioritize before implementing the initiative. It’s also important to consider whether this reform effort will be conducted in partnership with other schools in the district or in the state. If it is, stakeholders will need to understand why the reform is taking place. Funding advantages could be gained by partnering with other schools, and the value of knowledge sharing in reform initiatives can’t be underestimated.

Budgeting and costing should be attempted during the creation of the reform road map, although many of these figures will require ongoing revision during the implementation of the reform initiative. Abandoning reform efforts on the basis of a lack of sufficient funding may indicate that the team devoted inadequate time to brainstorming cost-effective alternatives. Time spent discussing the budget with all stakeholders may result in parallel fund-raising initiatives, and it’s important to plan for repeated cost–benefit analyses during the course of implementing the reform.

Finally, it’s worthwhile to consider drawing up a team code of conduct to be adhered to by stakeholders participating in the reform process. Before the reform initiative is put into place, establishing ground rules on how and when stakeholders will interact with each other can mitigate tensions that may arise.

Reforming the educational system of an entire country is no small thing, and the planning behind it must not be taken lightly. It will take time and effort and an incredibly amount of research, but working to create a detailed, circumspect plan for reform will be well worth the work.

With U.S. students ranking behind countries across the world on multiple sets of assessments, there’s no denying that educational reform is a must, if our students are to measure up to their global peers. What’s more, the need for reform must be ongoing if the United States is to retain its position as one of the top-performing global economies. The school learners of today are the architects, businesspeople, law and policy makers, and teachers of tomorrow; and ensuring that every student receives adequate education to meet this goal should be a national priority. Although the American school system is the best-financed system in the world, it is also one of the lowest-performing. This fact alone shows the need for ongoing reform efforts to address this disparity.

The Obama administration has set an aim of providing all students with the same opportunities for learning, allowing them to reach high levels of proficiency. Standardization of required learning material and curricula may become a reality across the United States, and both existing and new teachers need to be aware of this. As mentioned earlier, the Common Core State Standards Initiative is a nationwide, state-driven initiative that’s receiving widespread recognition. This initiative uses the empirical results of successful reform efforts from around the country and around the world and puts them to practical use.

The development of these standards is being coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and the standards may very well turn into required national standards. This should not, however, be viewed as an attempt by the federal government to promote the nationalization of education, because this is not a federal initiative. These standards are geared toward ensuring that students who pass through the school system are prepared to cope with the level required by colleges across the country or for future career success.

These changes, however, are likely to be ineffective if schools, districts, and states can’t encourage and implement reform. During your teaching career, it’s vital for you to understand how reform efforts work, what makes them successful, and how you can participate in making the reform successful.

When the school year ends, teachers are happy to have a break from the drudgery of the school year, but they also want students to avoid the summer slide. The summer slide occurs when children lose some of the academic skills and dispositions that they gained during the school year due to the absence and scarcity of quality learning activities during summer vacation. As the old saying goes, if you don’t use it, you lose it.

To succeed academically, children need continuous opportunities to acquire new skills and practice existing ones. This need is especially heightened during the summer months, because children do not have the privilege of being educated by certified teachers. When we think of the summer months, we think of a happy carefree time when children can have fun and unwind. But we forget about the potential learning opportunities that we can engage our children in. To make sure that your students do not experience the summer slide, here are some suggestions that you can give to their parents:

1. Summer Programs

Many public and private schools run summer programs for their students. Take advantage of them. They are usually for only half a day and allow flexibility for summer vacations. Contact your child’s school to find out if they offer summer programs.

2. Family Reading Program

Set up a summer reading program with your child in which they choose an agreed upon number of grade-level books to read per month. Make sure that you consult the child’s teacher or a librarian for advice. To show solidarity, the entire family should participate.

3. Specialized Summer Camps

Enroll your child in a specialized summer camp. These camps are fun and incorporate hands-on activities into their curriculum as well. Some of the more popular ones include computer, science, and math camps.

4. Pick the Teacher’s Brain

Consult your child’s current or next teacher, and ask for suggestions for summer workbooks, science activities, essay topics, and interesting summer activities for your child. You may even be able to elicit their help in assessing your child’s performance.

5. Summer Enrichment

Summer is also a good time to fill in learning gaps. If you know that your child is weak in a particular subject, you may want to set up an enrichment program. Of course, as always, consult with your child’s teacher.

