The notion of a "sea change" neatly captures the spirit of schoolwide reform. The movement could, in fact, borrow Webster's definition of sea change ("a marked change: transformation") to signal its rejection of isolated reforms—ones that focus on this or that population, this or that aspect of schooling. Such approaches have come to be disparaged as "tinkering" around the edges or "piecemeal" strategies whose effects are limited, at best.Schoolwide reform, which has gathered momentum in recent years, washes across all the islands of need and resources, reshaping them at the same time it blends them into a unified whole. If nothing looks the same afterward, that's as it should be, reformers say. To turn around low-performing, high-poverty schools, change must be deep. And it must be complete.
Schoolwide reform builds on the idea (to use another ocean metaphor) that "a rising tide lifts all boats." Poor kids, immigrant kids, migrant kids, Indian kids—disadvantaged kids of every kind—do better in an inclusive setting with high standards for all. Pulling students out for basic skills or remedial drills is becoming a relic of another era. Today, policymakers want to see all children challenged in the regular classroom, engaged in meaningful work that makes them think and reason. Intensive learning in small groups has a place in the new model. But it must be linked to the broader curriculum and tied to tougher standards.
In a 1994 speech, Mary Jean LeTendre of the U.S. Department of Education called upon the idealism of educators to raise the boats of all American children. "The schoolwide option is about having a dream and sharing the vision," said LeTendre, chief of compensatory education. "It's about developing a plan of how to get there, and how to make it happen, and then working together to change everything step by step over time. Think of the schoolwide option as an invitation to dream."
The 500 schoolchildren who created the mural on our cover call their image "Ship of Dreams." Into their vessel, the students put a soccer ball and a softball, a computer and a calculator, a telescope and a paintbrush, a violin and a picture book, a pencil and a globe —"basically, all the things they do," in the words of the parent who coordinated the mural project at Portland's Bridlemile Elementary School. When schools set out to reform themselves, so, too, should they put "all the things they do" on the table, schoolwide advocates say. Only then will their ship of dreams sail safely into port.
—Lee Sherman
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