Concluding Thoughts

I believe we must not pursue these theories seeking a singular solution. Our nation is far too varied to prescribe any one of these theories as a universal solution. The fact is, "back to basics" is needed somewhere in our country while students elsewhere long for a more progressive, active process of learning to which they can contribute. Some schools need to have longer school days and some need to refine down to something of higher quality. Yet, I believe there is a component of education that, when distributed to any area of our country, would create positive outcomes. That component of education is the pervasiveness of transformative teachers. Even with that said, a teacher acting alone cannot change an entire system plagued by structural inequality. With that in mind, I want to finalize this blog by suggesting another theory of education--one which has been proposed to deal with the worst schools in our country. It's important that this blog not be the end of a conversation but instead, the beginning of one. As I mentioned in the introduction, this creation of a marketplace of ideas about education can only lead to a more sound, proven system in the future. It's important that we, as a society, continue to engage in these dialogues and think about our education system.

So check out Harvard University's Mark Warren and his theory about educational reform in our nation's worst districts. A good place to start is with his article, Communities and Schools: A New View of Urban Education Reform (2005).