| As society's expectations increase, the schools have a hard time keeping up with the challenges. The situation of the U.S. public school system has been alarming for nearly three decades. The general perception of declining student performance is seemingly attributable to educators' resistance to effective systemwide change. However, the lack of academic success could be a consequence of too many reform ideas that have been tried in quick succession and in a nonsystematic manner (Dunsworth & Billings, 2009). The purpose of this study is to answer the following: “How have education practices and reforms impacted the effectiveness of public schools over the past three decades?” To answer this question a mixed-methods (sequential) approach was used with a nationwide sample for 51 states. The theoretical rationale for the research stems from two concepts: Total Quality Management and High Performance Work Systems.;First, through qualitative content analysis, key factors shaping school performance and the key factors representing the outcomes of school performance were determined. In the quantitative section, the current relationships between main concepts in education reform and actual schools performance outcomes were analyzed statistically in terms of correlations and functional dependence between variables. The results of the study revealed that the three decades of efforts to improve the effectiveness of public education were misguided and that the problem of students' underperformance is related mostly to schools and teachers. Two anomalies have emerged from the analysis. One is that a majority of influence variables are positively correlated with student behavioral issues, not academic performance. The second is that students' enrollment per teacher is positively associated with undesirable student behavior and negatively associated with academic achievement. Organizational development, as the “domain of organizational effectiveness,” has an opportunity to help public schools become high performing system using three distinct, outcome oriented frameworks: individual, organizational, and industry. These frameworks focus on achieving high performance in public schools using a systematic analytical and collaborative approach. This study is a first step in providing a research-based justification for changing the approach in policy making and industry interventions in primary education. |
