Putting the Pieces Together: Systems for School Reform

This brief summarizes Systemic School Reform by Marshal S. Smith and Jennifer O'Day, which appears in full in The Politics of Curriculum and Testing, edited by Susan Fuhrman and Betty Malen (Falmer 1991). "Systemic School Reform" is an analytic essay which draws on research conducted by CPRE and others about the effectiveness of current education policies. The author also looked at developing policy systems in a number of states. Smith and O'Day propose a design for a systemic state structure that supports school-site efforts to improve classroom instruction and learning. The structure would be based on clear and challenging standards for student learning; policy components would be tied to the standards and reinforce one another in providing guidance to schools and teachers about instruction.