6. Learning While Vacationing

If you are planning on taking a vacation this summer, you can turn it into a social studies activity. Ask your child to research the destination’s history, cuisine, popular attractions, and so on. Also, once you reach your vacation destination, you can schedule tours of famous landmarks and locations, which will increase their social studies knowledge.

8. Summer Journaling

Ask your children to write a daily journal of all of the things that they learn each day. Remember, you will need to orchestrate learning activities for your children, because you can’t trust that they will be able to do it on their own.

9. Turn Daily Activities into Learning Opportunities

If you’re at the grocery store with your kids, challenge them to add up the total cost of your purchase. Driving to grandmother’s house? Ask them to find certain colors, shapes, or patterns along the way. For older kids, think of appropriate variations.

10. Learning Locally

Don’t forget about the local park, museum, zoo, aquarium, and other interesting places. Your local community is full of learning opportunities that you’ve probably never thought of.

Preventing summer slide can seem like a daunting task, but thankfully it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pull it off. All parents need is to be organized and have the right plan. With this list, you can provide them with some simple strategies that they can use to prevent summer learning loss, without taking the fun out of summer. When the new school year begins, your students will be armed with the skills that they retained from the previous year and hopefully some brand new ones. This will make your job as a teacher a whole lot better. Good luck!

The purposeful and practical allocation of resources to support equitable access to high-quality learning opportunities is a major component of education policy at the federal, state, and local levels. Leaders at all levels of the education are charged with making decisions about how to effectively distribute and leverage resources to support teaching and learning. Resource allocation consists of more than assigning dollar amounts to particular schools or programs. Equally important is the examination of the ways in which those dollars are translated into actions that address expressed educational goals at various educational levels. In this respect, leaders are concerned not only with the level of resources and how they are distributed across districts, schools, and classrooms, but also with how these investments translate into improved learning.

It’s critical for resource allocation practices to reflect an understanding of the imperative to eliminate existing inequities and close the achievement gap. All too often, children who are most in need of support and assistance attend schools that have higher staff turnover, less challenging curricula, less access to appropriate materials and technology, and poorer facilities.

Below, we give a quick breakdown to serve as a handy guide in thinking about what school districts can look like and what their spread of resources looks like:

1. Rural Districts

Size: smaller

Cultural Diversity of Students: Low in diversity, but diversity growing.

Socioeconomic Status (SES) of Parents: Poverty an issue in many areas.

District Resources: Resources limited. Districts smaller, less complex; innovation and change easier to accomplish.

2. Suburban

Size: Intermediate

Cultural Diversity of Students: Intermediate in diversity; many minority professionals.

Socioeconomic Status (SES) of Parents: Generally high SES, but can vary.

District Resources: Resources generally good due to high tax base.

3. Urban

Size: Largest

Cultural Diversity of Students: High in diversity, both in terms of numbers and types of diversity.

Socioeconomic Status (SES) of Parents: Poverty is a major issue for many students, but this can vary from school to school.

District Resources: Large bureaucracy and resources vary from school to school.

What kind of district do you work in? Understanding the makeup of the area in which you teach will help you better understand what resources you have (or don’t have) at your disposal and the backgrounds of the pupils you’ll be serving.

Highly functional systems are the product of highly functional leadership. For most schools, leadership comes in the form of district command.

However, until recently, there was very little evidence regarding effective leadership and how it functions at the school, district, and state levels. Now evidences indicates that leadership in education is vital to reform efforts. Leadership is a bridge that crosses the divide, enabling teachers to approach reform from the front line of learning. While teachers are naturally vital for education, school principals and district superintendents are advantaged by being able to construct the vision and expectations needed to deliver better teaching and learning experiences. They have the position and capability to enable everyone involved in the education system to realize that vision.

To get the leaders we want and need in every school, it’s not enough to improve their training, as urgent as that is. State and district officials also need to provide the conditions for and set out the expectations of what leaders need to know, and the actions they need to take to improve both teaching and learning. These standards should form the basis for holding leaders accountable for results. On the other hand, leaders should have the data available to inform their decisions and the authority needed to direct resources to schools and students with the greatest needs. All districts should establish policies that not only affect the recruitment, hiring, and placement of school leaders but also are explicit for evaluating leaders.

