Essential Members of Science Reform Efforts

Rutherford and Ahlgren (1990) point out that teachers have a substantial impact on reform efforts:

"Although creative ideas for reforming education come from many sources, only teachers can provide the insights that emerge from intensive, direct experience in the classroom itself. They bring to the task of reform a knowledge of students, craft, and school culture that others cannot. Moreover, reform cannot be imposed on teachers from the top down or the outside in. If teachers are not convinced of the merit of proposed changes, they are unlikely to implement them energetically. If they do not understand fully what is called for or have not been sufficiently well prepared to introduce new content and ways of teaching, reform measures will founder. In either case, the more teachers share in shaping reform measures and the more help they are given in implementing agreed-upon changes, the greater the probability that they will be able to make those improvements stick.

Although teachers are central to reform, they cannot be held solely responsible for achieving it. They need allies. Teachers alone cannot change the textbooks, install more sensible testing policies than are now in place, create administrative support systems, get the public to understand where reform is headed and why it takes time to get there, and raise the funds needed to pay for reform. Thus, school administrators and education policy makers need to support teachers. Teachers also need academic colleagues--scholars who are experts on relevant subject matter, child development, learning, and the educational potential of modern technologies. And they need the help and support of community leaders, business and labor leaders, and parents--for in the final analysis, educational reform is a shared responsibility. It is time for teachers to take more responsibility for the reform of education, but that in no way reduces the responsibility of others to do their part too." (p. 198-199)

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