Policymakers and Educators
Policymakers and educators live in separate assumptive worlds. Policymakers see the United States academically slipping behind foreign countries and they see laws such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 as a solution to that problem. Educators see all the distractions that the students bring to school with them and a lack of resources. They see NCLB as an unobtainable goal despite its good intentions. To improve the education of the numerous students in the United States policymakers and educators need to understand the other’s point of view.
Diane Ravitch states in her article “Testing and Accountability, Historically Considered” that “there are two competing paradigms of education reform at work simultaneously and not always harmoniously,” meaning that even though both groups are trying to improve education in the United States they are in some ways inhibiting each other from succeeding. For instance, standardized test are extremely popular with policymakers (even long before NCLB) because it is a way to hold the schools and teachers accountable for what the students were learning. However, teachers fear that this encourages “‘teaching to the test,’ ‘narrowing the curriculum’ to what is tested, and cheating by teachers” (Ravitch, 17). So many educators speak out against standardized tests and NCLB because they want discourage learning only for the test where as policymakers think that educators do not want to be held accountable.
Catherine Marshall explains in her article that “some policies are implemented with goals and procedures becoming a part of the ongoing processes in schools. More often, however, districts simply declare policies to be implemented with no real accounting for results. In addition, the norms and values of teachers affect what happens to policy as it is implemented.” I do not agree that educators should ignore policies because they are put in place to help the students, but maybe if policymakers had a better understanding of what daily classroom life is like then policies would be easier to implement and more efficient. Marshall goes on to say, “Without educators’ cooperation, policy will not be implemented. Without the clout of state policy, many of the problems of education systems cannot be addressed.” It is imperative that both sides work together otherwise education will essentially remain unchanged. “Structures that enable policymakers and educators to experience and discuss each other’s worlds work to span the chasm that separates the formulators and implementers of educational policy” (Marshall 102).
I believe that American education does need to improve but I also believe that improvements cannot happen until policymakers and educators understand each other’s point of view and work together.
Marshall, Catherine. “Bridging the Chasm between Policymakers and Educators,” Theory into Practice, Vol. 27 No. 2 pp. 98-105, 1998.
This post was submitted by Erin Killey.
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