Each of these core elements for better educational leadership is crucial. And it is equally important that states and districts work together more closely to create more supportive leadership standards, training, and work conditions—to create a cohesive leadership system. Rather than engaging in isolated or uncoordinated efforts on single elements of leadership improvement, collective action by states and districts is the most likely pathway to lasting change throughout the system. Such collaboration has not been the historic norm in education policy.

Efforts at state–district policy coordination remain relatively new and are yielding both early successes and cautionary lessons about the challenges of maintaining the momentum of positive change. Look around ask yourself – is your district effectively leading your school into an era of educational progress?

Family involvement is tied not only to student success, but also to the success of schools as a whole. Greater appreciation for the importance of the role of family in teaching a community’s youth is an absolute must for any modern educational reform.

Understanding the deep-rooted importance of family and parental involvement in education and its effect on the performance of a child requires recognizing the fact that parents are children’s first teachers. Studies have revealed that students with involved parents tend to miss fewer days of school and tend to be more conscientious about completing homework and other school-related work assigned to be completed outside of school. On the other hand, children whose families are not as attentive to their school experiences are often unable to compete academically with their peers. Their attendance is less regular, and often they are less likely to graduate from high school.

Because of the positive impact parent and family involvement in education has on the performance of children, schools often try to encourage parents and family members to increase their participation in the educational process. Many researchers, education reformers, and politicians have tried to increase parental and family involvement in the education system. However there are a number of obstacles that interfere with parents taking on a pivotal role in school-related issues and activities.

In order to increase partnership of parents with schools, schools must create an environment that offers enough incentives and support for parents to take an active part in the education process. Schools cannot expect that all parents and family members will increase their involvement with the education system on their own. The total school staff, to include teachers, other school personnel, maintenance staff, and administrators must work together to develop an environment that encourages parents to ask questions and share their feedback with school personnel. Some parents will need to be invited to schools, and learn to view schools as places where they may seek advice, receive suggestions on any number of school/student related issues, and as well places where their input and thoughts are welcomed.

Some parents may be dissuaded to get involved with what they perceive as a group of close-knit education professionals who engage in language and practices meant to exclude parents from the work of education systems. Schools often create an environment where it becomes difficult for teachers and parents to stand together for children, with both helping children and youth carve out a better future. However, various governmental policies try to reduce the gap between teachers and parents so that they may come together to help students. The No Child Left Behind Act, for example, requires districts and schools to operate in a transparent manner, communicate with parents and other outside stakeholders, and share information and ideas that will lead to increased involvement of parents in the learning process.

NCLB explicitly requires that state educational agencies (SEAs) and local educational agencies (LEAs) receiving federal funds have written parental involvement policies. These policies describe how parents can be involved in the planning and review of education programs. To fulfill local needs, the act suggests integrating parental involvement plans with schools on local levels. Another important principle is to empower parents by providing them with training in valuable practices that may help their children achieve better academic results. States and local school districts must also ensure that parents understand state standards and assessments, so that parents can be more involved in monitoring the progress of their children. In this way, schools are required to ensure that communications with parents proceed in language and formats that parents understand. NCLB also expands parental rights by allowing for more parental choice in the education of their children by increasing their public school options and by allowing for additional educational opportunities for eligible children who are forced to remain in low-performing schools.

While it may be up to the state and federal governments to increase family involvement on a national scale, you as a teacher can still effect change at the level of your own classroom. Think about how you might better incorporate family involvement and the challenges doing so will incur when planning your curriculum. Educational reform may be slow in the making, but you, at least, have the power to affect your own pupils here and now.

The responsibility of states for setting curriculum standards, as well as the assessment of those standards, led to differences among states that critics viewed as negatively impacting the quality of education in the nation. Education advocates suggested that some states reduce the rigor of their standards, to increase the number of students able to reach proficiency as required by NCLB. In 2009, governors and chief academic officers from the states (and the District of Columbia and the territories), along with educators, came together to develop the Common Core State Standards, which provide a reliable, lucid explanation of what students are required to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to assist them.

