School Reform: When Do the Ends Justify the Means?

Greg Mullen
May 5
11 min read

A school might want to use this article to guide leadership teams in reflecting on and redesigning reform efforts (like funding, evaluation, or discipline policies) that deliberately balance desired outcome goals with their shared ethical commitments as an institution of education, ensuring both student success and moral integrity in decision-making.

What is Teleology and Deontology?

When the Ends Justify the Means

Teleology is sometimes referred to as consequentialism and evaluates actions by the outcomes they produce so that, if the results are good, actions are justified.

When the Means Define the Ends

Deontology judges actions by whether they align with universal moral duties, such as narrow definitions of ideas like fairness, respect, and justice, regardless of their consequences.

This means that a teleological approach might focus on achieving desirable societal goals, while a deontological approach would emphasize the intrinsic rightness or wrongness of the methods used to achieve those desirable goals.

Why is this important?

Consider two public health officials: one who manipulates or oversimplifies vaccine data to boost public compliance and hit immunization targets; another who insists on transparent, complete information even if it risks slower uptake, out of respect for public autonomy and trust. Now consider two school administrators: one who pressures teachers to inflate student grades to secure school funding; another who insists on fair, accurate grading regardless of the impact on funding algorithms. In both cases, reforms or strategies pursue desirable goals but can end up sacrificing fundamental ethical principles in the process.

What I explore in this article is how meaningful education reform requires not only worthy goals but also worthy methods.

To be clear: Strict Teleological Reform May Sacrifice Means for Outcomes

A purely teleological approach evaluates the good of an action based on its consequences. Many 20th-century education reforms followed this path. For example:

Standardized testing movements were justified as tools to reveal inequities, hold schools accountable, and improve outcomes, even though they reduced education to narrow metrics and incentivized test-driven instruction.
School tracking systems were defended as efficient ways to tailor education to student abilities by grouping students according to assessment-focused data, even though they often reinforced social inequalities and often limited upward mobility.
Desegregation busing in the U.S., while pursuing the noble goal of racial integration, sometimes disregarded the wishes and well-being of affected local communities, focusing only on the broad demographic result, ignoring the intent of integration by ignoring the larger societal issues surrounding the larger purpose of the goal.

These reforms often prioritized collective outcomes over individual experiences. Policymakers framed students as contributors to national projects (economic productivity, social stability) rather than as autonomous beings with their own educational needs/goals.

Scenario Example: No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

Passed in 2001, NCLB required schools to meet strict performance benchmarks or face sanctions. Its goal was to close achievement gaps, a noble goal, but the means often undermined educational integrity. Schools focused narrowly on tested subjects, sidelined non-tested disciplines like art and social studies, and placed immense pressure on teachers and students. From a teleological view, these sacrifices were acceptable in service of the larger goal. But from a deontological perspective, they violated moral duties to provide holistic, meaningful education and to respect teachers’ professional judgment.

Strict Deontological Reform May Ignore Outcomes for Ethical Duties

A purely Deontological approach would argue that certain actions are inherently right or wrong, regardless of their outcomes. Educational reform from this perspective centers on the duties owed to students, teachers, families, and communities. For example:

Respect for student dignity: Treating students as whole persons, not test scores or economic units.
Equity and Justice: Ensuring that no group is systematically disadvantaged, regardless of efficiency arguments.
Teacher autonomy and integrity: Trusting educators to make ethical decisions that reflect the community of families they are serving, rather than reducing them to deliverers of mandates.

Example: John Dewey’s Progressive Education

John Dewey emphasized that education should respect the natural curiosity, agency, and developmental needs of each child, and not merely produce externally defined outcomes like economic readiness. Dewey’s work reflected deontological commitments: students were not means to a national end, but active participants whose growth carried intrinsic moral value.

Hypothetical Scenario: Equitable School Funding

Imagine a government that can maximize national test scores by diverting funds to elite schools showing higher academic proficiency rates, leaving poorer schools under-resourced. A teleologist might accept this if it improves the national academic performance on a state or national level. A deontologist would reject this approach and demand that all students receive equitable treatment, regardless of aggregate gains.

