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Education and Community: The collective wisdom of teachers, parents, and members of our community.
POLITICS An interesting point of Edmonds' article, "Making Public Schools Effective" is that Edmonds is not arguing for more money, he is simply asking for no reduction of educational funds and thereby suggesting better utilization of existing funds in creating effective schools. A neat trick, to make more effective schools with no increase in funds. It will get the attention of policy makers. The funds to which he is speaking are Title I funds which President Reagan at the time was planning on cutting. In proving the effectiveness of Title I funds, Edmonds concluded "that five instructional organizational characteristics consistently were evident in the effective schools and were absent in whole or in part in the ineffective schools: the style of leadership in the building; the instructional emphasis in the building; the climate of the school; the implied expectations derived from the teacher's behavior in the classroom; and finally the presence, use, and response to standardized instruments for measuring pupil progress." (Edmonds, 1981, p.58). Edmonds' conclusions were that student achievement was more dependent upon the school then on the family. His work in helping to create more effective schools was to analyze each school based on his five points, stated above, and to assist in making each of the five as strong and as effective as is necessary to raise the success rate of the students. Thus his argument is that this process of intervention does not alter per pupil expenditure or tax the system in any additional way. What it does do is helps the staff make better use of existing resources. Edmonds' five factors have become a foundation upon which others build. |