Nuts and Bolts of the Excellence Movement
London, Herbert I. & Fossedal, Gregory A. & Kirp, David L. & Kramer, Rita & Uzzell, Lawrence A. & Carper, James C. & Doyle, Denis P. & Futrell, Mary & Greer, Peter R. & Honig, Bill & Nathan, Joe & Pearlstein, Mitchell B. & Shanker, Albert & Woodson, Robert L. & Murchison, William & Adelson, Joseph
JOSEPH ADELSON Among its many other distinctions, Ann Arbor, Michigan is the site of a great research university; ranks first nationally in book sales per capita, and circulates more books...
...As former head of Florida's "Democrats for Cranston" he is not, in the abstract, the most likely person to push for tough-minded education reform...
...But Perot, such is his personal dynamism, such his flair for attracting attention and getting things done, made the job look almost easy...
...But teachers do expect--and deserve--a decent paycheck, not a passport to near-poverty...
...9 Raise the level of homework and the amount of instructional time...
...What makes the California story special is that Honig has turned himself into the Henry Barnard of our times, riding the circuit to preach the gospel...
...Nor was Perot content just to dump such a program in the legislature's lap...
...The fervor for reform swept Texas in the spring of 1983 after (1) the National Commission on Excellence in Education handed up its widely publicized indictment of American schools and (2) Gov...
...In New York, for example, in an area described by police as one of the city's worst drug-trafficking areas, Lower East Side International School operates in an old public school building badly in need of repair...
...He had engineered the rescue of employees trapped in Iran after the Shah's overthrow...
...Key educators have also reached a consensus on the kind of instructional program which will best meet these goals...
...Albert Shanker is president o f the American Federation o f Teachers...
...HERBERT I. LONDON Since publication of the Club of Rome Report, Limits to Growth, in 1972, high-school social studies textbook and curricula materials have imbibed the lesson that environmental conditions are bad and getting worse...
...But should that kind of diligent support cease, continued commitment to improvement will be jeopardized...
...The reform reports focused public attention on education and resurrected the ideals of excellence and standards...
...If in the process of using these materials students develop confidence and high morale instead of the usual despair, so be it...
...These years are a developmental breathing spell, an opportunity for learning about the real world and building cognitive strengths to draw on later...
...Apparently there will be an effort to reinvent the wheel, in that an inventory of expected "common learnings" will be developed, and only then will a curriculum revision be proposed...
...David L. Kirp is professor at the School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, and associate editor of the Sacramento Bee...
...A 1983 release of state-by-state performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test placed Vermont third out of 22 states ranked...
...Unfortunately, the label "education reform" may sometimes be as empty as the calories in the breakfast cereals we eat while reading about the latest education reform report or bill: good for a quick fix of energy but nutritionally empty in the long run...
...The 28 states that did not release data had too few college-bound students to provide meaningful comparison, so one can infer that in practice Vermont ranks third or close to it among the 50 states...
...even when they seem to be about money, they really are not--they are about "educational philosophy," which usually turns out to mean current fashions in injustice...
...And as any monopolist knows, a cartel which doesn't include the big boys will sink without a trace...
...And while New Hampshire has no voucher or tax credit to aid private schools, its rural districts often allow a choice between nearby public schools, recognizing that arbitrary district boundaries may impose transportation hardships...
...We need to improve curricula, obtain and maintain the finest teachers, provide basic materials and equipment, and give students support and encouragement at home...
...We have defined accountability of principals, curriculum development, policy development, resource allocation, staff development, and other key leverage points and are organizing training of boards and staffs...
...And those who can't should not have been hired and should not be kept...
...In the past two years, expenditures for students have increased nearly 20 percent or about $500 per child...
...These opponents have only delayed the Kean reform package, not killed it...
...The monopoly is today's public school system, a system on which most must rely, yet which fails to provide options for the consumer and incentives for the producer...
...Under the reform legislation each district will review its instructional program against these model curricula...
...Small (enrollment averages about 150), unencumbered by bureaucratic structures, populated by committed individuals, and still relatively free from state prescriptions for "quality education," these schools attempt with varying degrees of success to integrate the Christian faith with every element of school life...
...That is the truth of education in Portland, where students, staff, parents, and government are all participating in the continuing drive for excellence...
...The House Education Committee began by throwing out virtually everything...
...It is tragic for education that so many teachers are not being evaluated...
...has a City Council which debates whether to debate American policy in Central America...
...It does give beginning teachers a larger pay increase ($4,100) than any other state has so far tendered...
...To reach that goaI--NEA's goal--all teachers must be observed and evaluated onthe-job by trained and competent evaluators...
...Indeed, Honig is battling against the effects of the 1960s school crusade, which enshrined cultural relativism and educational permissiveness...
...So much for abstractions...
...And exhortations don't quickly or automatically change students' performance, a lesson relearned when this year's state achievement tests showed, once again, that California's seniors are doing worse in reading, writing, and mathematics...
...they are not just instrumental quick fixes...
...Too bad Shanker didn't bother to look at the facts in Minnesota...
...In 1982 the Hudson Institute organized a program of study to balance the record of human accomplishment...
...The state's universities, distressed that entering freshmen can't manage a Strunk and White sentence, have cheered the effort...
...This holds even though Vermont spends little more ($2,763 per student) than the national average ($2,724 per student) on education...
...On the basis of the best available data, however, it seems reasonable to estimate that between 8,000 and 10,000 of these schools have been established during the last twenty years, with a current student population of approximately 1,000,000 (kindergarten through 12th grade...
...Thus champions of educational reform can take heart from the fact that 198Ys most aggressive proposal came from New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean...
...d) acceptance of the state voucher as total payment for the school's tuition and fees...
...This view, I should hastily note, is not presented as speculation or as an evocative hypothesis...
...But fewer than o n e - h a l f o f America's teachers are currently evaluated on an annual basis...
...Positive reinforcement is given to everyone...
...The Reagan Administration has kept the proposal at arm's length...
...Yet as a word of caution to those who see the route to excellence purely in isolated and definitive prescription, it is important to note that there is no simple explanation for Portland's success...
...If families elected to attend non-public schools, 80 percent of the state-allocated funds would follow them (approximately $1,500 for elementary students and $2,100 for secondary students...
...Even though it costs parents an extra $400 or more to send children to the Academy, an overwhelming majority do, and some 40 families from outside 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1984 the district send children there...
...In a vast continental democracy, there are competing values, particularly in a pluralistic and heterogenous society...
...The result is a generation of children who know how to multiply themselves but can't multiply numbers...
...Currently we have approximately 160,000 teachers...
...To some extent this is a result of too many hours spent in front of the television set, a problem for the family to deal with at home...
...At long last it seems that the private school network is becoming an option for many urban minorities, the poor, and the disadvantaged...
...A constant stream of positive newspaper articles has created good public feeling about the school system...
...If the criticism has validity it is only that realism in an ambiance of manic pessimism may appear to some as manic optimism...
...Teachers a r e n ' t against tests...
...These are surely necessary reforms, just the sort of "quick fix of energy" needed to move our schools in the right academic direction...
