41 Years Later…
For nearly all of the 41 years I have been covering public education, the people in charge have been focused on competition, most often with other nations. Of course, educational competitiveness didn’t start when I began reporting in 1974; In 1957 the Soviet space satellite Sputnik got America’s juices flowing and led to the National Defense Education Act. It hasn’t stopped [1]; ever since, most of our leaders have pushed schools, teachers and students to try to outperform the rest of the world.
Think ‘A Nation at Risk [2]’ in 1983, or President George H.W. Bush’s “Education Summit” in 1989 that spawned Goals 2000 and a drive to make us ‘First in the World’ in math and science. [3] IBM’s Chairman Louis V. Gerstner convened two more Education Summits in the years that followed. The Glenn Commission on Math and Science Teaching issued a dire warning at the turn of the century.
The Clinton administration and George W. Bush’s presidency upped the ante, and the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top,” fueled by our fear that we are losing to Finland, South Korea and a host of other nations, has raised the stakes even more.
The people in charge have for years been challenging students and their teachers, asking in effect “How intelligent are you? Prove it by doing better than X and Y and Z.” And many in leadership positions have also been roundly criticizing the system for its perceived failures.
Has our obsession with beating others worked? Is it working now? Have years and years of “education reform” produced the kinds of schools and students that we are proud of?
Well, we are still ‘losing’ to Finland, South Korea, Singapore and a host of other nations; we are falling behind in college graduation rates, and so on. High school graduation rates have climbed, but record numbers of those graduates end up in remedial classes when they get to college. Not a great scorecard, but our leaders seem to 41 Years Later… | Taking Note:
