Flawed Thinking About Reform

More responsible family and community involvement WON’T WORK. Transportation as an obstacle to finding good jobs, JUST AN EXCUSE. From my perspective, what's really interesting about the two stories detailed above is not necessarily that each seems to unequivocally reject a reform initiative, but rather the flawed thinking that underlies the rejection of these initiatives.  What I have noticed over the years is that the quick dismissal of these perfectly reasonable initiatives is at least partially due to what I call “One Big Solution Syndrome” (OBSS).  This syndrome is characterized by the tendency to conceptualize and understand any suggestion on the basis of its potential to unilaterally solve education’s ills.  Dismissal often occurs because worth is evaluated on this basis.

When I would engage someone in a discussion about the potential of community involvement, for instance, that person would inevitably jump to the conclusion that I thought this was the way to educational improvement.  While a discussion of the origins of OBSS is beyond this narrative (perhaps a reaction to optimistic solutions in a world of pessimism), its existence can be an obstacle to a constructive dialogue about reform.  When discussing this observation with one of my professors, I mentioned how I always considered community involvement a piece of a reform puzzle, and, moreover, not the biggest piece.  While I am an advocate of community involvement, I certainly ranked it below well-prepared teachers and good school leadership in terms of an impact of influence. Rather than thinking of reform initiatives as a puzzle of pieces, my professor suggested thinking of reform as a mosaic because in a mosaic pieces come in different shapes and sizes.  The mosaic as metaphor reflects the belief that when talking about educational reform, it is best to think of some pieces as just a little more important than other pieces.  However, the mosaic is complete—and hopefully appealing to the eye--when the different pieces are fitted together. 

OBSS is a huge obstacle to change because it leads perfectly intelligent people to dismiss ideas because they want the problem solved neatly, cleanly, and quickly.  In reality, the complexity of the issues facing urban education requires us to see reform as a mosaic of ideas, connected by their potential to improve educational performance.