Cohen David K, Bhatt Monica P
University of Michigan, USA.
Future Child. 2012 Fall;22(2):117-38. doi: 10.1353/foc.2012.0012.
Although the education community has identified numerous effective interventions for improving the literacy of U.S. schoolchildren, little headway has been made in raising literacy capabilities. David K. Cohen and Monica P. Bhatt, of the University of Michigan, contend that a major obstacle is the organizational structure of the U.S. education system. Three features in particular--the lack of educational infrastructure, a decentralized governance system, and the organization of teaching as an occupation--stymie efforts to improve literacy instruction. The authors emphasize that the education system in the United States has always been a patchwork of local school systems that share no common curricula, student examinations, teacher education, or means of observing and improving instruction. Although localities have broad powers over education, few have built the capability to judge or support quality in educational programs. The quality criteria that have developed chiefly concern teachers, not teaching. The decentralization and weak governance of U.S. schooling also deprives teachers of opportunities to build the occupational knowledge and skill that can inform standards for the quality of work, in this case instruction. And, unlike practitioners in other professions teachers have little opportunity to try to strengthen teaching quality by setting standards for entry to the occupation. Cohen and Bhatt review six types of organizational reforms undertaken over the past several decades to improve literacy and other academic outcomes for U.S. students. After briefly describing accountability, comprehensive school reforms, knowledge diffusion, improvement of human capital, and market-based reforms, the authors turn to the Common Core State Standards, an effort initiated by state governors and school leaders to raise student achievement. The authors conclude that the fundamental question about the Common Core, as with the other reforms they discuss, is whether educators and policy makers can mobilize the capability to help states and localities invent, adapt, and implement reliable ways to improve instruction.
尽管教育界已经确定了许多提高美国学童读写能力的有效干预措施，但在提高读写能力方面进展甚微。密歇根大学的大卫·K·科恩和莫妮卡·P·巴特认为，一个主要障碍是美国教育系统的组织结构。特别是三个特征——缺乏教育基础设施、分散的治理系统以及将教学作为一种职业的组织方式——阻碍了提高读写教学的努力。作者强调，美国的教育系统一直是由地方学校系统拼凑而成的，这些系统没有共同的课程、学生考试、教师教育，也没有观察和改进教学的方法。尽管地方对教育有广泛的权力，但很少有地方具备判断或支持教育项目质量的能力。所形成的质量标准主要关注教师，而非教学。美国学校教育的分散化和治理薄弱也剥夺了教师建立职业知识和技能的机会，而这些知识和技能可以为工作质量标准（在这种情况下是教学质量标准）提供依据。而且，与其他职业的从业者不同，教师几乎没有机会通过设定职业准入标准来努力提高教学质量。科恩和巴特回顾了过去几十年为提高美国学生的读写能力和其他学业成绩而进行的六种组织改革类型。在简要描述了问责制、全面学校改革、知识传播、人力资本提升和基于市场的改革之后，作者转向了《共同核心州立标准》，这是由州长和学校领导发起的提高学生成绩的一项举措。作者得出结论，与他们讨论的其他改革一样（关于《共同核心州立标准》）的根本问题是，教育工作者和政策制定者是否能够调动能力，帮助各州和地方发明、调整和实施可靠的方法来改进教学。