Is It Really Either/Or? Challenging the False Choice Between Teleology and Deontology

It is understandable for people to consider past examples like No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as evidence to avoid teleology, concluding that it can only lead to troubling reforms. Should we reject all goals-based policymaking? Should we simply focus on moral duties and ignore broader societal outcomes? This is a tempting conclusion — but it would be incorrect.

Likewise, deontological approaches are often misunderstood as indifferent to outcomes, focusing rigidly on process or principle no matter the result. But in fact, deontology does not deny that good outcomes matter; it insists that the means used to achieve them must also respect universal moral obligations. The goal is not to abandon outcomes but to align them with ethical, justifiable methods.

In practice, this means policymakers don’t have to (and shouldn’t) choose between:

pursuing achievement gains or promoting student agency and autonomy;
maximizing system performance or respecting fairness and justice;
driving accountability or supporting teacher integrity.

These are examples of what's called a false dilemma (aka false dichotomy, either-or fallacy). Policymakers might present these options as if they are the only possible choices, ignoring the possibility that both can be achieved simultaneously or that alternative solutions exist.

The challenge is to design solutions that address teleological goals while satisfying deontological constraints.

This is where deontology offers its greatest strength: by ensuring that even when we aim for ambitious, system-wide improvements, we don’t sacrifice human dignity, fairness, or moral integrity along the way.

Example 1: Equitable School Funding to Improve Achievement

Imagine a district that is looking to raise system-wide achievement scores--quickly. A teleological (outcome-focused) approach would be to concentrate extra resources (top teachers, innovation grants, advanced programs) in classrooms and student groups already positioned to deliver rapid test score gains, assuming this will lift the district’s reputation or meet performance targets. However, this approach often leaves under-resourced classrooms and historically marginalized students further behind.

To apply a deontological approach, instead of chasing short-term gains, a district adopts an equity-weighted funding formula — an explicit, transparent system that distributes more resources (per student) to schools facing greater structural challenges to raise academic outcomes by focusing on growth rather than achievement.

Critics may argue that redistributing funds toward the highest-need schools risks alienating parents and communities in higher-performing schools who fear "losing" resources. Others may claim that concentrating limited resources where gains are slow or uncertain is “wasteful” or inefficient, especially under political and public pressure to show quick results. Administrators and policymakers may worry about the complexity of implementing and managing an equity-weighted formula fairly across diverse schools.

The rebuttal to these concerns is twofold:

First, ethical policymaking is not a zero-sum game — lifting up the most under-resourced schools strengthens the entire system by reducing the long-term costs of failure, dropout, disengagement, and inequality. Improving outcomes at the bottom expands opportunity, stabilizes communities, and creates a more robust system overall, which benefits everyone, including families in already-advantaged classrooms.

Second, clear communication and transparency are essential: when stakeholders understand why equity measures are in place, how they are structured, and what shared societal benefits they deliver, resistance tends to soften. This requires proactive community engagement, open dialogue, and a strong commitment to explaining the long-term vision: that fairness today builds the foundation for excellence tomorrow.

A practical approach to accomplish this could include...

✅ Formula design: Allocate baseline funding equally plus additional weights for factors that account not only for a school's percentage of low-income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities, but also neighborhood-level poverty or systemic underinvestment indicators. This aligns school funding with a larger focus on the school's and its community's structural needs.

✅ Transparent implementation: Publicly share the formula and calculations so families, educators, and communities understand how and why funding is allocated.

✅ Targeted supports, not just dollars: Pair funding increases with access to experienced educators, wraparound services (mental health, tutoring, family engagement), and infrastructure upgrades, ensuring that money translates into meaningful supports.

✅ Accountability for ethical goals: Evaluate success not only by test scores but by improvements in student well-being, access to enriching opportunities, reductions in opportunity gaps, and strengthened school-community trust.

