As a principal of Global Gateways, John Moran is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Psychology with an emphasis in Information Technology in Education. As he investigates the many aspects of the complex sets of issues that we learn about from the media and other sources, we thought it important that he share some of his learnings and reflections. So this page in our site will be a "Reflections Newsletter" on a few of the happenings in public education. His article appears below.
.No Silver Bullet
Public education is a set of systems within systems that are within systems – schools within school districts;
within states; within the U.S. Each of these systems within the hierarchy contributes to and influences student learning
and performance. 
As I started
thinking about the various issues on reforming public schools, the following picture and my title emerged.
True to my title, it is my hypotheses that none of these “reforms” by themselves will result in increased student
learning and performance, i.e., there is no silver bullet.
One of the basic tenets of systems thinking is that there are relationships between components of the system termed “feedback”. Thus, if high academic standards are introduced into any part of a system, the standards will influence (feedback to) teacher quality and most possibly feedback into funding requirements.
If we look at Richard Kahlenberg’s book, A Notion at Risk: Preserving Public Education as an Engine for Social Mobility – as a whole – it describes several of the components of public education reforms, from a reductionist point of view. That is, in each chapter there is a description of one of the possible reforms that influences public education; however, the possible relationship of one to another is not discussed. Using the various contributed articles, let’s examine the relationships and influences and discuss them from a systems point of view, starting with standards.
In his article on standards, Adam Garmoran, one of the contributing authors, writes that advocates state “high standards provide a clear vision of what constitutes important content, excellent teaching and meaningful learning.” Let’s ignore all the arguments about whether or not that is a correct statement or those about who sets the standards and accept that high standards are a “good and impactful” reform. What are the influences on teacher quality? On funding? On an individual school? On the school district, etc.?
Another tenet of systems thinking is that change is heavily influenced by initial conditions – which in today’s world means that there is a large percentage of teachers who, according to Linda Darling-Hammond, another contributing author, do not have the credentials necessary to be considered “high quality”. She goes on to say that “Expert teachers are a prerequisite for the successful implementation of a challenging curriculum.” Since teachers are a necessary requirement to implement high standards it would stand to reason that there must be some additional teacher development in order to have the teachers teach to these new high standards. The new teacher development program will cost additional funding, which again according to Darling-Hammond is the best return on funding investments (22% on each $500 investment). So let’s review, we want to implement high standards which implied additional teacher education which implied more funding which might be diagramed as:
We notice that the
introduction of high standards directly impacts/influences the other much discussed reforms, so clearly, merely setting
high standards is not the “silver bullet” as an attempt to implement the standards directly impacts funding and teacher
quality. In order to see improved learning all four are required to achieve the desired results. Regardless of which
system (school, district, state or federal) attempts to implement high standards these relationships hold – extra funding
allocated for NCLB is an example.
There are many variables discussed in the Kahlenberg book, dealing with class size, hiring and paying teachers, and resource allocation among and between schools, districts and states. We can analyze any of these components in a similar fashion as we did with standards and the conclusion would be similar – there is no single reform that will, by itself, produce improved student learning and performance. In my opinion, we must “back off” and take a systems view of education. Public education is a very complex set of interrelated components and it is time that we develop the systems relationships and maps to better understand where and what interventions will produce the most optimal results for student learning and for the country as a whole.
In article in the April 9, 2007 Reno Gazette Journal, Jane Nichols, Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs is quoted as saying “We are the only developed country where the younger population is less educated than the older population.” We definitely need a systems approach to create change in public education that will make Ms. Nichols statement no longer be relevant to the U.S.
Reference
Kahlenberg, R.D. (200). A notion at risk: Preserving public education as an engine for social mobility. New York. The Century Foundation Press.