ABSTRACT
The spirit of educational reform is endowed with perennial qualities. University of Kentucky professor and writer Thomas Guskey likened the education profession's infatuation with educational innovations and fads to the infatuations of a young child. Young children see only the positive qualities of the object of infatuation and are blind to the faults, no matter how obvious those faults may be to others. Researcher John Goodlad noted that where parents are involved, school tests scores are higher. But it does seem practical for building principals or classroom teachers to do everything they can to get parents meaningfully involved in their children's education. Two closely related challenges schools should mount include an exponential increase in the amount of reading students are expected to do, accompanied by a corresponding decrease in the amount of time they spend watching television. A certain amount of risk taking, pilot programs, and efforts to transcend the ordinary qualities of school life are needed.