...4. Selection and training of principals...
...At least that is how I view the brain children of one of the most inventive education "policy makers" in the nation, Jack Gordon...
...DAVID L. KIRP It's hard not to root for Bill Honig, California's peripatetic superintendent of public instruction, as he sets out on what sometimes seems a one-man crusade to reform public education in the state...
...The real enemy is inertia...
...Our work included a thorough review of existing materials and an examination of how related issues were treated by high-school textbooks...
...Rather, the Committee asked for evidence as to who was the most valuable to the students, with seniority as one respected factor...
...Raynolds tightened staff and administration hiring practices, and from his office came tougher evaluations of administrators and staff, relentless monitoring of all facets of the school system, a curriculum cycle of review and improvement, higher academic standards, and greater involvement of parents and other volunteers...
...Secondly, based on the commitment of the educational community to improve quality at the local level, we devised a legislative package which passed in July 1983 to support the improvement efforts...
...That outside push, coupled with the help of key state legislators, has added nearly $2 billion to the schools budget in two years...
...Salaries are probably too low for the effort expended and challenges faced by the staff...
...Thus, when evangelicals establish and support Christian day schools, which emphasize the Bible, moral absolutes, basic subject matter mastery, discipline, and varying degrees of separation from contemporary culture, they are expressing not only profound dissatisfaction with the normative void in public education, unsatisfactory behavioral and academic standards, and education decision-making by agencies and individuals not accountable to the public, but also disillusionment with the society which sustains the public school enterprise...
...We have just launched a blue ribbon commission to develop a plan for recruiting, training, evaluating, and" supporting the new generation of teachers in California...
...The danger, of course, is not just narrow but parochial prescriptiveness...
...Few of the legislature's resident cynics gave the Perot program much of a chance...
...The school board has recently tilted in the liberal direction, but it will likely tilt again when the conservatives decide, as they did in the recent past, that enough is enough...
...These are welcome and long overdue developments...
...They have no place in teaching...
...Aid to the largely Roman Catholic system there is seen as a means of keeping the state out of religion...
...Finally, there are efforts to engage in cooperative measures with the business community, to solicit the help of parents, and to encourage students' responsibility in the education process...
...St~preme Court (in Mueller v. Allen) upheld the practice that for nearly thirty years has allowed Minnesotans to deduct a portion of educational expenses from their state income taxes...
...Bill Hobby, a moderate, likewise threw in with Perot...
...Because the raising of standards--or so it is argued--will also raise the dropout rate, which in turn (and this is said euphemistically) affects the blacks...
...It spends far less than such neighboring states as New York ($4,280) and Connecticut ($3,189), both of which trail Vermont on the SAT rankings...
...persistent effort has brought a wide variety of significant and complementary facets of the school system into place...
...If those two statistics--lots of private students, yet low spending levels per student--seem at odds, it is only because the myth of private schools rolling in dough is, well, a myth...
...John Steinle, head of the South Australian Schools, reports a number of education innovations spreading from private to public sector, in effect forced on the latter by the pressure of competition...
...Without him reform wouldn't have happened...
...The bill had several features...
...New Hampshire, like Vermont, has one of the highest percentages of private school students of any state in the nation...
...But teachers do not rely on a single test to measure students' progress...
...AI Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told USA Today that " I can't think of a worse decision--or a worse time for it to come...
...Those in Taipei and Sendal were likely to give a high rating to "effort...
...Still: What if all the numbers and performance statistics turn out to be a wash...
...But lest the energy that education reform commissions and legislators have injected into the public school system fuel the education crisis of tomorrow, we must also release the energies of teachers--people whom we ultimately expect to nourish the minds of our children...
...Superintendent Honig's new accountability standards will provide a useful measure--or, rather, multiple measures, for among the goals he has set are increased student enrollment in courses such as chemistry, calculus, and foreign languages, more required writing, fewer dropouts, and more students taking advanced placements...
...The Senate, prodded by Lt...
...increase students' understanding of their physical, social, political, and ethical worlds...
...Several New Jersey college administrators, including two deans of education schools, have supported it...
...As with anything so dependent on the intangible, though, Portland officials know that their success has to be earned over and over again...
...Perhaps these islands of shared belief and commitment will demonstrate that in the quest for excellence in education, reform efforts which rely on the values of voluntarism, community, and decentralization will be more likely to bear fruit than those which depend on bureaucratic edict...
...He wondered "how practical it is to push for educational reform," insofar as schools "can only respond to the needs expressed by the parents and citizens who pay for them...
...Whether religious or secular, selective or open-admissions, almost all of them are willing to hire teachers who have not spent one day in an education methods class...
...These draft materials, in the form of a student textbook, were subjected to a wide-scale field test during the 1982-3 school year...
...Harder textbooks...
...Will tomorrow's reformers be as discerning as Gordon...
...He found his new alma mater "not hospitable to the values of intellectual inquiry, growth, industry, imagination, and respect for sources that characterize genuine liberal-arts ins t i t u t i o n s . . . Thus it is no wonder that there is widespread boredom among today's high-school students...
...More homework...
...By embracing the Christian day school, they believe they have fashioned a configuration of education in which all components are engaged in their conception of the scriptural command to "train up a child in the way he should go...
...In the process of which he raised all sorts of hackles yet also got Texans talking seriously about education--something they hadn't done for decades...
...This would provide some needed perspective for the study of current events later, when students are better able to deal with the present by integrating it into their experience and their understanding of the past...
...Regardless of any improvement in public education which may result from recent reform strategies, it is not likely that many evangelicals will return their children to the public schools...
...It sometimes surprises people to learn that NEA's 1,700,000 educatormembers want evaluation systems...
...adherence to all the stricter curricular and performance standards they implore...
...Most schools require in-house or standardized testing for placement, and most graduates go on to private schools or specialized or selective public high schools...
...And for once, time may be on the reformers' side, for the Kean administration has already slashed education courses at state teacher colleges and moved to eliminate education as an academic major...
...Johnsbury, for example, has no official public school at all...
...We are supporting changes which: _9 Place renewed emphasis on sequenced instruction in the major disciplines...
...Several factors contributed to the passage of the reform package: (1) the educational community took the initiative in advocating reforms, (2) the reforms were combined with funding, (3) we kept issues bipartisan, and (4) we organized support for the bill in each community in the state, and obtained intensive ethnic, business, and media advocacy for higher standards and funding...
...Definitely...
...These plans are also insulting to the profession, implying as they do that teachers must be bribed to work harder...
...that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer...
...All call for reform and improvement in education...
...Due to the unorganized, grassroots growth of the Christian day schools and the refusal of some of these institutions either to join one of the national Christian school associations or to report enrollment figures to government agencies, there is considerable variation in the estimates of the number of schools and their enrollment...
...Perot barnstormed the state, dive-bombing incompetent teachers, negligent parents, teacher colleges, vocational education, and even Texas public education's traditional worship of athletics...
...Most of the schools are owned and operated by minorities with an average enrollment from 150-200 students, usually from preschool to eighth grade, although there are some high schools...
