What is Behind Educational Change

Education continues to change and undergo various turning points. This is true especially with the implementation of K-12. What is behind these educational changes? Can this be attributed to only one reason? Various educational policies passed are still in the process of being scrutinized to prove its credibility, strengths, and viability. Policies that talks about…


Education continues to change and undergo various turning points. This is true especially with the implementation of K-12. What is behind these educational changes? Can this be attributed to only one reason?

Various educational policies passed are still in the process of being scrutinized to prove its credibility, strengths, and viability. Policies that talks about school and teacher accountability, high quality schools, varied forms of parental choice regarding education of their children, low-performing schools, acknowledging high achieving poor students are just some of the many policies that need attention.

To help ensure that educational policies are given due realization, there are advocacy organizations that help out in funding. The organizations also help in providing children centered educational laws and regulations. Preservation of teachers’ status quo are also given attention and are made sure to be properly implemented. Someof the teachers’ interests are career growth, job satisfaction, and just compensations.

Ideally, these educational policies should mandate the best for teachers and leaners. However, this is not always the case. Educational policies are not always the answer to most of problems in the educational sector. Practicing the policies seem to be the main root on how educational changes take place. This is best captured in what Rick Hess stated in a 2013 National Affairs article in the US entitled “The Missing Half of School Reform”. He state, “While public policy can make people do things, it cannot make people do those things well. This is especially salient in education for two reasons. First, state and federal policy makers do not run schools; they merely write laws and regulations telling school districts what principals and teachers ought to do. And second, schooling is a complex, highly personal endeavor, which means that what happens at the individual level—the level of the teacher and the student—is the most crucial factor in separating failure from success. In education, there is often a vast distance between policy and practice.”

As such, creating good educational policies is a must, but putting them into proper action is another story.

References:

Eisner, E.W. (2002). The state of the arts and the improvement of education. Art Education Journal, 1(1), 2-6. 

Hess, F.M.(2013) The Missing Half of School Reform. National Affairs. Retrieved from http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-missing-half-of-school-reform on April 2, 2016

Philip H. Phenix (January 1963). “Educational Theory and Inspiration”.Educational Theory

By: Lovely D. Carlos