CPD Team

I came across a very interesting article in the Harvard Education Letter (Vol 26, no 1) by Richard F Elmore, an old friend of the National CPD Team and indeed of Scottish education.

He reflects on school reform over the last 25 years, by considering how the work he has undertaken has changed his thinking and his habits of mind, and how he has been influenced by others.

He comes to three significant conclusions:

1. He used to think that policy was the solution. And now he thinks that policy is the problem. He describes the American system as “overwhelmed with policy, conditioned to respond to the immediate demands of whoever controls the political agenda, and not invested in the long-tern health of the sector and the people who work in it.” He believes the answer lies in building a stronger profession by “direct engagement with practitioners, rather than trying to “fix” schools with policy”.
2. He used to think that people’s beliefs determined their practice. Now he thinks that people’s practices determine their beliefs. He used to believe that improvements in student learning would come from changing teacher attitudes about what children can learn in order that they change their practice. He now believes that what people believe does not greatly influence the way they behave. Rather the largest determinant of of how people’s current practice is their past practice. He says “people demonstrate an amazingly resilient capacity to relabel their existing practices with whatever ideas are currently in vogue.” Elmore now cares more about what people do, and their willingness to engage in deeply unfamiliar practices.
3. He used to think that public institutions embody the collective values of society. He now thinks that they embody the interests of the people who work in them. He says that the phrase “We’re in it for the kids,” is a monument to self-deception. He believes that the public school system is among the most self-interested institutions in America, staffed by people who are not unusually corrupt, immoral or venal, but simply acting according to their interests. He claims that the greatest leaders of social transformation – Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela  – “led by providing an opportunity for people to bring their voices and actions to a common endeavor – not by confusing their own interests with those of the people they hoped to help.”

Would love to hear comments on this – or indeed what did you use to think . . . but now think. . . ?