Bill Gates- High School Reform:

Training the workforce of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today’s computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. It’s the wrong tool for the times.  (Gates)

A RESPONSE TO CHANGING ECONOMIC & SOCIAL CONDITIONS:

•  Global Economic competition
•  Manufacturing to Service industries. 1950, 40% employed in manufacturing, by1994 - 16%.
•  Rise of information economy
•  Apparent decline in academic skills of US students

1.  Improve academic achievement

•  Nation at Risk 1984. Led to increased requirements in English, Math, CS, SS, & Sc.  Education Commission of the States  reported the following changes
• Accountability of teachers, - Goals 2000 - set of national standards, teachers, schools to be held accountable for.
• NCLB-2002  US Dept. of Education's Tool Kit 04
• Need for talented teachers. Report in 1990 1) 46 states require state cert. test. 2) 20 states adopted alternative cert.

2.  Tension between excellence and equity
Can we have equity and excellence for all? America 2000, little attention to diversity/equity.  During 1980-90's the priority was with excellence rather than equity. Equity was left up to legal challenges brought by poorly funded school districts.
NCLB attempts to address both excellence and equity e.g. all students will be proficient in reading and math by year 2013-2014

3.  Choice in schooling.
Parents should be able to choose which school to send their child to.
Voucher systems, parents would use the voucher either to register their support for a school or
in part payment.

Choice Case

Benefits and limitations of school choice:

NCLB and Choice: Examples in NC

4.  Restructuring school governance and the teaching profession
Charter schools. Site-based management, merit pay, career ladder. Most proposals have been top down and ignored the views of teachers.

Teacher Recruitment: Tennessee

Ideology of school reform, a marriage of laissez-faire (market systems supporting interests of business eg. school choice) and progressive (government control e.g. National Standards, NCLB).

Economic: Business Influence on Education
1) Goals- e.g. secondary schools should prepare students with the knowledge and skills required in the workplace.
2) Operation and Organization of Schools.

A) Indirect means - Philosophy of business has significant influence on schools:   accountability, total quality, choice, customers, efficiency, profit.
B) Direct control e.g. Privatization:

           - Contracting out specific services
           - Advertising/Sponsorship e.g., Channel 1, Whittle Communications - 40% of US high school students
           - Whittle's goal (Edison Project) - 1000 for profit schools, 157 in existence in 2005. Edison
           - Tesseract Group. - 37 schools in 9 states 2005
           - National Heritage Academies - 58 Charter schools 2005.

2 Key Issues:
1) The problem is not primarily education but economic policy. (Easy to blame schools for inability to compete.)
2) Should schools be expected to help solve major social problems e.g. poverty, racial integration?

Boyer's Recommendations for School Reform