Ed Reforms: 1980’s – Present

I. 1980s

A. By early 1980s education was in trouble by most conventional measures (as Ravitch explains [p. 410])

B. 1983: A Nation at Risk (Nat’l Commission on Excellence in Education)

C. Areas of Concern

          1. The content of public school curricula was not challenging

          2. Expectations for students were set too low

3. Students spent too little time in school and wasted much of their time while in school

4. Teachers lacked ability and preparation

D. Throughout the 1980s & much of the ‘90s, then, educators were called upon to make changes

1. NAR recommendations: some implemented, some not

2. 1986: Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession’s Report: A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the Twenty-First Century

a. Shift focus of reforms: from teachers as instruments of school reform to teachers as shapers of school reform

3. NAR: teaching establishment is a key part of the problems; CTF: teaching establishment is the solution

E. NAR essentially disbanded after issuing their report: left actual reforms to be done by educators

1. CTF created a variety of spin-off organizations to institutionalize their definition of the solution

VI. So one set of reforms focused on professionalizing the teaching profession. What about Curriculum & Instruction?

          A. “Constructivism” (progressivism with a new name)

B. Constructivism to address the problems with language (SAT verbals, e.g.): a “new” method of teaching reading: “Whole language”

1. Originally written about in the 1960s: Frank Smith & Ken Goodman

2. WL spread widely across U.S.: turned into a “war” between advocates of skills-based, phonics based instruction and advocates of WL

          3. California mandated it in late 1980’s

VII. Throughout 1990s, more and more states passed accountability legislation

          A. “High Stakes Accountability”: e.g., NC’s “ABCs” of public education

          B. By 1996 (2nd Governors’ summit): only 14 states had passed accountability legislation

a. between 1996-2000, all states except Iowa (deferring to local standards) had such laws on the books

VIII. Since Nation at Risk: What has and has not changed?

A. Content Recommendations

                   1. “New Basics”

2. NAR recommended state graduation test: 22 states do this as of 2001

          B. Raising Academic Expectations

          C. NAR on time (recommended 7 hr day and 200-220 day school year)

D. Recommendations for improving teaching

 

 

1982

2001

% with MA/MS

31%

39%

% with BA

94%

90% (emerg. Cert’s)

 

1982

1999

% with BA in academic subject area

28%

23%

% with BA/MA in math or science

7%

5%

Semesters of math/science

6

4

 

 

1982

2000

% pay based on performance

< 1%

<1%

Avg. Teacher Pay

$33,884

$37,865 (inc. 12%)

 

E. On the proposed changes in teaching, only one has changed substantially. Teachers have seen a real (inflation adjusted) 12% gain nationwide in their pay since the 1980s

 

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