The standards:

• Are aligned with future education and labor expectations
• Are lucid, comprehensible and unswerving
• Include meticulous content and application of information through high-order skills
• Build on potency and lessons of current state standards
• Are informed by other top-performing countries, so that all students are equipped to thrive in 
our global economy
• Are data-based

Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics have been completed, and as of 2013, forty-five states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity have adopted the Common Core State Standards. Proponents of national standards maintain that a national standard provides all students with the same high standard of education, no matter where they live. This, they claim, ensures that every student in the United States would, in theory, receive a quality education. National standards would also allow educators across the country to share best practices, which undoubtedly improve teachers’ ability to more effectively serve the needs of their students.

The Common Core State Standards do not inform teachers how to teach but give them valuable insights into the skills and knowledge that students need to succeed in subsequent educational activities. The standards also help parents and students by mapping out a more realistic recipe for future success, regardless of where students end up residing.

Critics view the development of national standards as a step toward a national education system that would result in the federal government, which is not one of the stakeholders on the ground, having too much say in decision making.

Another notable nationwide reform effort is the American Diploma Project Network. In 2005, a group of highly placed individuals began a crusade to reform high school. The group believed that high school education had become archaic and needed to step into the 21st century. Among other reforms, the group called for an increase in standards, a stricter curriculum, and improved examinations to gauge a student’s competence for the workforce or future study. To date, 35 states are part of the network.

Are you teaching in one of those states? What has reform looked like in the educational system in which you teach? What progress has been made, and what landmarks still need to be achieved? As an educator, you need to know about the benchmarks of yesterday in order to help move your school toward the progress earmarks of tomorrow.

In the decades of attempted educational reform, the U.S. government has been the biggest player. Following the Nation at Risk report the federal government became more focused on the achievement of all students in the nation’s schools.

In 1994, the Goals 2000: Educate America Act passed with the goal of supporting states’ efforts to develop curriculum standards that would outline what students should know and be able to do, as well as state and district efforts to improve student achievement along the standards. The act did not stop at standards-based education. It included goals focused on safe schools, parental involvement, and teacher development, all of which ostensibly influence student achievement. And it also addressed goals for education from early childhood to adulthood. Goals 2000 included the following:

• All children in America will start school ready to learn.
• The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90%.
• All students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging 
subject matter, including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, the arts, history, and geography; and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our nation’s modern economy.
• U.S. students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.
• Every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
• Every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence, and the unauthorized presence of firearms and alcohol and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning.
• The nation’s teaching force will have access to programs for the continued improvement of their professional skills and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all American students for the next century.
• Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children.

The NCLB of 2001 built on goals outlined in Goals 2000, and in many ways NCLB amplified and extended goals that originally appeared in Goals 2000.

NCLB is the leading federal legislation governing K–12 schooling. Its introduction meant that the federal government took a greater role in education in the United States. A major objective of NCLB was to decrease the achievement gap between students with low scores and those with high scores. Schools and districts not reaching stated annual progress toward the goal of removing the achievement gap would be penalized.

NCLB has divided opinion. It has been positively recognized for requiring a disaggregated format for student performance reports, enabling evaluation of the performance of different groups of students. This has particularly benefited disadvantaged students, whose performance was often overlooked in the past. However, as you’ll see in the following section, NCLB also has many detractors.
Reforming NCLB

Many have called for reform of NCLB itself. Suggested changes include removing the 2013–2014 target years for eliminating the achievement gap among different groups of children, because educators and policy makers alike believe the target year is unrealistic. Critics state that NCLB places too much emphasis on standardized testing and too little on the education of individual students. They also suggest that using standardized tests as the only measure of progress has led to instruction more aligned with students’ performing well on tests rather than learning a broad array of topics. Critics suggest that student growth should be a measure of the difference between students’ performance level at the beginning of the year and their performance level at the end of the year, rather than an arbitrary expectation for annual performance. And critics recommend expanding the measures used to determine student performance, so that standardized tests are not the only measures used.

The funding arrangements for NCLB are also the subject of discontent, with suggestions that much more funding is required to achieve the stated objectives. Under NCLB, states are responsible for the type and level of assessments given to students. Critics have suggested that variations across states in terms of levels of performance proficiencies makes it next to impossible to accurately compare performance across states. The focus on testing only mathematics and reading has also come under scrutiny, with suggestions that knowledge and skills in other subjects should be assessed as well.

