Following Dean as he went to earn his Phd. I found myself in a small district in West Texas. I stood in the middle of a “library” that clearly offered many opportunities for my gifts, with a group of teachers and administrators who were promising to give me the tools I needed to make a difference in this school library! It was an offer I couldn’t refuse! I never looked back toward a classroom again.

My expectation that teaching quality in this dusty little town would be poor was altered by the reality. I found teachers who were passionate about math, science, history and art. Inspired by this and the students I met, I found myself working non-stop…. I worked at school all day, and came home and got online at night working to educate myself about possibilities on the Internet. It was 1993, and the Internet was new to public educators. It was a place filled with idealism, freedom, collaboration, encouragement and support.

I was pushed and pulled by the educational reforms of the day. The introduction of technology seemed poised to push the reforms in which the college of education had grounded me. Delight-directed education and the ability of students to do authentic research and publication of their thoughts! I wrote grants to gain funds to implement these lofty ideas. But looking back I realize that we are always under the gun of someone’s political agenda, and I do not see the reforms I so cherished were part of that landscape. Control of information is the ultimate goal of those in power. It keeps them in power and doesn't allow for a divergent world view to challenge theirs. As long as that is the case, I am not convinced change can take hold.

I think about this reform movement and how it came to be often since I am still in education and still in the midst of campaigns to change. We need to ask some questions.

1. What is driving "education reform?"
2. Are we comparing apples to apples when we look at our statistics and compare them to other countries?implementation.
3. What would a school that actually implemented change look like?
4. Is the goal of educating all children to the same level of competency achievable?
5. What does Mr. Duncan mean when he says that the tests have been "dumbed down?"
6. What is it we are testing for?
7. Has any of this recently driven standardized testing resulted in a positive improvement in educational outcome and how would we measure that? What would it look like?

Most historians pinpoint the beginning of the modern educational reform movement to the publication of A Nation At Risk, by the Reagan administration's conservative Education Secretary, William Bennett. But in truth it goes back much further all the way to the writings and experience of John Dewey. To understand the scope of all this you must also become familiar with the writings of educational psychologists like Piaget, who wrote at the early part of the last century. By the time I was on my path, we had already experienced the first round of the Bennett driven educational reform. This reform focused on standardizing American Education and standardized testing.

I should insert here, the commentary of my grandmother and mother – both of whom tried to explain to me that all educational reform is cyclical and that I would soon discover that the ideas I subscribed to, would fall from favor and I would then watch as educational reform worked its way through constantly like a snake eating its own tail.