Test Good Ideas To Check For Unanticipated Consequences

Test good ideas to check for unanticipated consequences

We are on the Yangtze, one of the last ships to move through China’s Three Gorges Dam Project before its completion. This dam, 1.2 miles across and 600 feet high, will create a reservoir 360 miles long and raise the water level by 175 meters. It already has flooded 113 cities, 140 towns, 1,352 villages, 657 factories, and 1,300 archeological sites. The great dam, built on a seismic fault, is causing 1.3 million people to relocate. In addition, critics contend it will dump so much silt into the reservoir that in a few years, the dam will lose the capacity to control floods. Our nation’s No Child Left Behind Act is similarly producing unintended negative consequences. Linda Hammond-Darling (2004) writes that despite the noble intentions

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References

Elmore, R. (2003). Knowing the right thing to do: School improvement and performance- based accountability. Washington, DC: NGA Center for Best Practices.

Garmston, R. & Wellman, B. (1999). The adaptive school: A sourcebook for collaborative groups. Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon.

Hammond-Darling, L. (2004). From “separate but equal” to “No Child Left Behind”: The collision of new standards and old inequalities. In D. Meier & G. Wood (Eds.), Many children left behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act is damaging our children and our schools. Boston: Beacon Press.

Supovitz, J. & Christman, J.B. (2003, November). Developing communities of instructional practice: Lessons from Cincinnati and Philadelphia. (CPRE Policy Briefs, RB-39).

Robert J. Garmston

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Robert J. Garmston ([email protected]) is an emeritus professor of education administration at California State University, Sacramento, and co-developer of Cognitive Coaching and Adaptive Schools.

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