A Nation Still At Risk: How We Can Fix Our Schools

Call it the industrial-factory model: power resides at the top, with state and district officials setting goals, providing money and holding teachers accountable for realizing predetermined ends. While rational on its face, in practice this system does not work well because teaching is a complex activity that is hard to direct and improve from afar. The factory model is appropriate to simple work that is easy to standardize; it is ill suited to disciplines like teaching that require considerable skill and discretion.

Real change in America is possible, but only if we stop tinkering at the margins.

Jal Mehta

Full Story: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/04/15/a-nation-still-at-risk-finding-enduring-solutions-for-our-schools/