Running head: REFORMS AND CHANGES IN EDUCATION 1

Reforms and Changes in Education in the Last 100 Years

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation
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Reforms and Changes in Education in the Last 100 Years

The education sector has seen unprecedented changes and reforms in the past century.

Schools in the United States were a lot different 100 years ago than they are today. Historically,

not everyone had the opportunity to attend school. It was reserved for the relatively privileged

and privileged members of the society. Today, reforms and changes such NCLB, Technological

Movement, and Montessori has addressed such accessibility gaps. In spite of the three education

reforms having negative and positive effects, they have all strived to close the achievement gap

and increase the number of students accessing education in the United States.

Positive Reforms and Changes

Over the last century, the most significant changes in the education sectors have been the

enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Early in the 1900s, a large number of

students from poor background performed dismally compared to their more privileged

counterparts. Such a performance was mainly because the former often missed school for

financial reasons. The NCLB Act came to change this state of affair. Today, NCLB offers money

for the additional education assistant for the less privileged children in the society in exchange

for improvements in their academic progress (Ladd, 2017). With this reform, both the school and

tutors are subjected to higher standards of quality. Accordingly, they have to go to great lengths

to ensure that each student attains the goal of the State. Such a requirement is of positive value

because tutors are necessitated to perform to the best of their ability, and also customize their

teaching methods so that each student grasps what he or she is teaching. Furthermore, it reduced

the social-economic gap because it provided student from disadvantaged backgrounds with equal

opportunities as those from well-off families. Other positive effects include the improvement in

student scores and easier resource identification.

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Another noteworthy and equally as positive change in the education sector has been the use of

technology in learning and teaching. One hundred years ago, some of the most common

equipment in the classroom were chalks, blackboards, pens, pencils, and books (Trelease, 2016).

In comparison, the contemporary class materials have changed drastically, courtesy of the

advancement in technology. Today’s classrooms boast of a broader range of learning and

teaching tools. Whiteboards and marker pens have substituted the chalk and blackboards

(Muttappallymyalil et al., 2016). These additions are positive because the choking dust from

chalk posed some health hazards to the teachers and students. Therefore, absenteeism arising

from dust-related complication for students and teachers has reduce. Other tools found in today’s

classes are computers and tablets. In comparison, to books, these gadgets can store a vast amount

of written data, enable quick sharing of assignment and distribution of information. Like the

NCLB Act, the technology movement has increased the number of a student accessing learning

materials through the sharing capability afforded by laptops and other handheld gadgets.

Moreover, these material are sometimes provided by the government for student’s use.

In 1919, the Progressive Education Association was formed. It paved the way for the

formation of the Montessori Movement, the third positive reform in the education sector. As a

progressive education movement, it is founded on the notion that every student is unique, and

that he or she has great potential to excel with the right guidance. The movement emphasizes

freedom within limits, autonomy, and respect for the learner’s natural social, physical, and

cognitive development (Ahmadpour & Mujembari, 2015). The introduction of Montessori

education is a positive change in the education sector because it reduces the need to teach for the

test because the teacher follows the students, who would, in turn, be interested in diverse subjects

and topics. Like both the technology movement and NCLB, the Montessori Movement has
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sought to increase the number of students accessing quality education by focusing on each

student individually. Ordinarily, such students would not understand what the teacher teaches in

a collective arrangement. It diverges from them in that it provides students with more freedom

than in the conventional classroom setup envisaged by the two reforms.

Negative Reforms and Changes

While the three changes and reforms have irrefutable positive outcomes on the education

sector, they have also posed some adverse effects worth mentioning. For instance, the NCLB

may unfairly target the teacher for mistakes of their students. The Act holds the teacher to a high

standard, and in case he or she fails to live to the expectation of the state, mainly because the

student performs poorly, then they risk getting fired or fined (Ladd, 2017). The expectation,

according to this Act, is that teachers should help schools increase the performance of all

students. In so doing, the reform disregards the plight of the teachers who deals with workloads

of children with special needs, behavioral problems, students with higher social-economic needs

and Language Learning needs. In most cases, it leads to teacher focusing more on the poorly

performing student to avoid job loss. IN doing, there is a possibility that the teacher may neglect

other good students. Moreover, the Act wrongly assumes that all learners started at one similar

point of understanding. For instance, it assumes that all learners are Native English Speakers or

do not have learning disabilities or needs.

Like NCLB, the Montessori has the negative consequence of the teacher spending more time

on a given student than the other. Montessori encourage individualizes learning (Lopata, Wallace

& Finn, 2015). Such an approach is counterproductive because it erodes the significance of

friendship and teamwork. Furthermore, Montessori education is expensive because of the

training needed for teachers to practice such an approach to learning.

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The adoption of technology in school has also come with its fair share of negative

repercussion. One of the most notable repercussion is the overreliance on it to the extent that

students can hardly perform basic skill such as calculation without calculators or computers.

Technology also possesses cybersecurity threats such as hacking and identity theft. It has also

increased the rates of plagiarism among students due to its sharing capabilities.

Reform and their Impact of Educators Ethical Disposition

In the past 100 years, many of the sanctioned reforms have had some negative aspects that

have somehow overshadowed their intended positive impacts. In this light, the reforms that I

would suggest are those that take into considerations things such as teacher’s limitation, privacy,

and security of technology use, less dependence on standardized testing and consideration of the

diverse ability of different students. The suggestion of such reform is largely dependent on the

drawbacks of the above reforms and changes. The impact of these reforms on the ethical

disposition of the educators is that the teachers will not be forced to narrow down the curriculum

to fit the standardized test or focus on only the poorly performing students at the expense of the

others.

To conclude, education in the US has come a long way since the 1900s. Many reforms have

been introduced with varying degrees of impact. As, NCLB, Montessori Movement, and

Education Movement have shown, these reforms have positive and negative effects. Their main

point of convergence is that they have to close the achievement gap and increase the number of

students accessing education in the United States. Going forward, it is important that future

reforms take into consideration issues such as privacy and security, teacher’s limitation, and

careful use of standardized tests.

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References

Ahmadpour, N., & Mujembari, A. K. (2015). The impact of Montessori teaching method on

IQ levels of 5-year old children. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 205,

122-127. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.09.037

Ladd, H. F. (2017). No child left behind: a deeply flawed federal policy. Journal of Policy

Analysis and Management, 36(2), 461-469. doi:10.1002/pam.21978

Lopata, C., Wallace, N. V., & Finn, K. V. (2005). Comparison of academic achievement

between Montessori and traditional education programs. Journal of Research in

Childhood Education, 20(1), 5-13. doi:10.1080/02568540509594546

Muttappallymyalil, J., Mendis, S., John, L. J., Shanthakumari, N., Sreedharan, J., &

Shaikh, R. B. (2016). Evolution of technology in teaching: Blackboard and beyond in

medical education. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 6(3), 588-594.

doi:10.3126/nje.v6i3.15870

Trelease, R. B. (2016). From chalkboard, slides, and paper to e-learning: How computing

technologies have transformed anatomical sciences education. Anatomical Sciences

Education, 9(6), 583-602. doi:10.1002/ase.1620