...Why should that be...
...JAMES C. CARPER Since the mid-1960s, evangelical Protestants and their churches, few of which are affiliated with mainline denominations, have been founding Christian day schools at an unprecedented rate...
...The bill brought a new group of people to testify at the legislature...
...House of Representatives...
...The Michigan research lighted the blind spot by asking mothers in the three cities about the "most important factor in determining a child's performance in school...
...Another is the political activism that encourages "nuclear awareness" among children too young to understand the issues but old enough to be made anxious by the threat implied by the adults in their lives...
...In short, it's time to move such decisions away from distant bureaucracies and turn them over to teachers who know directly how the needs of students may be met...
...Johnsbury student attended school in Connecticut...
...In the spring of 1983 the New York State Education Department proposed a new curriculum starting in grade 7 that would de-emphasize American and European history as such, substituting non-Western studies in order to replace "nationalism and ethnocentrism" with a "global perspective...
...it has to be suggested to him...
...While the voucher bill did not pass in the most recent session, supporters think time and momentum may be on their side...
...Such an ethos provides a shared sense of mission and common values which research suggests are characteristic of "effective schools...
...is reputed to have the largest number o f psychotherapists for its population in the nation...
...The old saw about teaching was only half right...
...and has a daily newspaper which provides a great many alarming and memorable items for this journal's Current Wisdom page...
...Denis P. Doyle is director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute...
...A recrudescent evangelical consciousness--one manifestation of the spiritual ferment of the past twenty years which historian William G. McLoughlin has called the "Fourth Great Awakening"--has prompted a growing number of evangelicals to promote Christian education beyond the home and marginally effective efforts of the Sunday school...
...1, as former Chairman of the Joint Committee of Congress on Atomic Energy, am proud to call her friend...
...easy" debate when the real issue is good textbooks, books so organized that students will develop a better vocabulary, greater understanding of ideas, and the ability to solve problems...
...But studies conducted in 1964 and 1970 ranked Denmark, the Netherlands, and Australia, countries with varying consumer choice, all well above the United States in student performance on standardized tests...
...Harold W. Stevenson of the University of Michigan, concluded that "our national problem lies not only in American schools but in American homes...
...What is needed are salary levels high enough to attract the top students into teaching and to keep the finest teachers in the classroom...
...Supporters included the director of the Minneapolis Urban League, director of the Minnesota Spanish Speaking Affairs Council, prominent Native Americans, and several public-school teachers and superintendents...
...At the moment the Council is narrowly Republican...
...It has been commonly known that students in Japan and a sizable number of other places, on average, devote more time to learning than students in this country...
...But another factor that undercuts children's later ability to learn must be laid at the doorstep of the schools themselves, which overexcite and confuse children by introducing matters into the curriculum that are inappropriate because they are addressed to children who are too young to deal with them in a useful way, distracting both pupils and teachers, robbing them of the time and energy that should be devoted to learning the rudiments of science and mathematics and becoming acquainted with history and literature...
...White, a Democrat, named Perot, a Republican, to chair the Governor's Select Committee on Public Education (SCOPE...
...Will any of this sound and fury signify...
...It establishes the nation's juiciest incentives for teacher performance and the toughest academic standards for student athletes...
...Staff development based on the intellectual lives of teachers is now a priority...
...Because the children are taking much too long to learn to read, write, and do basic computations, they are losing interest, dropping out, or being "pushed out" without ever learning necessary basic skills...
...Advanced placement courses, language courses such as Russian and Chinese, and alternative courses for disaffected students were added...
...Rita Kramer's most recent book is In Defense of the Family (Basic Books...
...Curriculum monitoring has to be done with more skill...
...As teachers, we have had to learn and practice the skills that will cause students to want to learn what we have to present...
...Closer to home, however, Gordon has pioneered one idea that has enormous promise, even if it does violate a principle that conservatives hold dear...
...These opposing inclinations are evenly balanced...
...A decade ago, less than 40 percent supported vouchers...
...Finally, the curricula are often shaped by a formal cultural or religious doctrine, which has brought much needed discipline to the educational process...
...Interestingly, the one state emulating the Vermont miracle is New Hampshire, ranked number one in SAT scores yet spending only $2,500 per student...
...Last fall LEARN, Inc., published a report by a liberal-arts graduate who returned to college in New Jersey in order to qualify for a teaching certificate...
...Vermont has provided notable options for a rural state, in part because parents can receive help even for outof-state tuition...
...who can write slogans about the environment or feminism but can't write a good paragraph...
...We hear cries for improvement but see suggestions so simplistic as to be useless in the battle to make real improvement--so-called "competency" tests for teachers, lengthened school days and years, "merit pay" plans that amount to nothing more than one-time payments for a handful of educators...
...Write to: P.O...
...In fact, it is increasingly clear that more and more public school systems are unable to respond to the basic educational needs of inner-city and disadvantaged children...
...A recent statewide Minnesota poll showed that almost 60 percent of Minnesota adults favored support to private schools, and that a clear majority of those who had an opinion favored both the general idea of using tax funds to support parents' educational preferences, and the proposed legislation allowing low- and moderate-income families to use tax funds to pay tuition at public, private, or parochial schools...
...The truth is: Those who can, do...
...b) admission on a racially non-discriminatory basis...
...The governor could scarcely have known what he was bargaining for...
...Private schools do it differently...
...In June 1983, the U.S...
...The head of the three-nation study, Prof...
...But, sadly, too few have advocated providing the resources necessary to achieve the desired results...
...They also were more apt to he satisfied than their Asian counterparts with their children's schools...
...BILL HONIG The California experience offers some helpful insights for those striving to improve educational quality in this country...
...Many states have responded to this finding by mandating tougher academic standards, harder textbooks, and more homework, to name some highlights...
...Over the years Portland began to support new ideas more aggressively...
...Joseph A delson is professor of psychology at the University of Michigan...
...To them, public education exemplifies trends which they deplore in the society at large: widespread uncertainty concerning sources of authority, dissolution of standards, waning of evangelicalism as a culture-shaping force, scientism, and government social engineering...
...His theories about destruction of public education haven't come to pass...
...In fact, Citizens for the Republic, the President's political action committee, actually supported Assemblyman Rocco in an unsuccessful primary bid for the U.S...
...Still, most of the reports and recommendations were superficial...
...As the Democratic primary campaign has shown us, this has become the conventional way that the liberal press and leadership deal with charges of racism, no matter how absurd...
...Public schools have seen waves of reformers --and reforms--come and go...
...Ignorant teachers are bored teachers, and that boredom is unfailingly conveyed . . . " Governor Kean's proposal has enjoyed mixed fortunes...
...During the last several years, GaUup found support increasing...
...Nor is that success necessarily permanent...
...The coalition builds on Minnesota's policy since 1955 of permitting taxpayers to deduct education expenses from their state income taxes...
...It allowed families with incomes up to 130 percent of federal poverty guidelines to use funds allocated by the state to attend public or participating independent schools...
...We want to be carefully observed by trained observers...
