Can Our Schools Get Better

Abstract

The generally accepted goal of im proving our schools may be chimeric. This is not to say that school im provement is impossible. But it is to sug gest that, given the circumstances sur rounding schooling today and what is needed to effect improvement, we ? that is, our society ? may not be up to it. In deed, given certain of these circumstances and conditions, our schools may deteri orate, and dissatisfaction and disaffection may increase. I do not personally accept the proposi tion that school improvement is an im possible goal. But I do not believe that our schools will be better simply by wishing them so or by trying harder to do much of what is now done. And my skepticism re garding many of our most popular beliefs about education and schooling and the practices stemming from them is such that I would more readily predict, from much of our effort, poorer rather than better schools for the future. But this need not be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The argument for or against my major proposition revolves around a set of related propositions. I shall state several of these and then discuss each in turn. In stead of waiting to the concluding pages to make some positive suggestions for

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