DOCUMENT RESUME ED 476 865 TM 034 959 AUTHOR Baker, Eva L. TITLE The Struggle To Reform Education: Exploring the Limits of Policy Metaphors. CSE Technical Report. INSTITUTION California Univ., Los Angeles. Center for the Study of Evaluation.; National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, Los Angeles, CA. SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC. REPORT NO CSE-TR-576 PUB DATE 2002-08-00 NOTE 15p. PUB TYPE Opinion Papers (120) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Educational Change; *Educational Policy; Elementary Secondary Education; *Equal Education; *Metaphors; *Standards IDENTIFIERS *Reform Efforts ABSTRACT This paper explores three metaphors guiding current educational policy and considers their various interpretations. The first is that "all children can learn." This statement has been interpreted in various ways, but is probably best interpreted by saying that "all children" means that educators intend to reduce the predictive value of race, social class, and other background characteristics for achievement variables. A second common metaphor is that of "high standards, aligned systems." This metaphor suggests a deliberate "moving around" or adjusting of components, but political pressures have resulted in investment in parts of the educational system that might not have been the most in need. The last metaphor considered, "management by results," raises questions of measurement to determine what results have been. The case is made that broad educational policy statements imply comparisons to other spheres of activity that actually differ greatly from educational contexts. The prognosis for metaphor-rife reform is not good. Instead, creating and promulgating strong standards to judge the quality of assessment and accountability systems will be necessary. (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document