Federal Approaches to Improving Education

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"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." (Chinese proverb)]
“Education, a fundamental basis of human being’s rights, is a key for sustainable development, peace and stability in countries and between the states. It is a necessary tool for effective participation in society life and economics of the 21st century marked by globalization. Achievement of Education for All is a goal that cannot be delayed any more. Policies to meet basic educational needs must be implemented.” (2004 UNESCO Document: Education For All.)

Introduction: Top-down Vs. Bottom-up

This document looks briefly at a variety of major U.S. Federal Government-initiated education improvement initiatives that have occurred in the United States starting with the 1944 G. T. Bill of Rights. The goal is to show that at a Federal Government level there have been a variety of initiatives designed to help improve education in the United States.

These Federal government initiatives can be characterized as "top-down" since they come from "on high." However, some—such as the 144 G.I. Bill of Rights—have reach directly to the people being served and greatly empower these people.

In recent decades, education has become a major political and public issue. There is widespread agreement that our educational systems can and should be improved, but there are widely varying recommendations and programs for how to accomplish this.

One of the difficulties with top-down approaches is the huge "distance" between the people at the "top" and the teachers and students in the trenches. Seymour Sarason has done a very good job of capturing these difficulties in his writings. Quoting from the Wikipedia:

Seymour Bernard Sarason is Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught from 1945 to 1989. He is the author of over forty books and is considered to be one of the most significant researchers in education and educational psychology in the United States. The primary focus of his work was on education reform in the United States.

For a great many years he has argued the need to substantially empower students, parents, and teachers in education reform initiatives. His thesis is that educational reform that does not empower students, parents, and their teachers is bound to be ineffective and/or a downright failure. He argues strongly against traditional top-down approaches to improving education. See also Empowering Learners and Teachers.

In brief summary, both bottom-up and top-down approaches to school reform and improvement can be successful. People working at either level need to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of approaches from the other level.

G.I. Bill of Rights 1944 and Thereafter

The U.S. Federal Government funded a variety of educational and other benefits for WWII veterans. A 8:20 length video captures some of the history of the first G. I. Bill of Rights.

Quoting from the Wikipedia:

On June 22, 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever produced by the United States government: The Servicemembers' Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the GI Bill of Rights. By the time the original GI Bill ended in July 1956, 7.8 million World War II veterans had participated in an education or training program and 2.4 million veterans had home loans backed by VA. Today, the legacy of the original GI Bill lives on in the Montgomery GI Bill.

There have been a sequence of subsequent bills that have provided a variety of benefits to veterans. Examples include the Veterans' Adjustment Act of 1952 and the Veterans Readjustment Benefits Act of 1966.

Much has been written about the short term and long term benefits of the various G.I. Bills. For example, quoting from [1]

Within the following 7 years, approximately 8 million veterans received educational benefits. Of that number, approximately 2,300,000 attended colleges and universities, 3,500,000 received school training, and 3,400,000 received on-the-job training. By 1951, this act had cost the government a total cost of approximately $14 billion.
The effects of increased enrollment to higher education were significant. Higher educational opportunities opened enrollment to a varied socioeconomic group than in the years past. Engineers and technicians needed for the technological economy were prepared from the ranks of returning veterans. Also, education served as a social safety valve that eased the traumas and tensions of adjustment from wartime to peace. For the American colleges and universities, the effects were transforming. In almost all institutions, classes were overcrowded. Institutions required more classrooms, laboratories, greater numbers of faculties, and more resources. House facilities became inadequate and new building programs were established. New vocational courses were also added. This new student population called for differential courses in advanced training in education, commerce, agriculture, mining, fisheries, and other vocational fields that were previously taught informally. Teaching staffs enlarged and summer and extension courses thrived. Further, the student population was no longer limited to those between 18-23. The veterans were eager to learn and had a greater sense of maturity, in comparison to the usual student stereotype. Finally, the idea that higher education was the privilege of a well-born elite was finally shattered.

The various versions of the G. I. Bill of Rights have all been funded by the U.S. Federal Government, so can be classified as top-down programs. However, funding has been directly to individual veterans. The veterans have had the opportunity to make personal decisions about where and when to go to school and what to study. Thus, these programs provide good examples of appropriately combining top-down funding with bottom-up implementation.

National Science Foundation Act of 1950

The NSF was established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950 with the stated mission:

To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense.

Now, the NSF supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. In some fields, such as mathematics, computer science, economics and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing.

Personal comment by David Moursund: My doctoral program of study in mathematics during 1959 to 1963 was funded by the National Science Foundation. Since then I have received NSF funding through a variety of programs designed to enhance preservice teacher education in the sciences and mathematics.

