Maybe because they can't. The world is changing in significant, transformational ways. Is there hope for enacting the changes needed in schools? Here are issues to consider and a question for you to answer.

Goals

Unfortunately, in most schools, there is minimal consensus, at best, about what the overall goals of schooling should be: academic learning, socialization, life skills, character education, civic engagement, nutrition, physical fitness, exposure to the fine arts, job training, and so on. Moreover, there is no consensus about how the world works and what actions should be employed to reach desired results. In this situation, creating a crisis, clearly defining roles, and using financial incentives and/or threats are the only tools that leaders can use to implement change.

Leadership

Leadership tools must be matched to existing circumstances. For instance, if stakeholders can't agree on what the goals of the organization should be, ‘leadership tools such as vision statements are dismissed as irrelevant.' Likewise, training programs will be ineffective if there is widespread disagreement about which actions will lead to desired results.

Change Agents

Administrators and other school change agents are in a bind. They operate in an environment that is stacked against them and have few viable tools to enable desired change. The authoritarian tools that they do have only can be employed to a certain extent before parents, students, and teachers begin to push back.

The Future

The world is changing in significant, transformational ways. Is there hope for enacting the changes needed in schools on a widespread basis (as opposed to isolated examples)? Does the existing paradigm of K-12 schooling need to be torn down and replaced with something new? I'll leave those questions for you to discuss. But at least recognize that the current situation is stacked heavily against change.

By Scott McLeod