School Reform

School reform should involve the voices of students, teachers, community members, and local school board members.  If any one voice has too much power then there is the risk of moral ramifications of one voice being overpowered by another.  If a school board has too much power then there is a risk of corruption which may impact the community, teacher, and student trust in the school board. The philosophical view of the board may result in school board members’ agendas becoming more important than what is the best for the students that are being educated.  The social ramifications of having a school board that exerts too much power is that the relationship of the school board with the community members could deteriorate to the point of causing conflict in the community as well as the school district.  This is especially prevalent in smaller school districts where the school is the center of the community.  The opposite can happen if a community exerts more power than the school board.  The community’s overpowering voice can cause problems in the school district with administrators, teachers and students.  There needs to be a balance of the voices that are involved in school reform. 

State or Federal Powers are often too far removed from the specific needs of the community to make decisions that are in the best interests of all the students in a state or in the United States.  An example is how the state of Texas changed the assessment to STAAR.  I do not believe this was in the best interest of all students and all districts.  I feel like the state decided to reform accountability because the legislators felt that the assessments needed more rigor based on information from some constituents.  Instead of doing statewide accountability reform, the legislators could have researched to find districts that exhibited "best practices" and then made minor changes based on the research.  

Another example is No Child Left Behind because most states already had accountability testing in place.  Some of the state accountability conflicted with the federal requirements of No Child Left Behind.  How much money has been wasted on assessment development that could have been used to improve education for students?

At the David’s School, the students are more involved in their education by discussing their goals and aspirations with teachers as well as the principal.  This is done by having individual meetings with students and having an IEP for each student.  The principal made home visits to visit families to keep the lines of communication open between school and home.  The students and families were not intimidated by the education system, they were equal partners.