The Future of Educational Reform: Annotated Bibliography

Introduction to Educational Reform Literature

This paper is divided into two parts. Part I presents an annotated bibliography of five key texts on educational reform, each addressing a distinct dimension of how and why schools change. Part II draws on these sources to construct an analytical argument about the likely future direction of education in the United States, with particular attention to the tension between nationally mandated reform and locally driven initiatives.

Political and Structural Drivers of Educational Change

This text is a foundational work in the field of educational reform. It begins with an overview of the history of educational change, providing a detailed understanding of how the current state of education arrived at its present form. Within this history, the text focuses on the various educational movements and the theories behind them that ushered in major changes in approach and curriculum. Through this examination of educational change — with its focus on the people and politics behind it — Fullan concludes with a prediction of where change will take education in the future.

Fullan's main argument is that educational change is largely driven by politics. As political parties and ideologies shift, one of the first areas new power holders move toward is educational policy. Thus, whenever history records a major shift in power, there is typically a corresponding major shift in educational ideology. Because of this pattern, Fullan argues that future educational change will reflect political concerns such as immigration, lower-income students, and the relationship between student achievement and teacher pay. Furthermore, if there is ever a significant change in the nation's political direction — such as a shift from conservative to liberal governance — there will be corresponding changes in the subject matters taught. This dynamic explains why educational reform debates so often focus on issues such as evolution versus intelligent design.

This text focuses on the non-linear and chaotic nature of change as it plays out between society and education. Its main argument is that there is currently no established standard for managing societal change within educational systems and curricula. As a result, change in education is largely reactionary to change in broader society. Because of this reactionary nature, educational change is all too often not well thought out and is hastily implemented, only to be revised again in response to yet another new societal development. Instead, the educational community needs to establish clear standards for how institutions of education will implement reform and change in an organized and ultimately beneficial manner.

The text advances its argument by challenging currently accepted conclusions about the roles of vision and strategic planning, site-based management, educational leadership, and consensus accountability. In their place, the text identifies eight basic lessons explaining why change tends to appear chaotic and how to best address that chaos in order to build a system that produces better citizens without discrimination based on class, gender, or ethnicity.

School Culture, Leadership, and Teacher Resistance

This text provides an insightful discussion of school reform that focuses on real-life examples of the issues and obstacles that prevent the successful implementation of genuine educational reform measures. Evans addresses not only societal obstacles, but — most importantly — the obstacles and resistance created by educators themselves. He examines how the best-intended reform efforts are often stalled by educators who feel too burdened or conflicted to implement change, resulting in a continuation of the status quo regardless of any mandated reform measures.

To overcome this internal obstacle to change, Evans develops a new model of leadership and provides practical management strategies that allow educational leaders to build the framework of cooperation among leaders, students, and teachers that is essential for implementing real educational reform. Evans argues that teachers are often reluctant to implement reform measures because of the extra effort required and because they receive no additional compensation or recognition for that work. Therefore, part of meaningful classroom reform must include reform in how teachers are treated and compensated for their role in creating and facilitating educational change.

This text places the responsibility for school change on school, community, and national leaders. Deal focuses on demonstrating how leaders can capture the power of school culture and shape it into a lively, cooperative spirit with a strong sense of school identity. His central point is that it is this community — the purposes, traditions, norms, and values that hold a school community together — that serves as the foundation from which all reform measures must work. Without understanding these foundations, beneficial change will not occur. Deal argues that only by working with this positive culture will reforms actually succeed.

The crux of the text is that the most successful reform measures will not come from the legislature and be imposed on a school from the outside, because such measures do not account for each school's individual culture. Every school has a unique culture that can be either positive or negative. To create meaningful reform, the school itself needs to implement changes that work within its given culture and build a sense of community within the school. In other words, the effective educational leader is one who looks inward and builds change outward, rather than the reverse.

Conclusion

Based on all the evidence found in the above cited reference materials, it is likely that in twenty years education will be based on addressing local needs and abilities. The federal government will play a smaller role in implementing rules and regulations, and instead school boards will once again serve as the primary leaders of educational reform.