...ROBERT L. WOODSON While the public schools will be necessary to serve the majority of students, I believe that parents and students should have a choice, and it should not be completely determined by the amount of money that a parent has...
...National polls over the last decade show an increasing amount of support for extending educational choices...
...GREGORY A. FOSSEDAL The conviction seems to be growing that if the education system doesn't work, you have to change the whole system...
...Why not try developing teaching into a profession...
...In the national debate on education now underway, many voices have been raised...
...and reading comprehension, 58 to 40...
...Those who have put in the effort and the time to learn to become successful teachers can tell you that it's a lot easier just to do something yourself than to successfully cause 20 or 30 children to become proficient at it...
...History...
...So New Jersey is one state where "education reform" may turn out to mean something more than tax increases and cosmetic adjustments in systems that have already failed...
...It reminds one of Burke's comment that the study of law sharpens the mind by narrowing it...
...A preliminary meeting of co-conspirators in Tallahassee, which included representatives from California, New York, and the U.S...
...If indeed "Johnny can't read," the Heritage Foundation's Herb Berkowitz wrote in 1981, "cherchez le monopoly...
...Its nationai-normed test scores are high, and the system has three national schools of excellence, a low drop-out rate, impressive college and job placements, and special programs for students of all abilities...
...Indeed, during a three-year period of terrible budget and staff reductions, the School Committee refused to take the far easier and more educationally damaging route of eliminating positions on the basis of straight seniority...
...Retired Senator John O. Pastore...
...Give an education bureaucrat a list of sugg e s t i o n s - f o r merit pay, stricter standards, greater parental involvement, classroom discipline, a return to the basics--and you will get back a list of platitudes and excuses...
...Joining him were some rural, conservative legislators...
...They are supporting proposed legislation that would allow students from low and moderateincome families to use state funds in choosing among public, private, and parochial schools...
...Between 11 and 13 percent of Minnesota students have attended independent schools since the legislation was adopted, approximately equal to national percentages during the same period.In fact, according to U.S...
...In one of the most prestigious private schools in New Jersey, only two of the sixty faculty members have the formal course credentials which would allow them to seek jobs in the state's public schools...
...The administrators shrugged their shoulders--they are seasoned veterans of the Ann Arbor scene--and in the fullness of time a 43-member committee--consisting of anyone mildly interested and remotely sentient--was deputed to redo the secondary curriculum...
...n especially vigorous foe is Republican assemblyman John Rocco, who is also a professor of education...
...Abridged facility in seeing the connection between effort and learning is quite comprehensible given the fact that over, say, the last twenty years-and paradoxically running parallel to what until recently have been rising tides of complacency--there has been a shift .in the way responsibility is allotted in the United States...
...RITA KRAMER For the past two decades the elementary schools have been doing too many things they should not be doing and, in the process, neglecting too much of what they should be doing...
...That is why anyone who cares about education reform should keep an eye on him...
...Much of this might be corrected by getting rid of the Trojan horse of "social studies" and reintroducing the study of history...
...Yet a close look at 1,440 first- and fifthgrade children and their parents in Taipei, Sendal, and Minneapolis suggests a corollary imperative that has been asserted weakly: the responsibility of students and their families to do better, too...
...The legislature passed a bill to allow 100 students around the state to attend other public schools if their needs for stimulation and challenge were not being met in the local district...
...Many people who can diagram a sentence on paper cannot communicate ideas effectively to children...
...But inner-city minority parents have shown a willingness to endure financial burdens for the education of their children...
...The system has produced low-achievers either through unfair labeling, lack of attention to specific learning problems, or lack of discipline...
...Student athletes would have to pass all, not just most, of their courses...
...In fact, this analogy is too generous: The scholarly caliber of most college education departments, and their alumni, makes the typical journalism school look like Plato's Academy by comparison...
...Participating non-public schools had to agree to the following guidelines: a) no admissions tests for students...
...The lesson offered by our friends and allies is that choice is important precisely because values are important to education, and that some synthetic values will not suffice...
...To put it bluntly, no one goes into teaching or any other education position expecting to become rich...
...Then, wonder of wonders, both houses sat down and passed the first general tax increase since 1971--$4.6 billion (the bulk for education, the rest for highways...
...A little realism is a healthy antidote to the Chicken Little contention that the sky is falling...
...Such laws kre simply one more simplistic shortcut that leads to trouble, not improvement...
...Please send me the book, "Is It True What They Say About Dixy...
...Most of them report a high degree of satisfaction with the education offered by Christian day schools...
...Johnsbury Academy...
...Portland has worked hard to maintain this feeling in the schools...
...In short, Gordon's ideas raise questions of principle...
...Yet there was an immediate hullabaloo, in part because--so it was said--the proposals had come from the administration, and not from "the community," in part because to raise standards is "elitist...
...As enrollment in education courses falls, so will the education-school lobby's clout in Trenton...
...At least they didn't try to foist Founding Fathers and Mothers on an unsuspecting nation...
...Competency" tests for teachers are, at the moment, a politically popular educational " r e f o r m . " But forcing teachers to take a single written t e s t - - o r lose their j o b - - i s no way to ensure our children an outstanding teacher in every classroom...
...The Court said that the law is constitutional because parents of all school children are allowed to deduct education expenses...
...This survey, a sample from more than 250 independent schools in selected cities nationwide, proves there are successful educational options for black, Hispanic, American Indian, and Asian children from urban environments...
...All this sounds like a distillation of the best of that bookshelf's worth of current reports on the state of American education...
...It was opposed by the prominent education groups: teachers, administrators, and school boards...
...Nor should one bet that those standards will be lifted dramatically, since one senses that an underlying aim of the exercise is a kind of damage control, to make sure that the reform goals are not fully met...
...In the U.S., two chief arguments against education choice are that it would subsidize religion and, of course, "help the rich...
...We will also give each local school a profile to show its position in relationship to these goals and encourage school initiatives for improvement...
...Americans traditionally distrust monopoly...
...Some state education reform bills may also be providing the appearance but not the substance of education renewal...
...Until recently, voucher and ,tax credit advocates were hard-pressed to answer such nabobs by what they thought was an absence of any state or local experimentation with the idea...
...it is the gospel according to the secular millenarians...
...Despite "gloom and doom rhetoric" from teachers' union officials around the country, this practice has not destroyed Minnesota public schools or produced a major exodus to private or parochial schools...
...For the children of the poor there would be special prekindergarten instruction...
...There are the Superintendent's Awards, individual school awards, and a steady flow of letters and other recognition for "something extra" done by staff members...
...He makes light of local control (and local discretion) in the name of improving writing...
...Close-up investigations of teacher education programs make it clear that the more talented students have good reason to avoid them...
...Graduates, staff, and citizenry are constantly questioned about how the school system can be improved...
...Is local control with low or no standards to be preferred to centralized control justified by academic rigor...
...Chairman of the Florida Senate Education Committee, Gordon is a liberal democrat...
...Department of Education, attracted a good deal of favorable attention, but within a few days New York proceeded to get cold feet...
...If we are serious about teaching science, math, history, English, fine arts, and 20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1984 foreign language, we need to organize widespread training for existing teachers...
