POLICY makers in education have long embraced reform. Unfortunately, education reforms have consistently been plagued by the reformers' lack of knowledge and appreciation of the history of education. Accordingly, the latest reform, touted as a panacea, meets with failure, and the search for the magic elixir begins anew. In The Imperfect Panacea: American Faith in Education, 1865-1930, Henry Perkinson relates an anecdote about his secretary, who was typing the book's text. She asked him, If the schools can't solve these problems, then who can? Perkinson concluded that her question rested on two basic assumptions shared by most Americans: First, that all social problems are solvable; second, that the schools are the panacea for all social problems. (1) The history of American education is replete with examples of supposed panaceas. Taking the shape of reforms, these well-meaning efforts--often worthy in themselves--have dotted the educational landscape since the time of Horace Mann in the 1830s and 1840s. For example, the common school itself would remove all crime and poverty from American society. Mann described it as the greatest invention ever made by man. (2) The devotional reading of the Bible in schools would result in a virtuous America. Texts such as the McGuffey readers would unfailingly instill the right character in the students. The public school of the early 20th century would make good, loyal Americans out of the children of the immigrants who were then arriving in large numbers. In the mid-20th century, the Life Adjustment curriculum would prepare all American youths for satisfying lives as individuals, family members, and citizens. The infusion of funds into the science and math curricula by the National Defense Education Act would help the U.S. catch with the Soviets in the post-Sputnik era, instill needed academic rigor in the secondary school curriculum, and fittingly challenge our gifted students. (As defined by the federal government, Brahms, Beethoven, Rembrandt, and Da Vinci would not have qualified as gifted.) Potential panaceas grew in number as the 20th century progressed. We were greeted with open education, which would educate the young naturally. Schools would play a central role in the War on Poverty. Accountability, especially in the guise of performance contracting, would make the schools accountable to their constituents. Behavioral objectives would serve as an infallible means of achieving the goals of effective teaching and learning. Such pedagogical movements as modular scheduling would provide the proper organizational pattern for the curriculum. Site-based management would remove the educational problems created by large size. WHY THE SEARCH FOR PANACEAS? The ahistorical nature of our nation, and hence of our schools, undergirds the search for a panacea. As Seymour Sarason has pointed out in The Case for Change, reforms are doomed to failure because we underestimate the complexity of what we are up against and are unable or unwilling to use the cumulative experience humans have acquired over the years. (3) There is also the attraction of that which is novel, which often turns out to be no more than a fad. Compounding this fascination with the novel is our tendency to jump on the bandwagon, giving scant thought before the leap. Add to these reasons the American trait of feeling compelled to get everything done in a hurry; the crusading fervor of the reformers, who seem driven to depict present practices as worthless and their own actions as redeeming; and the tendency of innovators to reduce complicated interactions to one-shot, sure-fire remedies. Schools, as Perkinson pointed out, are limited institutions. Sometimes those involved politically with education fail to recognize the modesty of the school's clout. (4) Thomas Sergiovanni has argued that some policy makers believe that finding the right change strategy promises victory in the national and even the international brain race. …
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Jan 2, 2020
Luke Ritter 