NCLB requires states to staff their public schools with “highly qualified teachers.” This provision of NCLB can be viewed as a successful school reform measure, because research has shown that excellent teachers have a positive impact on student achievement. The provision seeks to ensure that students are taught well-prepared and highly qualified staff—teachers who know their subject matter and how to teach it.

Although not explicitly required by NCLB, gaining National Board Certification is one way to become a highly qualified teacher. National Board Certification is an advanced teaching credential that is offered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. It supplements, but does not supplant, a state teacher license. National Board Certification is achieved on successful completion of an optional assessment initiative intended to identify effective and accomplished teachers who meet high standards based on what teachers should know and be able to do.

National Board Certification is available nationwide for most pre-K–12 teachers and has been a positive school reform measure since its inception. Whatever your thoughts on educational reform, National Board Certification is a powerful tool to have in your toolbox to help you be an effective educator and voice for change.

Over the past few decades, reform trends have risen and fallen from prominence. However, one early system has had long-lasting effects that likely still resonate in your classroom today. What was this long-lasting change-up? School restructuring.

The notion of restructuring became popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, primarily in reaction to the failure of previous attempts to improve existing education structures through reform. The goal of restructuring was to change the organizational structure of schools in ways that supported student learning. Three main areas were the focus of restructuring school reform efforts during this period.

First, teachers were to have a larger role in school management functions and also to have greater autonomy and flexibility in choosing instructional methods and materials. With more input into school management, teachers would also have a forum in which to contribute to using the learning environment, school resources, and time at school to improve student learning. Second, student learning and achievement was another area of focus for restructuring efforts. With changes in teacher roles and responsibilities in the learning environment, proponents of restructuring believed students would have increased opportunities to learn and could learn at higher, more rigorous levels. Third, restructuring was to make schools more inviting places that would be more aware of and responsive to the needs of students and their families.

A number of reforms were implemented during the 1990s that were consistent with the notion of restructuring. Stricter requirements for graduation were implemented, which included increases in the number of high school credits as well as changes in course requirements. For example, all students were required to complete courses in math and science, even though levels of difficulty in courses existed. There was general agreement that longer days with more quality instruction were needed to improve student achievement, and a number of schools pursued reforms focused on increasing the amount of time available for students to focus on learning.

Standards-based education also emerged during this period. Based on the requirements of postsecondary education, which were established at the time, specific standards were set regarding what academic and practical knowledge students were required to gain during their time at various stages of school. These requirements have changed since standards-based education was introduced, and accordingly, the test content requires continuous review and updating. Students are tested based on these standards using standardized measures. Student and school performance is used as an indicator of the success or effectiveness of that school, the staff, and the state.

Higher expectations of teachers were also an outgrowth of the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s. It is important for states to ensure teacher competency by determining the knowledge and skill levels of new teachers as they enter the profession. Requiring new teachers to pass tests at the end of training or before receiving a teaching license is one method currently used to evaluate and ensure teacher knowledge. The testing of teachers is surrounded by debates relating to how and what material to test teachers on, as well as whether or not standards are high enough to render teaching licensure meaningful.

The meaning and purpose of restructuring changed in the 2000s, as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) came into being in 2001. Restructuring now refers to an action taken by states for schools consistently unable to meet annual achievement targets as required by NCLB. In this instance, schools are required to develop restructuring plans designed to improve student achievement. Reorganization of the governance structure is required, with options available to the schools such as adopting a charter and becoming a charter school; replacing some or all school staff, including the principal; or contracting with an outside entity (e.g., EMO) to operate the school.

States are required to sanction poorly performing schools under NCLB regulations, although some also feel it prudent and motivating to reward high-performing schools. These actions are likely based on the fact that recognition and reward have been shown to lead to improved performance among teachers, which is more positive and may have more of an effect than extending sanctions. Other states, however, sanction poorly performing schools, even when they are not required to do so under NCLB. In many ways, rewarding schools and providing assistance to poorly performing schools is more in keeping with the teacher empowerment goals of the school restructuring efforts implemented in the 1990s.

Restructuring was an idea that shook up the American school system – and not in an entirely good way. As an educator, you need to be aware of what it was and what it did so that you can deal with any residue still dusting the classrooms of your school district.