This approach is built on the moral duty to treat all students fairly — respecting the inherent worth and dignity of every child, not just their contribution to system averages. It refuses to treat high-need schools and students as statistical burdens or “bad investments,” committing instead to equity as a fundamental ethical obligation.

Importantly, this isn’t just about doing what’s morally right; over time, raising the floor for historically underserved students strengthens the entire system. Schools improve not by sacrificing justice for efficiency but by aligning means and ends — achieving better outcomes because they pursued ethical, equitable methods.

Example 2: Teacher Evaluation That Respects Professional Integrity

A school system might want to boost student performance by holding teachers accountable for student test score growth, using metrics like “value-added models” (VAM) to decide pay, promotion, or dismissal. While this would be intended to improve instruction and system-wide results, it often creates perverse incentives: teachers narrow the curriculum, teach to the test, avoid creative risk-taking, or feel demoralized by factors beyond their control — all of which ultimately erode educational quality and ethical trust in the system.

Instead of focusing solely on numerical outcomes, a deontologically aligned system designs multi-dimensional teacher evaluations that honor professional dignity, fairness, and integrity.

Skeptics may argue that moving away from hard data (like test scores) toward multi-dimensional evaluations risks making the system too subjective or “soft,” reducing accountability and allowing underperforming teachers to remain in the classroom. Administrators may worry that peer reviews, reflective practices, and observational rubrics are too time-consuming or complex to implement at scale, especially in large, resource-strapped districts. Policy advocates focused on rapid outcomes may fear that growth-focused models take too long to deliver visible system-wide improvements.

The rebuttal to these concerns is grounded in long-term thinking and shared responsibility:

First, ethical evaluation does not eliminate accountability — it strengthens it by ensuring that multiple, reliable perspectives (peers, students, families, self-reflection) inform judgments, reducing overdependence on any single, easily distorted metric. When teachers see that they are being evaluated fairly, they are more motivated to engage in authentic improvement, which benefits student learning.

Second, while implementing multi-dimensional systems requires initial investment and thoughtful planning, successful models (such as the peer evaluation systems piloted in cities like Cincinnati and Minneapolis) demonstrate that with proper training, rubrics, and administrative support, these approaches can scale effectively. In the long run, investing in ethical, growth-oriented systems reduces the costs of turnover, burnout, and instructional stagnation — strengthening the system in sustainable ways.

A practical approach to making this happen could include:

✅ Balanced use of student data: Include student performance data as one component of evaluation — but limit its weight to avoid distortions, recognizing that test scores are influenced by many factors beyond teacher control.

✅ Support-focused follow-up: Link evaluations to targeted professional development, mentoring, and collaborative planning opportunities, ensuring the system is geared toward growth, not punishment.

✅ Peer review panels: Establish panels of trained, experienced teachers who conduct structured classroom observations using clear, transparent rubrics — focusing on instructional quality, student engagement, and ethical practices (not just test outcomes).

✅ Self-assessment and reflection: Require teachers to submit reflective statements on their instructional goals, challenges, and growth over the year, supporting their identity as ethical professionals committed to improvement.

✅ Student and parent feedback: Incorporate structured, age-appropriate student surveys and parent input focused on learning environment, support, and communication (avoiding purely popularity metrics).

This approach respects the moral agency of teachers as professionals, not just deliverers of results. It honors fairness by avoiding over-reliance on narrow or distorted metrics, ensures evaluations are transparent and justifiable, and treats the teacher-student relationship as an ethical practice, not merely a productivity pipeline.

By focusing on meaningful, supported growth (not fear-driven compliance), the system ultimately achieves the larger outcome goals it set out to reach — but through means that sustain, rather than sacrifice, ethical integrity.

Example 3: Restorative Discipline to Improve School Climate

Imagine a school seeking to maintain order and safety by implementing zero-tolerance discipline policies — automatic suspensions, expulsions, or harsh punishments for infractions like fighting, defiance, or substance use. The goal would be to deter misbehavior and create a more focused learning environment. However, research shows these policies disproportionately impact marginalized students, escalate tensions, increase dropout rates, and often fail to address the underlying causes of conflict, undermining both ethical obligations and long-term system success.

