Reflection on “Tinkering Toward Utopia”
While reading over chapter 2 of Tinkering Toward Utopia, I can’t help but think about the school reforms and changes that were implemented over the years. I am delighted at the idea that despite the presence of economic and political instability in the past, there was an utter importance given to the educational system as can be inferred from the increased number of pupils that graduated. The authors went back to history when they discussed about the aspirations of American educators to run modern schools, yet the problems about the presence of societal privileges and poverty must have caused the difficulty. I have this feeling that students today are fortunate not to experience having “no desk or books” while knowing that others attend elegant high schools. Despite the problems about implementing educational reforms, I think that the policy makers are doing their best and the contradictory notions about schools as discussed by Tyack and Cuban (1995), is a part of wanting to have better systems for students.
1. The Americans believed that their public education failed because there are policy talks and changes, but they are perceived to be like coming only in cycles.
2. The educational reforms occurred in cycles because the policy makers have been implementing policies that they think are needed by the educational system, but there are opposing views that occur in the process. It has been difficult to change the basic institutional patterns of schooling because of the influence of powerful institutional trends.
3. If I suggest a reform to my school board, it would be to change the members of the school boards to people who were less busy with their schedules in order to have people who have sufficient time to represent the concerns of the students, parents and the teachers as well. The opposing view, is of course, the professionals, despite their busy schedules have the intellectual capacity to hold the position, thus it would not be practicable to change them.
Reference
Tyack, D., & Cuban, L. (1995). Ch. 2: Policy Cycles and Institutional Trends. In Tyack, D., & Cuban, L., Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (pp. 40-59). Cambridge, Massachusetts & London England: Harvard University Press.