The year 2008 budget of the NSF was about $6 billion. Quoting from the Wikipedia:

[The NSF] seeks to fulfill its mission chiefly by issuing competitive, limited-term grants in response to specific proposals from the research community. (NSF also makes some contracts.) Some proposals are solicited, and some are not; NSF funds both kinds.
NSF receives about 40,000 such proposals each year, and funds about 10,000 of them. Those funded are typically the projects that are ranked highest in a merit review process. These reviews are carried out by panels of independent scientists, engineers and educators who are experts in the relevant fields of study, and who are selected by NSF with particular attention to avoiding conflicts of interest.

The NSF has funded a number of curriculum development projects. Such curriculum development projects tend to place major emphasis on developing and incorporating research-based results on effective teaching and learning. Nowadays, such projects generally lead to commercial products, and the NSF encourages this approach to wide scale dissemination.

School Desegregation Supreme Count 1954 Ruling

Quoting from the infoplease encyclopedia:

In 1954, the Supreme Court took a momentous step: In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka the court set aside a Kansas statute permitting cities of more than 15,000 to maintain separate schools for blacks and whites and ruled instead that all segregation in public schools is “inherently unequal” and that all blacks barred from attending public schools with white pupils are denied equal protection of the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The doctrine was extended to state-supported colleges and universities in 1956. Meanwhile, in 1955 the court implemented its 1954 opinion by declaring that the federal district courts would have jurisdiction over lawsuits to enforce the desegregation decision and asked that desegregation proceed “with all deliberate speed.”
At the time of the 1954 decision, laws in 17 southern and border states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri) and the District of Columbia required that elementary schools be segregated. Four other states—Arizona, Kansas, New Mexico, and Wyoming—had laws permitting segregated schools, but Wyoming had never exercised the option, and the problem was not important in the other three. Although discrimination existed in the other states of the Union, it was not sanctioned by law.

Now, more than 50 years later, issues of segregation and how to effectively educate the widely diverse population of students in our country remain major problems. See, for example, the January 2009 report Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge The following is quoted from the Introduction to this 33 page report.

Fifty-five years after the Brown decision, blacks and Latinos in American schools are more segregated than they have been in more than four decades.
Segregation is fast spreading into large sectors of suburbia and there is little or no assistance for communities wishing to resist the pressures of resegregation and ghetto creation in order to build successfully integrated schools and neighborhoods. Desegregation plans that were successful for decades are being shut down by orders from conservative courts, federal civil rights officials have pressured communities to abandon their voluntary desegregation efforts, and magnet schools are losing their focus on desegregation. Large numbers of multiracial schools are emerging but we know little about how to realize their promise.
Although there are serious interracial conflicts in schools and neighborhoods shared by two or more disadvantaged minorities, very little research or assistance has been provided to solve those urgent problems. The percentage of poor children in American schools has been rising substantially and black and Latino students, even those whose families are middle class, are largely attending schools with very high fractions of low-income children who face many problems in their homes and communities.
As immigration continues to transform many sectors of American society this country is falling far behind in building faculties that reflect the diversity of American students—44% of whom are now nonwhite—and failing to prepare teachers who can communicate effectively with the 20 percent of homes where another language is spoken as immigration continues to transform many sectors of American society.
Millions of nonwhite students are locked into “dropout factory” high schools, where huge percentages do not graduate, have little future in the American economy, and almost none are well prepared for college. Often our failing schools are shared by two or more highly disadvantaged minority groups and we are not working on creating positive relationships between them and their teachers who are often white and untrained in techniques that might lower tension and increase school success.
In states that now have substantial nonwhite school age majorities, like California and Texas, our failure to prepare the future majority through high school and college graduation are very direct threats to the economic and social future of these states. In a world economy where success is dependent on knowledge, major sections of the U.S. face the threat of declining average educational levels as the proportion of children attending inferior segregated schools continues to rise.

Launch of Sputnik in 1957 Changed U.S. Education

Quoting from an April 20, 2009 NPR report:

The Soviets' history-making accomplishment—launching a satellite into orbit — created both paranoia and concern that the Soviets had beaten Americans into space. That concern sparked a much-needed revolution in scientific education in the U.S.
America's scientific community, which had long been pushing for a new direction in science education, seized on the national mood to rejuvenate the curriculum.
Washington gave the new science curriculum an infusion of more than a billion dollars when it passed the National Defense Education Act in 1958 — big money back then.
The era also saw the beginning of a new federal involvement in education that would spread out in all directions in the coming years. The government beefed up its agencies with an alphabet soup of science organizations, many of which still survive.

