Challenging Reformers’ Conventional Wisdom about Structures and Classroom Practice
Restructure school governance by creating site councils where teachers and principal decide about curriculum, organization, and instruction. Restructure the comprehensive high school into small high schools with longer school days, teachers as advisers, and a college prep curriculum. Restructure teaching and learning by equipping students with laptops (or tablets) and have students taking online courses a few hours a day. Restructure teacher staff development by establishing professional learning communities.
Policymakers love creating new and different structures because they believe such arrangements will alter how teachers teach and then lead to more and better student learning. But that chain of assumptions has a few kinks in it.
Researchers have discovered (and rediscovered), however, that once new structures are put into place—school