...Concerned that few high-school graduates in Florida any longer know how to write, Gordon hit on a novel idea: If teachers gave writing assignments, collected them, read them, graded them, and returned them students might master this arcane craft...
...You see, there's a great deal more to being a good teacher than simply knowing the subject matter...
...What could be so hard about reforming the Texas public school system...
...Why not go for the real substance of educational reform, as suggested by the works of Theodore Sizer, John Goodlad, or Ernest Boyer...
...If he succeeds, New Jersey will become the first state where liberal-arts graduates can routinely get jobs as public-school teachers without taking educationmethods courses which many consider an intellectual wasteland...
...Actually a lot was hard...
...Nevertheless, these institutions may prove beneficial to public education and current reform efforts...
...There were to be generous salary increases for teachers--and a career "ladder" to reward better teachers all the more generously...
...It should come as no surprise, then, that solutions to this problem are coming not from within the public school system but from without...
...Rather, THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1984 19 over a period of nine years (yes, that long...
...Of course we do...
...Implementation of all the imaginative and rigorous educational improvement programs on the table...
...science, 39 to 23...
...Preliminary findings from a National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (NCNE) independent school survey show that many students are outperforming their public school counterparts...
...Nevertheless, intellectual righteousness is hard to oppose, particularly when its opposite is an abstract principle...
...And by avoiding the issue of student tracking, the reports implicitly sustained the impossible proposition that schools can ensure equal outcomes...
...It sets up the country's first statewide program for pre-kindergarten children...
...Liberty and choice are fundamental to the American dream and promise...
...Asked why, the author of one of the best-received new educational blueprints pointed to exceedingly boring instruction...
...2. Textbook selection procedures both at the state and local levels to reflect the instruction program we are pursuing and to make books more challenging and interesting...
...Large numbers of educators are working to develop criteria for each curricula area...
...What sparse data there are, though, suggest Vermont's system is a smashing success...
...Robert L. Woodson is president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise in Washington, D.C...
...It's no surprise that unions and school boards, which hold a virtual monopoly on public funds (and on young people whose parents cannot afford affluent suburban, private, or parochial schools) oppose extending choice...
...I would hope that other states will not settle for only broad legislative and structural changes, but will also pursue the central issues of the quality of curriculum, teaching, and leadership at the local levels by creating a critical mass of professionals dedicated to excellence...
...Mark White failed to make good on his campaign promise of a whopping pay raise for teachers...
...M e r i t " plans won't do anything at all to attract top students into our classrooms...
...Moreover, these positions can be found in various forms and to a greater or lesser extent in every major social studies textbook presently used at the high-school level...
...Box 211, Issaquah, WA 98027 Name Address City Apt...
...Currently parents may deduct up to $500 for elementary students and $750 for secondary students...
...In doing so schools are not only assuming the functions of the family, they are doing away with childhood itself as a relatively tranquil time for learning...
...It's rare for a person holding four aces to call for a new deal...
...Prescriptive...
...Honig aims to make public schools more rigorous places, even as he understands that intellectual ferment and cultural context, not the "back to basics" nostrums so widely peddled these days, is what rigor means...
...Coalition members include rural and urban conservatives and liberals, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and whites...
...It will be fascinating to follow efforts to transform the game...
...Failure to do so might well abort the movement for educational excellence before it becomes imbedded in the day-to-day operation of the schools...
...Who can wonder that already people are talking about Ross Perot for governor in 19867 William Murchison is associate editor o f the Dallas Morning News...
...It was a remarkable achievement by any standards...
...In short, that if dramatic conservation measures are not adopted immediately, the world will soon be doomed...
...Starting with the solid recommendations of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, every report of every national panel has emphasized the responsibility of schools and those who work in them to do better...
...the financial burden on atheists is the same as on Christians, Jews, or Moslems...
...Indeed, how could a writer oppose so virtuous an idea...
...Tougher academic standards...
...IS IT TRUE WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT DIXY" Life story of America's most courageous and controversial conservative The book that was a best-seller in the Northwest--until the ultraliberal bookstore owners boycotted it Written by the crime-busting, crusading former managing editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Louis R. Guzzo "1 do not hesitate in calling Dixy the most dynamic and creative woman of her generation...
...It is as if we had a law forbidding newspapers to hire anybody except journalism-school graduates...
...During 1983, this electoral mandate was translated into a comprehensive reform strategy...
...Take the example of improving higher-order skills in students...
...Not only do these schools currently constitute the most rapidly expanding segment of formal education in the United States, but they also represent the first widespread secession from the public school pattern since the establishment of Catholic schools in the nineteenth century...
...After revision earlier this year, the VOF "complete package" now consists of an integrated student text/activities workbook, a teacher activities guide, a bank of test questions, and a student attitude survey instrument...
...Experienced teachers were then interviewed to determine an appropriate pedagogy, competency-based instructional objectives were established, content areas were specified, and a set of draft materials was produced...
...By September 1983, 51 percent of Americans favored using tax funds to allow parents to select from among public, private, and parochial schools (and 63 percent of blacks supported the idea...
...The third leg of the strategy was a successful effort to acquire the $1.2 billion second-year funding for SB 813 by initiating a second major grassroots effort and to promulgate an accountability program on how progress will be measured...
...The Catholic system is indeed considered inferior, even though its students perform about the same as public school students...
...Waiving the usual statistical caveats about test scores, cultures, and the like, we find a typical Dutch highschool senior thrashing his American counterpart in math, 46 to 20...
...Minnesota's experience shows that extending choice need not destroy public education or wreak havoc with bonds holding society together, as some opponents hysterically insist...
...What has been recognized less well is that Americans, roughly speaking, fail to grasp adequately the tie between hard work and academic success...
...Yet legislators know virtually nothing about the means to accomplish the ends of education...
...Simple...
...Approximately 2,500 students and 30 teachers utilized the Visions of the Future (VOF) text as the basis for a four-week unit of instruction at the onset...
...I t ' s not enoughlnot nearly enoughtto simply tell young people what you want them to learn...
...5. Improved teacher preparation...
...We must do all of this to make a real difference...
...But while legislatures are mandating hours of homework a teacher must assign, many of them are failing to reduce the heavy course and student load that make it impossible for teachers to assign and give feedback on the types of homework that promote real student learning...
...The first and most important component of this overall strategy was to develop a commitment from local teachers, administrators, and board members to: institute a more rigorous instructional program for all of our students...
...Paul, or within the county whose borders correspond to the school district...
...The Portland citizenry has long been supportive of education...
...On his own he hired experienced Austin lobbyists to drum up votes...
...The Minnesota commissioner of education testified that she favored allowing students to cross district lines to attend any public school in the state...
...That is their duty, as it is the responsibility of teachers and administrators, as public employees, to be accountable to those standards...
...PETER R. GREER By all accounts, the Portland, Maine school system--consisting of 18 schools and 8,000 students--is a success story of American education...
...Remember when they dropped Founding Fathers for Founders...