For further information, see the 1997 article Sputnik and Science Education by F. James Rutherford of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Quoting from that article:

Nationwide reform efforts in education followed both [the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the Russian launching of Sputnik in 1957] of these trials by fire. But there are some important differences between them that are worth bearing in mind as we look at the science education reform efforts following in Sputnik’s wake.
Where the post-war/pre-sputnik educational concerns were largely demographic—first the colleges trying to accommodate returning veterans, the likes of which had not been seen before, then quickly the schools doing the same for the young baby boomers. In contrast, the post-Sputnik concerns were curricular, focusing on what was being taught and how, rather than who was being taught.
Another difference between the two eras was the assignment of blame. The military and the politicians received the blame for Pearl Harbor, not educators; in the Sputnik instance, the finger of blame quickly and sternly pointed at the schools. The third difference has to do with the public perception of the outcomes of the two reform movements: the first is almost unanimously regarded as a great success, a milestone in the history of American education not unlike that of the Morrill Act [land grant college act of 1862] in the last century, while the second is widely regarded as having failed. I think that perception is only half right.
My remarks will focus on the Sputnik-associated science education reform efforts of the late 1950s and the 1960s, and argue that in fact they have left us a legacy of great value should we choose to draw on it in the current science education reform effort. (Parenthetically, the current effort was, like its predecessor, catalyzed by external matters—in this case the ascendancy of Japan in world trade—and quickly led to the perception that somehow our faltering industrial performance was in large measure the fault of the schools.) First I will propose a context for judging what happened, and then list what are, I believe, some of the major successes of the Sputnik reform effort.

Talented and Gifted Education

Various schools and states use considerably differing definitions as to what constitutes a Talented and Gifted (TAG) student. Moreover, programs to help meet the special needs of such students vary widely from school to school and state to state. The U.S. Federal Government has been only modestly involved in helping to further this aspect of precollege education.

An exception to this is illustrated in the work of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Federal Funding for BIA includes provisions for identifying TAG students and providing extra funding at the school level for such students. There are currently about 32 BIA-operated schools.

Marland Report of 1972

Quoting from the Wikipedia:

… a study on how effective education was meeting the needs of gifted students was initiated by the US Department of Education in 1969. The Marland Report, completed in 1972, for the first time presented a general definition of giftedness, and urged districts to adopt it. The report also allowed students to show high functioning on talents and skills not measurable by an intelligence test. The Marland Report defined gifted as
"Children capable of high performance include those with demonstrated achievement and/or potential ability in any of the following areas, singly or in combination:
  1. General intellectual ability,
  2. Specific academic aptitude,
  3. Creative or productive thinking,
  4. Leadership ability,
  5. Visual and performing arts, or
  6. Psychomotor ability."
The report's definition continues to be the basis of the definition of giftedness in most districts and states.

Gifted and Talented Students Education Act of 1988

See The History of Gifted and Talented Education at http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=607 The U.S. does very little at a federal level to help support Talented and Gifted Education. Notice the level of fiscal support mentioned in the following material quoted from the Wikipedia:

The Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act was passed in 1988 as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Instead of funding district-level gifted education programs, the Javits Act instead has three primary components: the research of effective methods of testing, identification, and programming, which is performed at the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented; the awarding of grants to colleges, states, and districts that focus on underrepresented populations of gifted students; and grants awarded to state and districts for program implementation.[28] Annual funding for grants must be passed by US Congress, and totaled $9.6 million US in 2007, but the money isn't promised. While he was President, George W. Bush eliminated the money every year of his term, but members of Congress overrode the president to make sure the grant money is distributed.

Funding from the Jacob Javits Education Act helps to support the University of Connecticut National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. This research center provides a broad range of information services. Quoting from their Website:

The National Research Center on Gifted and Talented (NRC/GT) current 5-year research plan will lead to empirical and descriptive understandings of "what works in gifted education." This plan requires the integrated study of identification systems, model-based curricula in reading and math, and assessments. The focus of the research study will be to: (a) extend and enhance prior studies by developing a defensible identification system; (b) analyze the effects of curricular units in reading and math on students identified using traditional and expanded criteria; and (c) measure outcomes using extended standards-based assessments, structured performance assessments, or standardized achievement measures. An identification system will be created to be responsive to students from across all cultural groups and from all socioeconomic groups. In the spring of 2008, a talent pool of grade 2 students will be identified using the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Cognitive Abilities Test, and teacher rating scales. This talent pool, as well as their classmates, will participate in the math or reading curriculum (randomly assigned at the school level) in grade 3 (2008-2009 academic year). In the spring of 2009, a second group of grade 2 students will be identified using the same criteria, and they will participate in the reading or math curriculum along with their classmates during the 2009-2010 academic year.

Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975

In 1975, Congress passed the Public Law 94-142 (Education of All Handicapped Children Act) now codified as IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). In order to receive federal funds, states must develop and implement policies that assure a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to all children with disabilities. The state plans must be consistent with the federal statute, Title 20 United States Code Section 1400 et.seq. (20 USC 1400) (For more information on IDEA, legislative history, implications, see the other files in forum libraries, especially those that relate to the Shannon Carter case which was argued before the US Supreme Court on October 6, 1993.)

For some history and effects of this legislation, see the year 2000 article: A 25 year history of the IDEA. Quoting from the article:

Examples of IDEA Accomplishments:
  • The majority of children with disabilities are now being educated in their neighborhood schools in regular classrooms with their non-disabled peers.
  • High school graduation rates and employment rates among youth with disabilities have increased dramatically. For example, graduation rates increased by 14 percent from 1984 to 1997. Today, post-school employment rates for youth served under IDEA are twice those of older adults with similar disabilities who did not have the benefit of IDEA.
  • Post-secondary enrollments among individuals with disabilities receiving IDEA services have also sharply increased. For example, the percentage of college freshmen reporting disabilities has more than tripled since 1978.

U.S. Department of Education 1980

Quoting from Overview: The Federal Role in Education:

The original Department of Education was created in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. While the agency's name and location within the Executive Branch have changed over the past 130 years, this early emphasis on getting information on what works in education to teachers and education policymakers continues down to the present day.
The passage of the Second Morrill Act in 1890 gave the then-named Office of Education responsibility for administering support for the original system of land-grant colleges and universities. Vocational education became the next major area of Federal aid to schools, with the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act and the 1946 George-Barden Act focusing on agricultural, industrial, and home economics training for high school students.

Quoting from the U.S. Department of Education Website:

ED was created in 1980 by combining offices from several federal agencies. ED's mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. ED's 4,200 employees and $68.6 billion budget are dedicated to:
  • Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education, and distributing as well as monitoring those funds.
  • Collecting data on America's schools and disseminating research.
  • Focusing national attention on key educational issues.
  • Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.

Here is more detail on some of what the Department of Education does:

[The Mission is] to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.
The Department distributes financial aid to eligible applicants throughout the nation for elementary, secondary, and college education; for the education of individuals with disabilities and of those who are illiterate, disadvantaged, or gifted; and for the education of immigrants, American Indians, and people with limited English proficiency. Federal funds for education are distributed using three methods: a set formula, competition, and financial need.
By formula: Some programs follow a formula prescribed in the bill approved by Congress authorizing that program. Such a program might be set up so that qualified agencies receive an amount of money that is determined by the number of students meeting certain criteria in that state or school district. For example, under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Department allocates nearly $417 million to the states under the grants for infants and families program to help them provide early intervention services for children with disabilities birth through age two, based on the number of children in each state in that age range.
By competition: Federal money is also awarded on the merit of competitive applications. Applicants are ranked in order of merit, and the most qualified applicants are awarded funds. Those eligible for such funding include state and local education agencies; school districts; education partnerships (programs jointly sponsored by education institutions and the private sector); college and universities; individual researchers; and community-based organizations, such as nonprofit agencies.
By financial need: The third basis on which federal money is awarded is based on financial need. Postsecondary students applying for grants, loans, and fellowships for undergraduate and graduate studies must prove family financial need according to established guidelines.

The total Department of Education budget is somewhat under one-tenth of of the total budget of precollege and higher education in the United States.

ED currently administers a budget of $68.6 billion per year—$59.2 billion in discretionary appropriations and $9.4 billion in mandatory appropriations—and operates programs that touch on every area and level of education. The Department's elementary and secondary programs annually serve more than 14,000 school districts and approximately 56 million students attending some 97,000 public schools and 28,000 private schools. Department programs also provide grant, loan, and work-study assistance to about 11 million postsecondary students.

The "A Nation at Risk" 1983 Report

All, regardless of race or class or economic status, are entitled to a fair chance and to the tools for developing their individual powers of mind and spirit to the utmost. This promise means that all children by virtue of their own efforts, competently guided, can hope to attain the mature and informed judgment needed to secure gainful employment, and to manage their own lives, thereby serving not only their own interests but also the progress of society itself.(A Nation at Risk, April 1983.)

The report, [A Nation at Risk, was published in April 1983. It has had a significant impact on the overall education system in the United states. In addition, it has served as a starting point for a large number of learned and heated discussions about how to improve our education system.The report has been widely disseminated and is readily available.

