
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 30, 1994                   TAG: 9405020125
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LARRY HOWDYSHELL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE THWARTS SCHOOL-REFORM EFFORTS

JAMES P. Jones, president of the State Board of Education, stated in an April 5 letter to the editor (``A setback for educational reform'') that he felt a citizens' board should oversee all efforts to improve education. He protested that the General Assembly, at its recently concluded session, had passed a bill (since vetoed by Gov. George Allen) establishing a new board to determine qualifications of public-school teachers. Jones concluded that the new board would further splinter efforts to improve our school system. He reasoned that reform requires a consistent, approach. He would seem to be absolutely right!

On the other hand, the Virginia Education Association has argued that teacher morale, not to mention instructional efficiency, would be boosted by putting teachers on licensing boards and in other decision-making areas related to the classroom. The VEA also would seem to be absolutely right!

I've been involved in education for the past 20 years as a teacher and administrator. I can't say I'm really an expert. But my everyday experiences have led me to believe that we have the best system of public education in the world. Why is it then that everyone around me seems to be saying that something's badly wrong with our educational system? And how can opposite views, such as Jones' and the VEA's, both seem to be right?

Although I'm the eternal optimist when it comes to our schools, I admit to feeling that our public schools are edging toward ominous trouble. As I ask myself what's wrong, the answer comes: The traditional school system has become thoroughly resistant to change. And a very nontraditional culprit has exposed this deep-seated tumor: technology.

Traditionally, school has been a place where knowledge has been preserved and passed on - civic and humanitarian knowledge, scientific and vocational knowledge. Now, computer-related technology and the vast media have converted school facilities into more of a ``switchboard,'' to help students find and handle this knowledge. Traditionally, we teachers have retreated to our classrooms, having little contact with each other and with the outside world. But here we're trapped with too little time and equipment to handle too much knowledge, which is now doubling itself by the decade. It isn't just what we teach anymore, but where to find it and how we handle it. The complexity of the technical workload for teachers requires shared responsibilities but, for various reasons, schools haven't really welcomed the notion of teams of educators working with technology. Perhaps understandably, it's been more like individual teachers working against technology.

Even more traditionally, the educational system has made its school decisions based on many different sources. After all, everyone went to school, didn't they? So everybody seems to have an opinion about how schools should be run - textbook companies, Parent-Teacher Associations, universities, commissions, government boards, testing companies, etc. By the time change sifts down through the decision-making gear and throughout all of our isolated classrooms, the change has sort of evaporated.

Of course, ``Goals 2000'' contains wonderful objectives for the near future. But they may be a notch too high on our totem pole of school goals. Perhaps it's time to put a more inspirational goal at the top of this pole: The school system will place the very highest priority upon its ability to respond to meaningful change in every idea and aspect that relates to education.

All of the reform goals possibly can be reached if school systems take a more favorable position toward change. But there are red flags popping up on several critical issues:

Educational financing. Can the local property tax continue to pay for much of the school bill? Technology will cost more and more. Proper professional pay for teams of teachers and larger technical staffs may well drive costs up. Has the time arrived for creative financing?

Coordination of technology in the total school. Schools lag behind their potential. Change-minded educators are suggesting that school systems provide buildings and central levels of technology leadership. Schools would then become ``electronic villages'' where students and educators can really manage this informational explosion.

Staffing patterns. The notion of teachers operating independently is a common stumbling block. Technology and teaming is coming on like gang-busters. Also, new roles for teachers, plus increased responsibilities better-trained aids, come with the teaming package.

Control of the educational scene. Thick, bureaucratic layers of hierarchy responsible for making decisions in education have come under fire. Bullets of reform can't come close to penetrating this armor. It guards the schoolhouse door against change. Like them or not (and I have some reservations), concepts such as choice, privatization and the Edison Project may tear through this heavy hierarchy of school control and stand the educational world on its ear.

As I see it, public-school education today has very little ability to respond to meaningful change. Good reforms with good goals keep bouncing off of it. Maybe the only way to quit ``tinkering around the edges of educational reform,'' as Jones described it, is to start over. One thing seems certain: More of the same old thing can only result in more frustration.

Larry Howdyshell of Salem, a former school supervisor in Montgomery County, is now a substitute teacher.

by CNB