Underplayed Issues

Summary

Probably there are no easy reforms of anything. Educational reform is no exception. The stories in the eight U.S. case studies illustrate the long and costly effort of making even small changes in the teaching and learning of science and mathematics. Although the National Science Foundation and many others have called for systemic reform, making broad, simultaneous and interrelated changes, there is a limit to how many causes the reformer can take up at once. Undertaking grand changes in curriculum and pedagogy, the reformers in the innovations we studied were found to be little engaged in simultaneously upgrading assessment, program evaluation, and equity. We have noted, case study by case study, the endorsement of change in assessment of student achievement—but little participation in it. We have noted little reliance on formal use of program evaluation and the growing expertise on change processes. And we found few efforts to adapt to differences in background and styles of students, teachers, and citizens. These were underplayed issues in the eight case studies discussed in this volume of Bold Ventures.