The report was developed by a of 18 people with widely varying educational backgrounds and interests. For example, the committee was headed by:

David P. Gardner (Chair) President University of Utah and President-Elect, University of California Salt Lake City, Utah

Yvonne W. Larsen (Vice-Chair) Immediate Past-President San Diego City School Board San Diego, California

First Section of the Nation at Risk Report

The following material is the first section of the report:

Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. This report is concerned with only one of the many causes and dimensions of the problem, but it is the one that undergirds American prosperity, security, and civility. We report to the American people that while we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the well-being of its people, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur--others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments.
If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.
Our society and its educational institutions seem to have lost sight of the basic purposes of schooling, and of the high expectations and disciplined effort needed to attain them. This report, the result of 18 months of study, seeks to generate reform of our educational system in fundamental ways and to renew the Nation's commitment to schools and colleges of high quality throughout the length and breadth of our land.
That we have compromised this commitment is, upon reflection, hardly surprising, given the multitude of often conflicting demands we have placed on our Nation's schools and colleges. They are routinely called on to provide solutions to personal, social, and political problems that the home and other institutions either will not or cannot resolve. We must understand that these demands on our schools and colleges often exact an educational cost as well as a financial one.
On the occasion of the Commission's first meeting, President Reagan noted the central importance of education in American life when he said: "Certainly there are few areas of American life as important to our society, to our people, and to our families as our schools and colleges." This report, therefore, is as much an open letter to the American people as it is a report to the Secretary of Education. We are confident that the American people, properly informed, will do what is right for their children and for the generations to come.

"Excellence in Education" Defined in the Report

One of the sections of the report is titled Excellence in Education. The following is quoted from that section:

We define "excellence" to mean several related things. At the level of the individual learner, it means performing on the boundary of individual ability in ways that test and push back personal limits, in school and in the workplace. Excellence characterizes a school or college that sets high expectations and goals for all learners, then tries in every way possible to help students reach them. Excellence characterizes a society that has adopted these policies, for it will then be prepared through the education and skill of its people to respond to the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Our Nation's people and its schools and colleges must be committed to achieving excellence in all these senses.
We do not believe that a public commitment to excellence and educational reform must be made at the expense of a strong public commitment to the equitable treatment of our diverse population. The twin goals of equity and high-quality schooling have profound and practical meaning for our economy and society, and we cannot permit one to yield to the other either in principle or in practice. To do so would deny young people their chance to learn and live according to their aspirations and abilities. It also would lead to a generalized accommodation to mediocrity in our society on the one hand or the creation of an undemocratic elitism on the other.
Our goal must be to develop the talents of all to their fullest. Attaining that goal requires that we expect and assist all students to work to the limits of their capabilities. We should expect schools to have genuinely high standards rather than minimum ones, and parents to support and encourage their children to make the most of their talents and abilities.
The search for solutions to our educational problems must also include a commitment to life-long learning. The task of rebuilding our system of learning is enormous and must be properly understood and taken seriously: Although a million and a half new workers enter the economy each year from our schools and colleges, the adults working today will still make up about 75 percent of the workforce in the year 2000. These workers, and new entrants into the workforce, will need further education and retraining if they--and we as a Nation--are to thrive and prosper.

Some Nation At Risk Recommendations

Here are some of the education improvement recommendations quoted from A Nation At Risk:

  1. The teaching of English in high school should equip graduates to: (a) comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and use what they read; (b) write well-organized, effective papers; (c) listen effectively and discuss ideas intelligently; and (d) know our literary heritage and how it enhances imagination and ethical understanding, and how it relates to the customs, ideas, and values of today's life and culture.
  2. The teaching of mathematics in high school should equip graduates to: (a) understand geometric and algebraic concepts; (b) understand elementary probability and statistics; (c) apply mathematics in everyday situations; and (d) estimate, approximate, measure, and test the accuracy of their calculations. In addition to the traditional sequence of studies available for college-bound students, new, equally demanding mathematics curricula need to be developed for those who do not plan to continue their formal education immediately.
  3. The teaching of science in high school should provide graduates with an introduction to: (a) the concepts, laws, and processes of the physical and biological sciences; (b) the methods of scientific inquiry and reasoning; (c) the application of scientific knowledge to everyday life; and (d) the social and environmental implications of scientific and technological development. Science courses must be revised and updated for both the college-bound and those not intending to go to college. An example of such work is the American Chemical Society's "Chemistry in the Community" program.
  4. The teaching of social studies in high school should be designed to: (a) enable students to fix their places and possibilities within the larger social and cultural structure; (b) understand the broad sweep of both ancient and contemporary ideas that have shaped our world; and (c) understand the fundamentals of how our economic system works and how our political system functions; and (d) grasp the difference between free and repressive societies. An understanding of each of these areas is requisite to the informed and committed exercise of citizenship in our free society.
  5. The teaching of computer science in high school should equip graduates to: (a) understand the computer as an information, computation, and communication device; (b) use the computer in the study of the other Basics and for personal and work-related purposes; and (c) understand the world of computers, electronics, and related technologies.

