School reform and perspectives on the role of school counselors: a century of proposals for change

Professional School Counseling, April, 2002 by Edwin L. Herr

In a rising crescendo of presidential exhortations and policy debates about the need for school reform in the United States, it is difficult to remember that calls for school reform are not new. Indeed, it can be argued that since the beginnings of the Republic, the United States has constantly been in a process of education reform. Each time there is a change of national presidential administrations, there is likely to be a proposed shift in the emphases that educational policy and practice should address, creating a constant process of "starting over," looking for new solutions to enduring problems.

Although it is easy to target changes in political parties and national administrations as the source of the constant push for school reform, the latter has deeper and more enduring roots than the agendas of political parties. In the United States, politicians, educators, religious leaders, industrialists, and other special interest groups have been in conflict about the purposes of education, particularly in the common schools or grades K12, throughout the nation's history. In an overly simplified way, it can be argued that for more than the past two centuries, policy makers, administrators, and scholars of education have been in debate about the educational perspectives of the original founders of the nation and the continuing vitality of such ideas. One can cite as examples the perspectives of two of the most prominent statespersons present at the birth of the nation: Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson believed that the primary purposes of education were the development of literacy and informed citizenship in order to effectively conduct the processes of democratic government and of meritocracy. He believed that education for an informed citizenry needed to emphasize the classical academic or liberal education subjects. Benjamin Franklin believed that education should, in addition, foster economic development and that students should acquire that knowledge which is both "ornamental and practical" (Best, 1962, p. 133). He believed in the school's role in providing vocational training as defined in the terms of his day. Periodically one or the other of these views or their integration can be detected in calls for education reform. Certainly, as is discussed later, the focus of the report of the National Commission on Excellence (1983), A Nation at Risk (which was highly influential in stimulating school reform during the past two decades), favors a Jeffersonian position, not that of Franklin. The stream of legislation and position papers in favor of increased and strengthened vocational education in the nation's schools is rooted in the latter.

The National History of School Reform: Some Perspectives

When the national history of school reform is considered, it can be argued that many reform proposals are developed in response to perceived national or international political, economic, or social events. Thus, in virtually every decade since the fundamental views of Jefferson and Franklin and their contemporary commentators' views about education were advanced, education in the United States has been debated, criticized, and frequently blame as been assigned to schools for a range of perceived national problems. Such problems have ranged from illiteracy to weak national defense, to a poorly prepared work force, to chemical dependency, to poor parenting, to losing the technological edge in international competition, to economic downturns, to violence, to the need for character development. However inaccurate these assertions may have been, they have constantly caused school personnel to respond to these attacks by changing the curricula, the structure and organization of schools, and the support services they provide

On the one hand, these continuing criticisms give public testimony to the importance of education as essential to achieving the nation's ideals: to the direct linkage between schooling and social, economic, and political development. On the other hand, many of the criticisms of U.S. education and the proposals to fix it tend to caricature or lag behind the realities and the complexities of American education and its interaction with the dynamics of the larger society.

Shanker (1990), among others (e.g., Goodland, 1983; Timar, 1989), argued that contemporary school reform proposals do not imagine different kinds of schools, but emphasize improving traditional schools--primarily at the secondary school level, traditional governance systems, and administrative bureaucracies. Shanker's point is a valid one as the types of reform proposals advanced by educational critics are examined. In general, they argue for strengthening the traditional system of schooling not restructuring or creating newly configured and structured processes of schooling. Thus, proposed reforms include holding traditional school personnel and students more accountable for educational outcomes. Typical reform recommendations are wide-ranging. Some are focused on teachers (e.g., testing of new teachers in specific subject matter, teaching by technology, performance standards for teachers, better teacher pay, more in-service and professional development opportunities and longer career ladders for teachers with more incentives for promotion, merit pay). Some are directed to students (e.g., national standards in specific academic subjects to be met by students at specific grade levels usually 4, 8, 12; high stakes or exit testing to determine whether students should or should not graduate; stiffer academic standards; more courses taken by each student in science, mathematics, languages; no more social promotion; more frequent standardized testing; more homework).