reflection papaer#8

As I read about the educational reform movement that was initiated in a massive part by the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983 in my textbook, I noticed the three broad waves of educational reform. The first wave involved the setting and maintaining of both students and teacher’s standards. The second wave involved the establishment of a more decentralized decision-making structure in education. The third wave of educational reform was the school voucher and charter school movement. The wave I found to be most important and dominate is the second one, the establishment of a more a central authority on decision-making structure in education. The reason why I found it to be so dominant is because when education has the distribution of administrative power in the making up of decisions for school structures it is easier for both the students and the government. The more ideas given in from different perspectives the better it is in initiating a new and improved structure for education. Teachers didn’t always have a say in decisions that were being made until 1986. The enforcing of allowing of making teaching a Profession, by The Carnegie Task Force encouraged local school districts to find ways to give teachers a greater voice and an opportunity to speak up in school decisions. Teachers were then able to throw in their two cent in. The second wave of educational reform has been known as “school-based management” and “site-based decision making” amongst other names. This wave is very dominant and thus stands out aside of the other two.