Cracking the Code of Education Reform

Creative Compliance and Ethical Leadership

Christopher H. Tienken

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781544368214
• eBook ISBN: 9781544368221
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Policy

Lead between the lines— evaluate Ed policies to emphasize the positives and minimize the negatives

Although educational reform is intended for positive change, sometimes it misses the mark.  However, when school leaders capitalize on the positive aspects of reforms they can strategize to ensure the best outcomes for students.

Christopher Tienken, professor and international speaker, shares his insights on how to identify both positive and negative aspects of education reform to maximize the benefits for students. This book introduces a practical framework for interpreting educational reform within an evidence-based practice, and provides thoughtful ways to finesse results out of challenging policies. Designed for use on the ground level, this book features:
• Seven specific creative compliance strategies to maximize student and educator success
• Case studies that illustrate how to critique reforms and take action
• Reflective questions to guide evaluation and application
• Ethical decision-making checklist

Analyzing both successful and unsuccessful reform ideas from the past, this book champions creative compliance and how to lead innovatively/judiciously.

Part I Reform Critique

Chapter 1 Ethical Context of Education Reform and Compliance

Reform

The word reform when used in education reform often implies that something is broken and needs fixing. The rhetoric about the need to reform education in the United States is primarily based on the notion that America’s entire PreK–12 public education system, one of the largest and most inclusive education systems in the world, is failing and needs to be fixed. However, the term education reform is rarely clearly defined by those who call for it.

The term education reform as used in this book aligns with the RAND Corporation’s (n.d.) definition of education reform as “any planned changes in the way a school or school system functions, from teaching methodologies to administrative processes.” Specifically, this book focuses on education reforms that are mandated through a federal or state law or code or required via a formal school district or school policy that an educator must lead, manage, or implement. Education reform, as it is used in this book, does not include things educators design or create themselves.

This chapter presents the first part of a three-part framework school leaders can use to discern the positive and negative aspects of an education reform and take action upon the reform to accentuate the positive influences and reduce the negative influences on students and educators. It focuses on determining the ethical disposition of education reforms and provides practical principles school leaders can use to reflect on the ethics of their proposed actions.

Ambiguous Rhetoric

Policies and programs enacted under the ambiguous banner of education reform are sometimes difficult to understand and critique. It is the ambiguity of the rhetoric used to justify the proposed education reform policies and programs that creates challenges for school leaders who try to determine the quality and efficacy of proposed reforms. In many cases, the rationales put forth for “reform” sound commonsensical but hide potential pitfalls for school leaders, educators, and students. For example, who would argue against more rigorous and standardized coursework for students so that they can all become college and career ready to better compete in the global economy? Why would educators not agree with programs that seek to reward them with a monetary bonus for raising student achievement on standardized tests? What could possibly be wrong with using results from standardized tests to judge student achievement, teacher quality, principal quality, and school quality and determine if a student can graduate high school or be promoted to the next grade? Why not give parents and guardians choices of how and where their children attend and receive education? Choice is democratic, isn’t it?

It is the ambiguity of the rhetoric used to justify the proposed education reform policies and programs that creates challenges for school leaders who try to determine the quality and efficacy of proposed reforms.

Each of those questions is accompanied by answers that include positive and negative components, yet as Yong Zhao (2018) noted, the rhetoric of education reform never presents both sides; the potential negative side education effects of reforms are rarely ever noted. The ethical underpinnings of reforms receive almost no attention, as if the ends justify whatever means are necessary to achieve them.

Beneath the Crust of Rhetoric

On the surface, most of the reform rhetoric sounds appropriate and beneficial, and there are positive aspects to many of the education reform proposals. But the devil lurks somewhere below the surface, in the intricate details. Beneath the crust of the headlines and pious language live the issues of empirical support, implementation, and unintended consequences that are rarely fully examined or explained to educators or the public. In many ways, educators come to know the details as they are trying to implement the reform mandates. This can feel like flying a plane while simultaneously trying to build it.

Educators, and school leaders in particular, are sometimes put in the precarious position of having to react to the reforms at the point of contact: the school. They rarely have time to fully identify the intended and unintended long- and short-term consequences or to develop customized responses to the reforms prior to implementation, from the point of view of an organized critique derived from an evidence-based framework. The mountains of academic information, sometimes contradictory in nature, and confusing public rhetoric that accompanies each reform proposal can be overwhelming and difficult to decipher.

