The Problem of Education Reform

I have been on vacations throughout my life where there is constant opposition to decisions that are made. Is a shortcut really going to get us there faster? Is it better to drive fast or be safe? Should we stop at a hotel and take a nap? There are so many decisions that are made and allow for opposition and many people often get angry, but I have realized that much of this opposition comes without the "reformer" critically thinking about the matter. They yell at the driver to drive faster, but fail to consciously think about the effects that this decision could possibly have. There could be an accident and they don't reach their destination or they get pulled over by a cop and it slows them down and arrive later than they would have, or they get lucky and arrive at the destination early.

When I was younger and our family would travel to Rexburg to visit family, we would travel through Montana and would enjoy it because there was no posted speed limits on the Interstates. Expectations were for us to determine a safe traveling speed for the current road conditions. Although we enjoyed this, we often saw wrecks on the side of the road (often in the winter) because there was a lack of judgement in the proper traveling velocity. Since then, Montana has posted speed limits on the sides of the roads and I have noticed that there are less accidents. There were reforms that encouraged speed limits to be posted to increase the safety of travelers, but now there are reforms once again that encourage the speed limits to be taken away and they say it is not necessary.

The same is happening in education. There are education reforms that have taken place and then years later another reform occurs that opposes that which had just taken place. Ravitch explains that this is a problem with education reform, that it just leads to other reforms or fails to look at the past, present, and future.