Reconstitution: Is It Worth the Risk?

Every year schools around the nation are expected to meet certain guidelines and progress measures; failure to do so classifies them as academically unacceptable. Academically unacceptable schools across the United States are all at risk of being reconstituted, a dire, “worst case scenario”, “just-in-case” plan. Reconstitution: the act of reconstructing the academic and extracurricular aspects of a school that fails to meet the yearly academic progress mandated by the state, replacing a large portion of the school staff with new teachers that can deliver a better academic output than the previous year’s teachers...or so they say.

Reconstitution, in most cases, is fueled by a school’s inability to follow the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind Act. The bottom 1% are considered low-performing schools, and must undergo the reconstitution process. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find any positive feedback and information concerning reconstitution. Past assistant secretary of education Diane Ravitch, once an advocate of the No Child Left Behind Act, is now against the policy as a whole. She believes that this policy puts education on the wrong track and that it will not improve public education due to its emphasis on test scores, which leads to cheating and dishonesty. She says that the program has also turned schools into an “Educational Marketplace” because schools are competing with each other to receive better resources. Overall the No Child Left Behind Act, as well as reconstitution, seem to pit schools, faculties and students against each other, leaving plenty of children behind in their wake. Washington Post author Emma Brown wrote that, “ While test scores can be a cru...

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... are required to meet as a “reconstituted” school. The state writes them and at the the end of the game they say, “Here are the rules and you lose the game.” So how can a school withhold a standard that they’re not aware of? However, these expectations are not a game at all, they are the law--and they have consequences.

In conclusion, reconstitution is an ineffective solution because it judges schools based on faulty policies, and can put a school in a desperate situation. These policies have turned public education into a game, and an unfair one at that. When put under this pressure, administration makes pointless reforms in order to give the illusion of improvement, even though there is more evidence of failure than success. For the government to overtake a school and undergo such a costly and lengthy process, success needs to be sure-fire,