by Randy Clemens
In the coming months and years, we will increasingly talk about innovation in education. Words like creativity, innovation, transformation, and entrepreneurship will become part of our daily vocabularies. All are catchwords for reform.
Larry Cuban, an excellent scholar, writes about the history of reform (see references). He reliably returns to the same conclusion in his writings: Again and again we select and support reforms, and again and again the reforms fail.
My family occasionally went to the toy store when I was little. With allowance in hand, I hastily ran to the first toy that caught my interest. As I returned to my parents, my mom smiled and excitedly asked, “What’d you get?” My dad, with measure, calm, and a slight air of skepticism, gruffly said, “Are you sure that’s what you want? That’s all of your allowance.” Cuban is the father who reminds us all to pause and think when selecting our reform du jour.
Arne Duncan and Race to the Top support a multitude of changes. Some are incremental, focusing on improving current structures, and some are fundamental, focusing on changing current structures.
I, like Cuban, am skeptical of incremental changes. They do not inspire long-term, sustainable improvement. Fundamental changes do, but they are more costly and difficult to implement. With billions of dollars at stake, perhaps now is the time to pause and reflect. What do we really want to accomplish, and do the means match the ends?
Cuban, L. (1990). Reforming again, again, and again. Educational Researcher, 19(1), 3-13.
Cuban, L. (1992). What happens to reforms that last? The case of the junior high school, American Educational Research Journal, 29(2), 227-51.
Cuban, L. (2004). The blackboard and the bottom line. Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press.
Cuban, L. (2006). Educational entrepreneurs redux. In F. M. Hess (Ed.), Educational entrepreneurship: Realities, challenges, possibilities (pp. 223-242). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press.
Tyack, D. & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering towards utopia: A century of public school reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University press.