Rather than relying on purely punitive, exclusionary discipline, schools implement restorative justice (RJ) approaches that prioritize accountability, relationship repair, and personal growth — respecting the moral duty to educate and support every student.

Skeptics may argue that restorative justice approaches are too lenient, sending the wrong message and reducing the deterrent effect that zero-tolerance policies are supposed to provide. Administrators and teachers may worry that restorative practices are time-consuming or complicated, placing extra demands on staff already stretched thin. Parents and community members may fear that shifting away from traditional punishments will make schools less safe or undermine the seriousness of student misconduct.

The rebuttal to these concerns is grounded in evidence, practicality, and systems thinking:

First, research consistently shows that punitive systems do not necessarily deter misbehavior — in fact, they often increase student alienation, resentment, and dropout rates. Restorative approaches, by contrast, emphasize accountability and responsibility within the school community, not avoidance through removal. By requiring students to face the harm caused and work toward repair, these systems arguably increase, not decrease, the seriousness with which schools treat misconduct.

Second, while restorative practices require training and careful implementation, successful models (such as those in Oakland, Denver, and Chicago) demonstrate that schools can integrate restorative approaches into daily routines, reducing reliance on exclusionary discipline and improving relationships over time. Restorative processes can also reduce the cumulative workload associated with repeated suspensions, escalating conflicts, or the long-term costs of disengaged students.

A practical approach to this could include:

✅ Restorative circles: Use structured dialogue circles where students involved in a conflict (and sometimes affected peers or adults) come together with a trained facilitator to share perspectives, express harms, and collaboratively identify solutions or reparations.

✅ Student-led agreements: Replace automatic punishments with student-created agreements outlining how they will repair harm (e.g., apologies, community service, follow-up check-ins) — emphasizing accountability and agency over imposed penalties.

✅ Tiered intervention models: Build a layered approach where minor infractions are handled with informal conversations or peer mediation, while more serious issues involve formal restorative processes, escalating only when needed.

✅ Training and support for staff: Provide teachers, administrators, and counselors with RJ training so they can integrate restorative language, de-escalation strategies, and relationship-building practices into everyday classroom management.

✅ Data tracking for equity: Monitor discipline data disaggregated by race, gender, disability, and other factors to ensure that restorative practices are implemented fairly and to prevent the reproduction of systemic biases.

Restorative practices uphold the inherent dignity of every student by treating discipline as an opportunity for moral and social learning, not just punishment. They honor fairness by avoiding disproportionately harsh outcomes and affirm the school’s duty to educate all students, even those who struggle or make mistakes, rather than discarding them from the learning community.

Finally, clear communication with parents and the community is key: restorative discipline is not about “letting students off the hook” but about strengthening safety, belonging, and accountability in ways that punitive systems have historically failed to achieve.

In short, schools achieve their goal of safer, more productive environments — not by sacrificing ethical commitments but by integrating them into how they maintain order and support student development. Restorative approaches show that by aligning discipline practices with moral principles, schools can build healthier, stronger, and more just learning communities.

Key Takeaway

Ethically grounded reforms are not about rejecting goals or outcomes — they are about insisting that how we achieve those goals matters just as much as what we achieve. Schools, districts, and policymakers must not sacrifice core values such as fairness, integrity, or respect to improve performance.

The challenge ahead is this: commit to designing reforms where ethical principles and outcome goals are inseparably aligned — so that every policy, funding decision, evaluation system, or discipline practice advances both human dignity and measurable improvement.

This requires active leadership, transparent processes, and the moral courage to reject shortcuts. If we want to build stronger, more just, and more effective schools, we must demand reforms that do not merely aim for better numbers but that honor the people those numbers represent.

The future of meaningful educational change depends not just on what we aim for — but on how we choose to get there.