Some Nation At Risk Impacts

The following is quoted from an April 24, 2008 Newsweek article Has Anything Changed?

The work of a national commission assembled by Secretary of Education Terrel Bell and largely written by Harvard physicist Gerald Holton, the report laid bare the troubled state of the nation's 84,000 public schools, which had been battered during the 1970s by plunging enrollments, property-tax revolts, the spread of teacher unionism, the upheavals of desegregation and researchers' demoralizing declarations that family backgrounds rather than schools were the strongest influence on student achievement.
The report's alarming message, Holton's stature (and that of others on Bell's commission) and a central, if ironic, role played in the report's release by Ronald Reagan, vaulted school reform to the top of the national agenda. (Reagan, who had entered the White House in 1981 calling for the abolition of the newly established federal Department of Education, refused Bell's request to establish a presidential education reform commission, refused at first to release the report at the White House, and, when Bell finally got the event on the presidential calendar, ignored the report's recommendations in favor of topics like school prayer—only to barnstorm the nation with the report's message for months once his aides recognized its value to his 1984 re-election.) Suddenly, school reform was page-one news in every newspaper in the nation. Not since the Soviet Union sent Sputnik into orbit had an educational movement gripped the country with such intensity.
"A Nation at Risk" and the other schooling manifestos of the day mostly sought regulatory reforms to strengthen teacher quality, ratchet up high-school standards, and measure student performance more rigorously. A wing of the reform movement countered the student apathy and alienation spawned by the nation's vast, dysfunctional comprehensive high schools by reconfiguring them into smaller, more personal places where students and teachers established meaningful relationships, a strategy rekindled in recent years by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
But by the end of the 1980s, striking percentages of students continued to perform at alarmingly low levels. And it was increasingly clear that local educators were not buying the notion that many students could, or even should, study at higher levels.
So state and federal policymakers, including presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, began putting pressure on the schools from the outside, establishing state education standards and national educational goals, requiring more student testing and holding educators responsible for the results—an accountability campaign that culminated in George W. Bush's signing of the federal No Child Left Behind Act in 2002.

In brief summary, the A Nation at Risk report helped move education improvement into the political arena, and it has stayed there ever since. The public and the press have become much more involved than they were in the past. There have been substantial efforts to increase the "core" course requirements for high school graduation.

Charter Schools (1988 and Thereafter)

In the 2008-2009 school year, about 1.3 million students were enrolled in more than 3,500 Charter Schools in 40 states, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Charter Schools have a distinctive bottom-up flavor that is quite different than the top-down flavor of our overall K-12 public education system. Quoting from the Wikipedia:

The charter school idea in the United States was originated by Ray Budde,[4] a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and embraced by Albert Shanker, President of the American Federation of Teachers, in 1988 when he called for the reform of the public schools by establishing "charter schools" or "schools of choice". At the time, a few schools (which were not called charter schools but embodied some of their principles) already existed, such as H-B Woodlawn. As originally conceived, the ideal model of a charter school was as a legally and financially autonomous public school (without tuition, religious affiliation, or selective student admissions) that would operate much like a private business – free from many state laws and district regulations, and accountable more for student outcomes rather than for processes or inputs (such as Carnegie Units and teacher certification requirements).
Minnesota was the first state to pass a charter school law, in 1991. California was second, in 1992.

The US Federal Government has been quite supportive of Charter Schools. Many politicians and other people see Charter Schools as a vehicle for having competition and more choice in public education. Continuing to quote from the Wikipedia:

Charter school funding is dictated by the state. In many states, charter schools are funded by transferring per-pupil state aid from the school district where the charter school student resides.The Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Part B, Sections 502 - 511 also authorize funding grants for charter schools. Additionally, charter schools may receive funding from private donors or foundations.[Bold added for emphasis.]

Quoting from the US Charter Schools Website:

In his 1997 State of the Union Address, former President Clinton called for the creation of 3,000 charter schools by the year 2002. In 2002, President Bush called for $200 million to support charter schools. His proposed budget called for another $100 million for a new Credit Enhancement for Charter Schools Facilities Program. Since 1994, the U.S. Department of Education has provided grants to support states' charter school efforts, starting with $6 million in fiscal year 1995.

The initial Federal funding level of $6 million has grown substantially over the years. See the [pub Charter Schools Expansion Act of 1998.] In Fiscal Year 2005 the Charter Schools Program was funded at $217 million.

Goals 2000 Act of 1994

"The Goals 2000: Educate America Act (P.L. 103-227)" was signed into law on March 31, 1994 by President Bill Clinton. The Act provides resources to states and communities to ensure that all students reach their full potential.