Educators, and school leaders in particular, are sometimes put in the precarious position of having to react to the reforms at the point of contact: the school.

The lack of an organized and evidence-based framework from which to assess reforms can leave some school leaders in the positions of supporting reforms that have long-term negative effects on students or not supporting reform proposals that would benefit students. School leaders should be able to make accurate judgments about education reforms in order to decide whether they must defend their students and educators from practices and policies built on nothing more than rhetoric, junk science, and anti-intellectual ideology or support a proposal or program founded on evidence of positive outcomes (Tienken & Orlich, 2013). Those judgments should be informed in part on the ethical characteristics of the reform.

Ethics Within the Context of Education Reform

School leaders can use ethical principles as part of a larger framework to assess and critique reforms and take action to blunt the negative effects of bad policies. This book situates ethics within dilemmas faced by school leaders in the acts of judging and implementing education reforms. School leaders must understand the ethical implications of enacting education reforms within the context of the reform and sphere of influence in which they lead. Stefkovich and Begley (2007) provided a general ethical guideline that school leaders should focus on the basic premise of working for students’ best interests. This book takes that premise one step further and suggests that evidence-informed practice is a required part of ethical leadership. School leaders need to make an evidence-based determination as to whether the implementation of an education reform proposal is right or wrong, good or bad for students, educators, the school, the district, and/or the education system in general.

School leaders must understand the ethical implications of enacting education reforms within the context of the reform and sphere of influence in which they lead.

Starratt (1991) identified three types of ethics leaders can use to guide their actions: (1) the ethic of critique, (2) the ethic of justice, and (3) the ethic of care. The ideas, framework, and strategies presented in this book are situated within Starratt’s three types of ethics yet draw upon the work of other experts in the domain of ethics. Starratt recommended that school leaders conduct reflection based on the order of critique, justice, and care.

Ethic of Critique

School leaders are presented with situations in which potential ethical conflicts can be difficult to discern. Organized critique provides the foundation school leaders can use to conduct ethical reflection on education reforms and their own responses to the reforms. Critique moves beyond superficial recognition of obvious details such as who must accomplish what. Critique provides school leaders with a way to examine deeply an issue or reform proposal from multiple perspectives, in an organized manner.

The critique framework presented in the first three chapters of this book provides school leaders with the following five perspectives from which to discern the positive and negative aspects of reforms: (1) the student, (2) the curriculum, (3) principles of human development, (4) social forces, and (5) ethics. School leaders are encouraged to work through all five perspectives when critiquing an education reform issue in order to better understand the potential positive and negative aspects.

Organized critique provides answers to three reflective questions whose answers will help inform future leadership actions (Buskey & Pitts, 2013):

1. In what ways does the reform further the purpose(s) of the organization?
2. Is the purpose of the reform generally ethically just, or are there inherent educational conflicts, and what are they?
3. How does the reform address or exacerbate inequalities in the system?

Ethic of Justice

The ethic of justice derives from two schools of thought. Starratt (1991) explained that one school promotes the idea that justice resides with the individual and not in social norms. He wrote, “Individual will and preferences are the only sources of value. Therefore, social relationships are essentially artificial and governed by self-interest” (p. 192). This school of thought about justice is decidedly self-centered and perhaps ill-suited for a democracy.

The second school of thought about the ethic of justice aligns with Deweyian views about the importance of the relationship between public school and a democratic society. It is only by participation in community life that individuals can fully come to understand how their own behavior influences the common good. Public school is the only publicly funded and universally accessible social institution that provides a mechanism to socialize all future adults to democracy. Ethical decision making undergirds acting for the greater good of society.

Public school is the only publicly funded and universally accessible social institution that provides a mechanism to socialize all future adults to democracy.

Sullivan (1986) clarified the relationship between community life and citizenship and democracy: “Citizenship is a shared initiative and responsibility among persons committed to mutual care” (p. 22). Understandings of justice flow from societal traditions and “present efforts of the community to manage its affairs in the midst of competing claims of the common good and individual rights” (Starratt, 1991, p. 192).

