"President Obama wants to rewrite the No Child Left Behind Law to give schools greater incentives to booster their students' achievement. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has charged that many university-based teacher preparation programs are not equipping teachers for the 21st century classroom.
Few will dispute that more education reforms are needed. But many of the prescriptions may not be up to the task of dramatically improving student achievement because they are rooted in a reform paradigm that has failed to produce this desired result.
In an essay titled 'The End of the Education Debate,' Chester Finn Jr. argues that the long-reigning paradigm, with its defining ideas of standards, testing and (school) choice, has run its course. What's needed now, he says, is a more fundamental rethinking of how schools are governed and financed if we are to move student achievement scores off the flat line and into an upward direction. In other words, we need to change the context in which reforms are implemented."
Few will dispute that more education reforms are needed. But many of the prescriptions may not be up to the task of dramatically improving student achievement because they are rooted in a reform paradigm that has failed to produce this desired result.
In an essay titled 'The End of the Education Debate,' Chester Finn Jr. argues that the long-reigning paradigm, with its defining ideas of standards, testing and (school) choice, has run its course. What's needed now, he says, is a more fundamental rethinking of how schools are governed and financed if we are to move student achievement scores off the flat line and into an upward direction. In other words, we need to change the context in which reforms are implemented."