...Gordon may be liberal but he is oldfashioned about education, and recent legislation he has sponsored raises very interesting issues about means and ends, centralization versus decentralization, and the role of elites in establishing education policy...
...More than 40 percent of students in New York City public schools drop out...
...We are currently in the fourth phase of the overall improvement plan: a long-term effort to generate the professional technical support necessary to continue the momentum for change...
...for which I enclose check or money order for $8, (includes postage and handling...
...One factor is the evangelicals' growing sense of alienation from the American social order...
...While the number of students affected is miniscule, the law establishes the principle that choice and competition can be valuable in improving educational opportunity...
...Who gets to prescribe...
...More writing has to be assigned and corrected...
...This will increase to $650 and $1,000 in 1985...
...This package combined structural reforms with substantial additional funds...
...More time must be spent with average and below average teachers, and more responsibility should be returned to principals who feel there is too much Central Office control...
...ne St...
...One suspects they have just given up trying to cope with ideological educational politics...
...Peter R. Greer is superintendent o f the Portland, Maine Public Schools...
...Gordon, no doubt, had that in mind when he was counting his votes...
...SCOPE delivered its final report-a stirring call for root-and-branch reform--in April 1984...
...Floretta McKenzie Superintendent, Public Schools of the District of Columbia Current discussions of academic excellence and educational reform sidestep a critical issue--many children, unfairly labeled uneducable or learning disabled, have been abanI I I doned by our public school systems without alternatives for acquiring even basic skills...
...JOE NATHAN An unusual coalition gathered recently to support expansion of educational choices for low- and moderate-income families in Minnesota...
...Now these neighborhood self-help resources are responding to the failure of public schools by establishing academically sound neighborhood-based independent schools...
...Sounds rigorous, but why engage in the time-worn "hard vs...
...A current example: The school administration thought it might be a good time--in view of the national yearning for excellence in education-to raise the requirements for highschool graduation...
...They may be able to distinguish a low from a high set of academic standards, an easy from a hard textbook, but they don't know the process of enabling students to meet high standards, they cannot evaluate educationally sound textbooks, and they don't have a clue about classroom management and' learning...
...that a Malthusian scenario influences the relationship between population and food...
...Town to town, the results vary, but overall, the system is "remarkably flexible," McLaughry reports...
...In fact, teachers and other education personnel already work long and hard...
...In California, over one half of the 7,000 principals will be retiring in the next four to five years...
...A sense of awakening has also contributed to the proliferation of these schools...
...Yet merely legislating stricter requirements will be an empty gesture in th~ long run unless we attend to the means that would enable students to meet these standards...
...Through the leadership of its founder Wallie Simpson, it has established a remarkable record of teaching disadvantaged youth...
...Directors of the Community Action Programs throughout the state, who work daily with low income families, endorsed the legislation...
...Stein and Day...
...James C. Carper is associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Mississippi State University...
...The passionate arguments about schooling tend not to be about money...
...Teacher unions and profamily activists alike were sniping at him...
...The scope of SCOPE's proposals was breathtaking...
...As you might expect, these values tend to collide with particular intensity in the domain of education...
...Which principle is preeminent...
...DENIS P. DOYLE No reform proposal that cuts across the grain of the establishment can be all bad...
...Public schools are entrusting the intellectual and cultural formation of their students to one of the most dull-witted groups of college graduates in the country...
...To a remarkable extent, his message is being heard...
...The condition of our innercity schools is a case in point...
...improve student performance in reading, writing, speaking, analyzing, computing, and problem solving...
...A teacher's academy and a liaison with Long Island University to retrain teachers to become math teachers were pursued...
...They skirted the central issues faced by a mass education system in which not every student is college material, and thus they provided no philosophical or practical vision of how to discharge our responsibility to educate everyone where not everyone is educable in the same way and to the same extent...
...In that case, as Denis Doyle eloquently argues, there is still a strong rationale for choice: Why do we educate children at all...
...It is also the habitat of a great many ordinary citizens, mostly middleclass and often prosperous, who by no means share New Class aspirations for themselves or their children...
...e.g., what should be a proper English sequence at the high-school level or what should we be teaching in fifth-grade U.S...
...and an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute...
...9 Increase the amount of assignments requiring writing, speaking, and problem solving...
...Its author, Draper Kauffman, maintains that teachers should emphasize the "facts" that food production is losing the race with the population explosion, that economic development "is likely to prove a false hope t o . . . the poor," that every demand on the environment represents the risk of causing the ecological system to collapse, and that the only hope is "a slow-to-nogrowth" shift for the economy as a whole...
...Not surprisingly, it turned...
...9 Encourage students to read more books, write more essays, and produce more reports...
...Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch...
...But in Minnesota and elsewhere, an increasing number of people insist that the cards in public education are stacked against innovation, creativity, and performance...
...On average, public schools spend more than twice per student what private schools do, with less impressive results...
...The spark has come from the work of competent neighborhood leaders at the grassroots level...
...MITCHELL B. PEARLSTEIN In a year-plus of welcome prescriptions for improving American elementary and secondary education, perhaps the most important, albeit dampening, news has come out of Taiwan, Japan, and just across the Mississippi River from St...
...In 1982, a year before the major reform reports went public, the main themes of the excellence movement were addressed in the California campaign for State Superintendent of Public Instruction--raising academic and behavioral expectations for all students, increasing homework, and insisting that students take more English, literature, history, math, science, and fine arts...
...In early June, a special session of the legislature began considering the first educational reforms since 1949...
...Ironically, value neutrality and economic equity have played the same important role in Australia, but in just the opposite way...
...The system needs constant fine-tuning...
...It doesn't give Texas-yet--the nation's best schools...
...Even closer to the mark, this record suggests, putting it coldly and acknowledging handicaps such as racial bias and structural unemployment, that many students and their families in New York City simply do not value formal education very much...
...and learning how to communicate ideas clearly and well should be the major educational goals of schools because these fit well with the developmental characteristics of children this age-relative distance from their inner emotional life and an increased curiosity about the outer world...
...I was asked to direct a group that would write a textbook, prepare a teachers' guidebook, and organize student activities that promote historical perspective, "critical mindedness," and balance in the social studies curriculum...
...To one degree or another, individual and familial responsibility for quality education has been shucked in all American communities, not just distressed ones...
...The Brandl bill produced other responses...
...Recent increases in youth unemployment have been directly linked to this "miseducation...
...He began to make inquiries around the state...
...Lord knows, reform is needed: For the better part of a decade, California has coasted on its reputation for educational excellence, even as it has let slip both standards and levels of financial support, moving from being one of the most generous states to one of the stingiest in school aid...
...Shortcomings in teacher training and a history of inappropriately treating teachers as skilled operatives rather than professionals mean that these reforms cannot be accomplished overnight...
...Children between the ages of about six and eleven are in a relatively quiescent period between the rapid and often tumultuous growth of infancy and adolescence...
...Yesterday's most certainly were not...
...7. A common concept of district effectiveness...
