MASA WHITE PAPER
Affirming the Commitment to Excellent Schools

For more than twenty years, Missouri public school superintendents have been leading the effort to reform and reshape Missouri schools to improve student learning. As a result, we believe the public schools are better than ever. Student achievement has improved steadily, and more students are completing school with the necessary skills and knowledge to succeed than at any time in the history of this country. 

The reform movement, however, has been a double-edged sword. Schools are somewhat overwhelmed with the amount and depth of change.  State and federal mandates with inadequate or no funding, societal and cultural changes, lack of time to implement large school reforms while operating current programs, and a loss of local autonomy have left schools struggling to keep up and have demoralized a portion of public school professionals.  As a result, the public schools and public education are at a crossroads. It is time to reexamine current school practices and to advocate policies that provide a realistic balance between high expectations for all students and adequate resources to achieve established goals. 

The public schools are the most fundamental governmental institutions in the United States.  They are the institutions with which most people have the greatest personal experience, and the institutions to which they daily entrust their children. Our schools reflect our society more accurately than any other institution. Even small matters that affect the schools evoke deep emotions. It is no wonder that the highly critical 1983 U.S. Department of Education report, “A Nation at Risk,” triggered a massive response that has profoundly affected public education. Dozens of organizations representing every imaginable education interest followed the model of “A Nation at Risk” and produced their own reports decrying deficiencies in public education. They advanced hundreds of recommendations for “reforming, restructuring, renewing,” and even “reinventing” public education and indeed, reform movement recommendations continue to be advanced today.

Alarmed by the reports and the public reaction to them, and stung by the criticism, state legislatures, state educational agencies and local school districts quickly responded.  We commissioned new studies to identify the characteristics of truly effective schools.  We made comprehensive changes to teacher education, requiring both more subject matter content and more focus on effective teaching.  We evaluated and re-evaluated curriculum to be sure our schools were teaching the right content.  And, we began to understand educational accountability differently and found ways to measure student achievement that would not only tell us how students are doing, but also how to make our schools better. These efforts have been remarkably successful.  Although not every aspect of schooling has improved equally, every aspect has improved some.  More students are persisting to graduation than ever before, with more knowledge and skills; more students with disabilities, home languages other than English, or social and cultural deprivation are succeeding in school, and we have implemented sophisticated accountability systems to continuously monitor and improve student performance. The results of our best efforts, however, have not always kept pace with our public’s sharply rising expectations.  There is still a gap that drives us to continue the reforming, restructuring and renewing that began in 1983.   

To paraphrase Dickens, the reform movement has produced the best of times and the worst of times for local school districts. This is especially true for school administrators who have ultimate responsibility to students, parents, and community patrons for the quality of educational programs in their districts. The reform movement has trapped school administrators in a frustrating paradox. We strongly support the general goals of the reform movement including higher academic standards, better results and more accountability and have worked diligently to achieve them. Throughout the reform movement, school administrators have maintained their belief that all students are capable of learning and will respond to high expectations.  On the other hand, we are overwhelmed by too much change too fast, with too few resources.  Research indicates that it takes a generation (in education, about fifteen years) to implement and internalize a single major change. The public schools have been asked to implement many major changes in the last educational generation— a vast new accountability system; new, and sometimes contradictory mandates for educating some students; more categorical programs with alternative funding streams; new certification and professional development programs for teachers — to name only a few. And, we have been asked to do this without the time and other resources to build the capacity necessary to implement, integrate and manage so much change. We have been asked to engage in full-scale reform, restructuring and renewal while struggling to build that capacity and also operating schools on a day-to-day basis — a feat that has been compared to changing the tire on a car speeding down an expressway. We have made significant progress, but troublesome impediments remain and must be removed if the promise of the reform movement is to be fully achieved. Following are some of the major problem areas and our suggestions for addressing them.

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