History of Educational Reform

History of Educational Reform
Today new school reforms have been formulated. These reforms are created to form individuals into becoming financially advanced and globally competitive persons. The very means to gauge the progress of the new reform is through test scores. Standardized tests and the test scores are now tantamount to accountability, transforming the educational system into a dehumanized market institution. The school is seen as a capital investment and is now measured according to financial value. Today 's school reforms have seemed to do away with the notion of schools "helping to create people who are fully developed as human beings and as democratic citizens." (Tyack D. 1997) However, amidst the prevailing regress in today 's education and contentions on reforms, Americans hold schools as the means to change and influence society. No other institution in the culture is solely devoted to developing mental powers, and the existence both of powerful means of psychological and political influence through the organized media and of an intellectually complex culture and economy amply justifies, and indeed compels, a focus on the effective use of one 's mind. Furthermore, intellectual training is eminently useful: it opens means to educate oneself in any sphere of interest or importance. Without it, one is crippled. With it, one can gain, on one 's own, that comprehensive learning that so attracted the predecessors in the past. The belief is still the same: "education holds the key to the future". Indeed, the future of the United States of America, of any similar country, depends to a huge extent on what goes on in the schools, whose membership (teachers and studies) comprised a large percentage of the nation 's population. Any reform, any revolution – of ideas, of hearts and minds, of attitudes – could very well take root in the school system. The school is obviously the most potent vessel of the development of a pole and its culture. The

References: Ed.gov (2006). Education for All Handicapped Children 's Act of 1975. Retrieved December 2, 2006 from: http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/leg/idea/history.html The Harvard Law Review Association (1968). Developments in the Law: Academic Freedom. Harvard Law Review Hirsch, E.D. Jr. (1996) The school we need and why we don 't have them. New York: Doubleday, 317 pages. Kliebard, H. (1988). "Success and Failure in Educational Reform: Are There Historical Lessons?" Peabody Journal of Education. p. 144-157 Sherman, R. (1999). "And there were giants in the land: the life of William Heard Kilpatrick," History of Education Quarterly. pp. 344-346/3 pages Schugurensky, D. (2006). Selected Moments of the 20th Century. Retrieved from http://www.wier.ca/~%20daniel_schugurensky/assignment1/1965elemsec.html Tyack D. and Cuban, L. (1997) Tinkering Toward Utopia: A century of public school reform. Harvard University Press; Reprint edition