...hiring of all the more intellectually talented teachers some taxpayers say they are willing to pay for, as well as granting teachers additional discretion--none of the essential developments will accomplish as much as people hope unless three things, at once simple and profound, happen: Parents encourage their children to work harder, kids (particularly as they get older) actually do so, and what is achieved is seen more readily as a measure of individual effort rather than innate gifts or institutional and societal happenstance...
...Surprisingly, American Federation of Teachers chief Albert Shanker, who likes to bill himself as an educational statesman, has strongly opposed it...
...One instance is the "sex education" which goes beyond anatomy and biology to sexual attitudes and behavior...
...As for fairness, state aid for the Catholic schools is seen as an act of compassion, as they endure smaller facilities and fewer teachers per student...
...It would seem that choice does more for learning than dollars do...
...A school-age child is not naturally preoccupied with the prospect of world war or nuclear holocaust...
...The finances of richer and poorer school districts would be equalized...
...But there are also non-competing values: openness, toleration, acceptance of differences, and democratic decision-making . . . . How, then, is the democratic tradition of toleration of competing ideas reconciled to the notion that about some matters agnosticism is not expected...
...The answer is deceptively simple--it is to transmit values, to maintain a living culture...
...A pair of recent papers, one by former Reagan aide John McLaughry for the Reason Foundation, the other by the American Enterprise Institute's Denis Doyle, aptly sets the record straight...
...Enter Gordon's legislation...
...Teacher morale rose considerably, and this new attitude proved infectious as the students showed an increasing willingness to learn...
...There is no question the idea could be made to work--there are few organizations in American life as responsive as textbook publishers, and if a "cartel for excellence" were ever formed the publishers would respond to it with the same alacrity with which they abandoned "sex role stereotyping...
...A control group that by contrast did not use the VOF text showed virtually no change of attitude during the same period...
...Mitchell B. Pearlstein is an editorial writer f o r the St...
...Where failure was once attributed primarily to the shortcomings of individuals, it is now laid heavily on the assumed defects of institutions, such as schools...
...As the only woman and chairperson of the Atomic Energy Commission, her quality of leadership was without a peer...
...It gives hope for things to come...
...University curriculum specialists and in-service secondary school teachers worked in collaboration with senior staff members from the Hudson Institute to develop these curriculum materials for a high-school-level audience...
...There is, in fact, a rich history of experimentation with the education free market, a history being carried on today with successful systems in Vermont, British Columbia, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Australia...
...But at precisely that point, the much-underrated House speaker, Gib Lewis, a conservative, threw the immense power of his office behind Perot...
...Against these odds, children are graduating with proficient skills in two languages, computers, and advanced science...
...c) lottery for admissions if more students applied than spots existed...
...The financial resources of the sponsoring neighborhoods are often slender...
...His most recent book /s Why Are They Lying to Our Children...
...ranks first nationally in book sales per capita, and circulates more books through its public library than any community in the state, including Detroit...
...This type of organization has long been effective in addressing social problems from child care to economic inequities and cornmunity development...
...Governor Kean is the first elected official in the country to challenge the teacher-education monopoly...
...This apocalyptic vision of the future is presented in its most undiluted form in a National Education Association booklet published in 1980...
...He had tried to negotiate with the North Vietnamese for the release of American POWs...
...This "don't bother me with facts" attitude has also characterized the reaction of many professional educators to newly proposed Minnesota legislation that would empower low-income parents to select from a variety of schools...
...The SAT scores of education majors are lower than those of any other group except clerical and vocational students...
...By 1990, we will need over 100,000 new teachers, mostly at the elementary level...
...The elected state school board would become appointive...
...Objectively speaking, the educational problems of blacks are certainly far less acute in Ann Arbor than in most other small cities, there being a substantial number of well-educated black families...
...Nor has there been much leadership from Sacramento: Honig's predecessor as superintendent had gotten bored with with his job, and it showed...
...out that writing as a required activity had all but disappeared...
...The bill increased graduation requirements, lengthened school days and school years, tightened discipline, improved teacher selection, inaugurated an incentive program for top-flight teachers, streamlined dismissal procedures for incompetent teachers, and provided over $800 million of new money for schools...
...The obvious answer is an injection of choice: vouchers, tax credits, magnet schools, or some variant thereof...
...The cartel idea may be ahead of its time, however...
...Mothers in Minneapolis were more likely to say "ability...
...The point is not that elected officials shouldn't be mandating standards or deciding the ends of education...
...Comparative data on the performance of different state systems are excruciatingly hard to come by...
...Most importantly, though, from these concrete reforms in staff and curriculum there emerged an intangible change...
...The strategy seems to be to stare into space, hoping the topic will go away...
...We are working with key superintendents, teachers' organizations, educational groups, and citizens to establish: 1. An agreed-upon definition of curriculum...
...Paul...
...MARY FUTRELL There are no shortcuts to excellence...
...Ignoring these characteristics, teachers, school administrators, and educational policymakers have forgotten or perverted basic educational goals...
...now they are standard fare in the popular media...
...The full House overwhelmingly undid the committee's act of sabotage...
...Finding out how the physical world works and how we acquire that knowledge...
...The project was abandoned for the present, but the educators who believe that understanding the Declaration of Independence and the Civil War is of no unique importance to American children are still with us...
...Give him more competition, namely private and parochial alternatives suddenly available to all parents, and you will concentrate his mind wonderfully...
...6. Widespread teacher training...
...State Zip ALBERT SHANKER For about a year now, the American people have been digesting news of educational crises and reform along with their breakfast cereals...
...To anyone-who knows any number of Ann Arbor teachers, these charges are simply lunatic, since the spectrum of political beliefs among the staff ranges from earnestly liberal to militantly left...
...We need site leaders with the proper educational vision, with the courage of their convictions, and the ability to get staffs to work in a common direction...
...Mary Hatwood Futrell is president o f the National Education Association...
...and help our young people develop character and responsibility...
...Lawrence A. Uzzell is president of LEARN, Inc., a private research foundation specializing in education policy...
...Why not confine legislation to the ends or enabling conditions of education and give teachers--as we give lawyers and doctors and other professionals-the training and authority to decide the specifics of schooling, the means to attain educational ends...
...LAWRENCE A. UZZELL California gets all the publicity...
...His books on education include Just Schools and Educational Policy and the Law...
...And that turns out to mean, in practice, that matters are rarely simple, since almost any issue may turn out to be heavy with ideological meaning...
...Subjects such as student test scores, curriculum and promotion policies, the recruitment and certification of teachers, or even the findings of blue-ribbon commissions on education were once rarely discussed outside of specialized publications...
...Teachers give tests all the time...
...Nevertheless, teachers' union officials predicted disaster after the Supreme Court decision...
...This wasteland enjoys monopolistic privileges...
...Education Secretary Terrel Bell's 1983 figures, Minnesota's public high schools led the nation in graduation rate, and Minnesota students scored somewhat above the national average on standardized tests...
...International numbers are still harder to come by...
...Business leaders, concerned about the inability of highschool graduates to master alphabetical filing or read a mechanic's manual, have jumped on the bandwagon of educational standards...
...WILLIAM MURCHISON Ross Perot, on $1,000 of capital, had built a multi-billion dollar electronics corporation...
