If we know so much from research on learning, why are educational reforms not successful?
Lorrie Shepard, dean of the CU-Boulder School of Education, asks this important question in an essay by the same name published in Past as Prologue: The National Academy of Education at 50.
Past as Prologue was published by the National Academy of Education, NAEd, in honor of the academy’s 50th anniversary in 2015. In this volume, NAEd members reflect on the academy’s commitment to address pressing educational issues and how the field can become more influential in the future.
Shepard, a past president of NAEd, took a historical look at the standards movement and the disconnect between research on learning and educational reforms. She offers researchers and policymakers a key lesson learned since the introduction of standards-based reform: “cheap, superficial, and coercive versions of reform ideals will inevitably prevent deeply substantive, hoped-for change.” She argues that we must roll back accountability mandates, which have exacerbated inequities, and invest instead in smaller-scale curriculum and assessment projects where best practices can be tried out, improved, and then shared.
Download If we know so much from research on learning, why are educational reforms not successful?
Watch Dean Shepard on the NAEd Fall 2015 Panel: The Assessment Box.