The focus of the individual’s ethical development and decision making from the lens of a balance between community life and individual rights requires learning the responsibilities that individuals must assume in a democratic society to ensure that the rights and liberties of all people in the community are respected and protected. An ethic of justice proposes a constant search for homeostasis between the needs and wants of the individual and those of the greater good in a democratic society.

Starratt (1991) elaborated on the search for balance when he described two understandings of justice: (1) “justice as individual choices to act justly” and (2) “justice understood as the community’s choice to direct or govern its actions justly” (p. 193). The two understandings of justice create a situation in which the choices of the individual are influenced by the choices of the community and vice versa, and the influences are reciprocal.

As Giles, McCutchen, and Zechiel (1942) wrote, “Individuals must learn that there are responsibilities, as well as advantages, in the sharing of concerns involved in group living” (p. 10). The ethic of justice, when viewed as a balance between the individual and the community, leads to the conclusion that a person’s individual ethical interests do not supersede those of the greater good of the community. In the context of education reform, the ethic of justice requires school leaders to consider the intended and unintended impact of an education reform on themselves and on the larger education community and the system. An education reform could not be considered good or bad, right or wrong simply because it benefits or does not benefit an individual school leader. The reform must be judged in a larger context based upon evidence of how it impacts or will impact the community and the greater good.

Ethic of Caring

In general terms, the ethic of caring focuses on relationships between and among individuals. It moves the discussion of good or bad beyond contractual obligations and compliance with bureaucratic regulations toward recognizing the value and worth of people as individuals. Starratt (1991) explained,

An ethics of caring requires fidelity to persons, a willingness to acknowledge their right to be who they are, an openness to encountering them in their authentic individuality, a loyalty to the relationship. (p. 195)

The ethic of caring requires that the right of the individual to be valued as a human being within the bureaucratic system must be upheld by individuals and the community. It is the ethical duty of those within a community to remain grounded in building a stronger community through human relationships, regardless of issues of efficiency, compliance mandates, effectiveness, or other issues that influence ethics within organizations (p. 195).

Starratt (1991) clarified,

Such an ethic does not demand relationships of intimacy; rather it postulates a level of caring that honors the dignity of each person and desires to see that person enjoy a fully human life. (p. 195)

Finally, Starratt (1991) connected an ethic of caring to the importance of community within an ethic of justice:

Furthermore, it recognizes that it is in the relationship that the specifically human is grounded; isolated individuals functioning only for themselves are but half persons. (p. 195)

The ethic of caring implies that to be a whole person, the individual must also participate in the community of relationships with others. In this way, justice and caring are linked in a system in which there cannot be justice without caring. In the education setting, ethics of caring require school leaders to take action and care for those within the system as much as it requires to care about them. Leaders must view the people within the system as human beings, not as inanimate objects such as test results, class sizes, duty coverage in school schedules, percentages on an academic growth chart, or annual teacher evaluation scores. Thus, the position set forth in the framework espoused in Chapter 2 is that school leaders must care about how an education reform will identify, label, define, or categorize the human beings impacted by it and then act to offset any potential negative effects in order to care for those in the system.

Social Justice and Caring

Noddings (1999) raised the claim that there cannot be justice without care, and both require action on the part of the leader. Noddings’s position is supported by Gross and Shapiro’s (2004) social justice perspective in which leaders take concrete actions to ensure people are afforded justice as a right, not something that has to be earned. Being a human should automatically afford someone the right to justice because that is fair. This view of the ethic of justice as fairness afforded through an ethic of caring has its roots in Rawls’s (1971) idea of distributive justice. Noddings (1999) summarized Rawls’s position on distributive justice as,

people have rights; people are regarded as individu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Acknowledgements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Introduction
• Part I Reform Critique
• Chapter 1 Ethical Context of Education Reform and Compliance
• Chapter 2 Creative Compliance
• Chapter 3 Reframing Reform
• Part II Reform Case Studies
• Chapter 4 Case Study 1 Reframing Rigor
• Chapter 5 Case Study 2 Using or Abusing Standardized Test Results?
• Chapter 6 Case Study 3 Merit Pay
• Part III Promising Practices
• Chapter 7 Case Study 4 Recess of the Mind
• Chapter 8 Case Study 5 Problem- and Project-Based Learning
• Chapter 9 Final Issues
• Resource Guide
• Index
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