...And if the idea embodies the wrong principle, it is more than a fine bit of irony: It is poetic justice...
...The fallacies in these approaches are obvious...
...Critics maintain that this project is designed to spread optimism, that it is a form of proselytizing...
...in each of those years, a skeptical Republican Governor, George Deukmejian, has been forced to boost considerably the level of funding that he initially recommended...
...Portland works hard at public relations, and community pride is such that the public school system now attracts students from local private and parochial schools...
...9 Improve school safety and student civility...
...Classes indeed may be uncommonly deadening in the nation's most electric city, but of at least equal import is the fact that this terrible statistic demonstrates the existence of profound social problems, including multitudes of broken homes and illegitimate births to adolescent mothers, that generally are beyond the meliorative reach o f educators, regardless of how good and compassionate they may be...
...White himself, philosophically ambiguous and no favorite among legislators, lobbied more ardently than he ever had before...
...A testing expert was hired, with the result that test scores were understood and carefully worked on in the subsequent year with impressive results...
...Now there is a tough choice, pitting valued principle against valued principle...
...Herbert I. London is dean o f the Gallatin Division at New York University and director o f the Visions o f the Future project at the Hudson Institute...
...Participating students were surveyed at both the start and end of this period, and they revealed a strong move from pessimism toward a much more realistic--and hence more optimistic--view of the future...
...Public schools, for example, now have an open enrollment policy designed to encourage the diversity offered on the private side...
...Of course, but in conjunction with changes in curriculum and school organization that will ensure that students are not merely being exposed to more of the same materials they couldn't master in the first place...
...Simply lengthening the school day or year won't help much either...
...What is indisputable, and more important, is that choice has helped both systems, public and private, improve...
...Gregory A. Fossedal is an editorial page writer at the Wall Street Journal...
...The SCOPE proposals passed almost intact...
...Who is going to teach these teachers that a curricfflum that stresses learning to read by doing a lot of it--both in the history that explains their heritage and in the literature that illuminates their lives and suggests that human problems are not new--could equip the very young to profit from later educational opportunities far more effectively than lessons designed to mold right-thinking social attitudes...
...who can chatter about nuclear politics but can't read Homer's poem about war...
...Unfortunately, it is just about the only one...
...And the results have been encouraging...
...But the real bellwether of American politics is our most suburban state, New Jersey...
...This situation is wrong, and it must be corrected...
...Yet it seems able to do very little in its own defense, aside from saying that they are trying their best, or that the problem is complex...
...He is anxious to improve students' literacy and numeracy, as well as developing what in the current argot is called "critical thinking skills," but he acknowledges that unless the courses have real content--not standard textbook pap--those skills don't amount to much...
...Such schools as the Lower East Side International School work closely with families to create high expectations for their students in an atmosphere where success rather than failure is the norm...
...What are the most effective measures boards and superintendents can take to improve the quality of education...
...Paul, Minnesota...
...What if a diverse system is no better at teaching students how to integrate an equation or interpret an essay by Samuel Johnson...
...Bill Honig is California Superintendent of Public Instruction...
...He said he would brook no compromise: He wanted the works...
...Yet its 419 high-school age students can choose among several schools, the most popular being St...
...Is one to applaud or assail the Gordon proposal...
...A majority of the teachers, many of whom are former ,ublic school teachers or administrators, live within the community and are of the same ethnic/cultural background as the children they teach...
...This progression to more complex explanations for the way things are, for all its soundness at root, has been regularly perverted into excuse-making...
...Regular evaluations are the only way to guarantee that there are competent and qualified teachers in every classroom in America...
...The legislation was introduced by state representative John Brandl, an urban liberal from Minneapolis...
...Moreover the outside support from City Council and School Committees that the school system has always enjoyed must continue...
...3. A testing program which includes more history, science, and problem solving and derives from our definition of the curricula...
...Hence, between the size and diversity of the committee, and the exalted nature of the task it has set itself, one may not see an early change in graduation standards...
...Why are many conservative Protestants forsaking their historic commitment to public education and seeking academic and moral excellence in alterTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1984 17 native schools...
...that minerals will soon be depleted...
...D r . Rene Dubos...
...On the accountability side, we have established specific numerical targets for the state for 1986, 1988, and 1990 which will include improvements in California assessment tests and SAT scores, increased enrollments in academic courses, decreased dropout rates, and additional amounts of writing and homework...
...Like any bold innovation, calls for consumer choice invite a thousand operational cavils, particularly from a large class of elites with a vested interest in the status quo...
...Laws that allow prospective teachers to sidestep instruction in the techniques of learning to teach actually harm, not help, our struggle to improve education...
...Voluntary...
...These ideas received strong public support in the November 1982 election...
...Literally," said one legislative opponent, half in admiration,"'one man has said this has got to be done--and we did it...
...It is, in short, a key American habitat of the New Class, and likely more deeply saturated in that ethos than any city between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Berkeley, California...
...The Visions textbook is currently being used by 15,000 students throughout the state of Arizona and another I0,000 students in Chicago, Indianapolis, Durham, Rockland and Westchester counties in New York, and Grand Rapids...
...explaining how the past has led to the present...
...Any district that was willing to require its junior and senior English students to write 200 words a week (6,000 words a year) would get state funds to permit it to reduce the teaching load for teachers of writing from 150 to 100 students a semester...
...While Honig has some odd ideas-he has pushed longer school years, for instance, rather than prodding teachers and administrators to make better use of the considerable time they already have--his vision for reform is, for the most part, an attractive one...
...His most recent idea is to form a "cartel for excellence," to force publishers to produce higher quality textbooks...
...Yet one would not think so from reading the paper, which prints without comment or analysis a variety of venomous accusations made against the schools, depicting teachers and administration as incompetent, cynical, callous, and bigoted...
...The proposals made were modest ones--little more than decreasing the number of junk elective courses and increasing some of the requirements in science...
...Joe Nathan is the author o f Free to Teach (Winston Press), a former public school teacher and administrator, and a member of a nonprofit research/advocacy organization, Public School Incentives, Inc., of St...
...e) transportation provided within the student's district of attendance (i.e., within the city of St...
...We observe our students at work on a daily basis--and we want the same consideration for our own performance...
...The current school administration (now outgoing on the retirement of the superintendent) is in fact very capable, and was able to rescue a school system which had been nearly wrecked by an antically "progressive" regime, about which the less said the better...
...Seventy percent of the youngsters are from single femaleheaded households, and many of the students are labeled learning disabled...
...The gradual upgrading of the Portland system began in 1974 with the appointment of Superintendent Ron Raynolds...
...They were the same crew that consolidated tens of thousands of school districts in the name of chimerical economies of scale and introduced such worthy activities as compulsory observance of Arbor Day, Susan B. Anthony Day, and driver's education...
...The materials that emerged from our work emphasize the techniques and perspective futurists use, namely, seeking the best data available, analyzing trends, and using a macrocosmic view of history...
...The growth of these institutions, though more robust in the West and the South, is clearly a national phenomenon...
Vol. 17 • September 1984 • No. 9
