Proponents of systemic reform believe the performance problems of public education are primarily the result of low standards, incoherent and fragmented policies, and poor use of resources. Hence, they advocate higher standards and more robust and more coherent policies that send clearer and more compelling signals to educators, students, and parents about what is expected. Typically they include content and performance standards, aligned assessments and curricular frameworks, an accountability system with rewards and sanctions, changes in teacher development that enable teachers to prepare students to meet the new standards, and decentralization. In some versions of this approach, schools performing well will be rewarded, and those that fail to make progress will be subject to a variety of sanctions. The approach is also sometimes called standards-based reform.
Systemic reform has obvious appeal.
Its focus, comprehensiveness and specificity promise a more powerful strategy than the school by school approaches of the networks and a fairer, more orderly one than the markets envisioned by the choice advocates. Its logic is so compelling that its adherents often act as though it were a proven formula that could guarantee success. The only question of interest to the most committed enthusiasts often seems to be how to persuade reluctant state and local policy makers or educators to comply with the postulates of their theory. In fact, systemic reform is a persuasive, but unproven, general theory of action. It is a general theory because it provides only a broad and rather abstract framework for policy design.