The goals of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act are:

By the Year 2000...
  • All children in America will start school ready to learn.
  • The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent.
  • All students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, the arts, history, and geography, and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our nation's modern economy.
  • United States students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.
  • Every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
  • Every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence, and the unauthorized presence of firearms and alcohol and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning.
  • The nation's teaching force will have access to programs for the continued improvement of their professional skills and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all American students for the next century.
  • Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children.

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 as signed by President George W. Bush on January 8, 2002.

Quoting from the Wikipedia:

NCLB is the latest federal legislation (another was Goals 2000) which enacts the theories of standards-based education reform, formerly known as outcome-based education, which is based on the belief that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education. The Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades, if those states are to receive federal funding for schools. NCLB does not assert a national achievement standard; standards are set by each individual state, in line with the principle of local control of schools.

This legislation has placed major emphasis on raising student test scores. You can get some insight into one school's approach to raising test scores by reading the 1/8/2007 article "How Bush education law has changed our schools."

Quoting from the article:

The walls are speaking these days at Stanton Elementary School in Philadelphia, and they're talking about test scores.
Post-It notes with children's names tell the story of how, in just five years, a federal law with a funny name has changed school for everyone. "We spend most of our days talking about or looking at data," principal Barbara Adderley says.
Test scores run her week.
She meets with kindergarten teachers on Monday, first-grade teachers on Tuesday and so on. The meetings begin with a look at each teacher's "assessment wall," filled with color-coded Post-Its representing each pupil and whether he or she is making steady progress in basic skills. Once students master a skill, the Post-Its move up the wall.
"If they don't move, then we have to talk about what's happening," Adderley says.

Why We're Still 'At Risk' (2009)

Wolk, Ronald A. (April 22, 2009). Why We’re Still ‘At Risk’: The Legacy of Five Faulty Assumptions. Education Week. Retrieved 4/29/09: http://www.bigpicture.org/2009/04/why-were-still-at-risk-the-legacy-of-five-faulty-assumptions/.

Ronald A. Wolk is Chairman of the Big Picture Learning Board. Also see http://www.bigpicture.org/big-picture-history/.

Big Picture Learning’s mission is to lead vital changes in education, both in the United States and internationally, by generating and sustaining innovative, personalized schools that work in tandem with the real world of the greater community. We believe that in order to sustain successful schools where authentic and relevant learning takes place, we must continually innovate techniques and test learning tools to make our schools better and more rigorous. Lastly, we believe that in order to create and influence the schools of the future, we must use the lessons learned through our practice and research to give us added leverage to impact changes in public policy.

In the article cited above, Wolk discusses five assumptions about educational reform that he feels are poor, incorrect assumptions. The assumptions and the first paragraph of the discussion on each assumption are given below:

Assumption One: The best way to improve student performance and close achievement gaps is to establish rigorous content standards and a core curriculum for all schools—preferably on a national basis.

Standards-based accountability has been the national school reform strategy for nearly two decades. It is essentially a “get tough” strategy made tougher by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. By all measures, it has not lived up to its promise, and the reason is that it is based on the premise that if we demand high performance and educational excellence, schools, teachers, and students will somehow “just do it.” It is a strategy that basically expects schools to be highly structured institutions with uniform practices and policies, where a common version of education is delivered to all students.

Assumption Two: Standardized-test scores are an accurate measure of student learning and should be used to determine promotion and graduation.

The standards-based-accountability strategy, not surprisingly, has led to the alarming overuse of standardized tests, even in the opinion of some test-makers and psychometricians. Some measures of accountability are necessary in any endeavor that spends public money and is responsible for an important societal mission. But is testing all students virtually every year really necessary to determine whether the system is working effectively and the money spent well? If test scores are the accepted indicator, schools have not been meeting the needs of students for the past couple of decades. So why spend more money and time on constant testing to tell us what we already know—especially when standardized tests do a poor job of measuring real learning, don’t assess most of the characteristics valued by parents and the larger society, and contribute almost nothing to the process of teaching and learning.

Assumption Three: We need to put highly qualified teachers in every classroom to assure educational excellence.

A great idea! If we could do that, we’d be a long way to solving our education problem. But it won’t happen for decades, if ever.

Assumption Four: The United States should require all students to take algebra in the 8th grade and higher-order math in high school in order to increase the number of scientists and engineers in this country and thus make us more competitive in the global economy.

This assumption has become almost an obsession in policymaking arenas today. Requiring every student to study higher-order math is a waste of resources and cruel and unusual punishment for legions of students. It diverts attention away from the real problem: our failure to help kids become proficient readers and master basic arithmetic.

