I think we can; I know we can. The question is, will we?
We can move from test and punishment “reforms” — the No Child Left Behind prescription — to policies and practices that concentrate on helping schools improve.
To do so:
- we must understand what real education reform is;
- we need to consider all our choices;
- we must get over this idea that we DON’T know where to begin;
- we have to set the right priorities;
- we need change for the better – improvement – that leads to progress, and
- we have to recognize that we are looking at a crossroad of opportunity.
“American education, that great engine of the democracy, does not drive itself. It must be guided, not by one but by many, into a future of incalculable promise.” Francis Keppel, 1966, pg. 163 of The Necessary Revolution in American Education