It takes a village

I'm sure most people have heard the expression "It takes a village to raise a child." This is very true, and this is one reason why modern school reform efforts are not working. These policies look only at the schools, not at other factors that affect a student's education -- i.e., a student's home life and mental health, among others. This is one reason why I think "education policy," "economic policy," "health policy," etc. should all be working together rather than in silos.

The writer of this article outlines five reform efforts that he thinks would affect education for the better, and I agree especially with his points about building community ties (due to the above reasons) and a student-centered learning environment. To this second point: In grad school, I was taught that a student-centered learning environment (in which students take "ownership" of their learning, rather than the teacher lecturing) is sacrosanct. Yet I have only seen it implemented in a handful of classrooms (granted, I have not observed more than probably a dozen, but I have heard enough stories from my own students that school didn't work this way for them; thus they have to be taught how to engage in my own student-centered classroom).

Ravani also mentions instructional guidance, which I think is highly lacking when new policies are implemented. We are all expected to attend Professional Development events, because like every other profession, there are changes in the field. Yet these events, though well-intentioned, are often useless, because we are not taught how to implement new teaching methods. This New York Times article details how the "new math" of the Common Core is an incredibly good idea, but teachers are not given adequate time to learn how to teach it. Therein lies the problem.

But back to the village scenario. Ravani's first point is about strong school leadership, and I think we can all agree that strong leadership of any organization is essential for its success. The goal of strong school leaders should be to ensure that all their students are successful, and they can do so by ensuring that all of the school's parts are working together. Larry Cuban explains that there is a difference between complex and complicated tasks, and school reform is the former due to all its moving parts. Hence, we need a village to run a school as well as raise a child. Therefore, why is one entity (the government) in charge of everything? We need to include ALL parts, in this case, students, parents, teachers, and administrators, into the decision making process.