Assumption Five: The student-dropout rate can be reduced by ending social promotion, funding dropout-prevention programs, and raising the mandatory attendance age.

Arguably, the dropout rate is the most telling evidence of public school failure. Nearly a third of entering high school freshmen drop out. The percentage is higher for blacks, Hispanics, and English-language learners. And in many urban districts, the dropout rate borders on the horrendous.

Bridging Differences: Blog by Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch

This is a lively sequence of interchanges going back to February 2007. It provides two "diverse" points of view on educational reform.

Quoting from the Bridging Differences Website:

Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch have found themselves at odds on policy over the years, but they share a passion for improving schools. Bridging Differences will offer their insights on what matters most in education.

To give you a flavor of these short articles, here are a couple of paragraphs from Deborah Meier's April 23, 2009 posting:

Incidentally, some readers may not realize that the high-scoring nations that use standardized tests, if at all, use a different kind than those you were describing. They often consist of written and oral cross-examination, with grades determined by well-qualified judges. (The international scores we read about, readers should realize, are the results of low-stakes tests, which were given on a sampled basis.)
In short: the varied U.S. tests whose scores we so often hear about don’t measure well what they appear to be measuring. I’m not talking about the short-term versus long-term memory issue which lies behind the charming little comedy routine about the five-minute university (which just tests you on what college students remember two years later). The best rationale for national standards and tests is precisely in the lack of equivalence in current "standardized" state tests. If standardized tests were used properly, two different reading tests for students in the seventh month of 4th grade would be largely interchangeable—unless there was some fundamental philosophical disagreement about the nature of reading. Their sole merit is that one is comparing oranges to oranges. (This is also another good reason not to test young children in the process of learning to read—where scores must reflect the method of teaching, not the achievement of reading.)

References

A Nation At Risk (1983). Retrieved 5/1/09: http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html. ED.gov (n.d.). U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved 5/1/09: http://www.ed.gov/about/landing.jhtml?src=ln.

IDEA (n.d.). Public Law 94-142 (Education of All Handicapped Children Act), now codified as IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). Retrieved 5/1/09: http://www.scn.org/~bk269/94-142.html. For a year 2000 25-year history of the act, see http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/leg/idea/history.html. Moursund, David (2006). Computers in education for talented and gifted students: A book for elementary and middle school teachers. Eugene, OR: Information Age Education. Access at http://i-a-e.org/downloads/doc_download/13-computers-in-education-for-talented-and-gifted-students.html.

Orfield, G., Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge, Los Angeles, CA: The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA. Retrieved 4/30/09: http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/deseg/reviving_the_goal_mlk_2009.pdf.

Renzulli, Joseph S (n.d.). The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented: Past Reflections and Future Directions. Retrieved 5/1/09: http://www.gifted.org/teachers/Teachers%20Discussion%202/NRC.htm. Quoting from the document:

In an effort to provide a platform for a national program of systematic research, a series of universities, Universities of Connecticut, Virginia, and Yale University, together with state departments of education, parent groups, and 300 collaborating school districts throughout the country, have formed a consortium entitled the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented (NRC G/T). A major conviction underlying NRC/GT has been that research in an applied field must be grounded in the realities of schools and classrooms, and must be accessible and meaningful to those people who work and study in them. A guiding principle for the Center, therefore, is that all research and dissemination activities must have derived benefits for practitioners, and must result in some kind of direct impact upon educational policy, management, or practice. At the same time, we recognize the essential need for research to be theory based and empirically sound.

Sarason, Seymour (1990). The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990.

UNESCO (2004). Education for all through voices of children. Retrieved 5/1/09: http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/region_forums/asia_pacific/Buklet_gramota.pdf. Quoting from this brochure:

At the World Education Forum (Dakar 2001) the international educational community entrusted UNESCO with coordinating the Education for All movement. As part of this initiative, UNESCO conducted a global week. “Education for All” is the name of the UNESCO initiative undertaken every year in many countries of the world in the framework of the Education for All movement. It is also known as the Action Week.
2004 global week was devoted to children without a school place. It seems hard to imagine but 100 million children do not have access to education. With this concern in mind UNESCO and World Campaign for Education have organized a global Lobby aiming to bring to the attention of governments of the world the voices of children with the aim of including all children in the education process. Violation of the fundamental human right to education will continue to be the cause of poverty, hunger, violence, exploitation and disease.

US Charter Schools (n.d.). Retrieved 5/3/09: http://www.uscharterschools.org/pub/uscs_docs/index.htm.

Veterans Benefits (n.d.). U.S. Code Collection. Title 38—Veterans' Benefits. Retrieved 5/1/09: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode38/usc_sup_01_38.html.

Author or Authors

The initial version of this page was developed by David Moursund.

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