The Evolution of Curriculum, Part Six

A Nation at Risk

In 1983, America truly appeared to be a Nation at Risk. Politically and economically we were losing our advantages in the world. Communism was still strong as an alternative doctrine, and it looked like our World War Two enemies of Germany and Japan were catching up and even surpassing us in technological development and production techniques. One of the culprits was public education, which was the focus of the report, "A Nation at Risk."

The decline in performance on SATs and other standardized tests prompted the call for the report and subsequent reform. Verbal scores on the SAT had dropped about 50 points from 1963-1980 and math was little better,dropping 40 points. Students could not draw inferences, write persuasive essays, or demonstrate a basic knowledge of US History. The report made 38 specific recommendations. Some of the more significant were: mandatory 4 years of English, 3 years of math, 3 years of social science, 3 years of science, and a semester introduction to computer technology. The report also called for state level standards correlated with a testing program to measure student progress in at least math and English. A more controversial (although common sense) suggestion was to lengthen the school day and extend the number of days from 180 to 200 or even 220. Tied to this would be strict criteria for hiring qualified teachers competent in their academic subject, and to encourage quality people to enter the field salaries would be professionally competitive. The report also called for an increased role to be played in education by the federal government in terms of standards and financing.

While many of these recommendation were embraced by schools, like the added years for academic subjects and development of standards and testing, others were not practical for financial reasons like the extension of the school day and year, and increasing teacher salaries. The report also spawned the growth of one hundred and one "fixes" in terms of new curricular ideas, instructional techniques, educational structures, and some "snake oil vendor" types riding the wave of government funding.

In future posts I will deal with specific educational programs and concepts, but for now the Nation at Risk report opened a floodgate of new reform concepts. Most of these were rehashes of old ideas, many stemming back to the days of John Dewey. One consultant firm promoted cooperative learning, even though teachers knew only one or two within a cooperative group did the work. Another pushed for a back to basics approach, which failed because classrooms were now heterogeneous, meaning students of all ability levels were present in one class, so "back to the basics" would be different for each student. This was accompanied by another instructional idea called "differential learning." Sounds good but to this day no one has ever showed me how it can work (I've been teaching 24 years).

Other ideas had political repercussions. The "Outcome Based Education" model stressed rigor through project based learning. It went even further though, emphasizing a restructuring of what the school and classroom looked like. It stressed "student-centered" curriculum in which "constructed" knowledge based on their own experiences and what they were taught, even if their conclusions were totally wrong. Basically the OBE approach embraced highly progressive ideas of education and demeaned the very idea of knowledge and truth (I know I'm getting judgmental here--so what its a blog). Eventually the movement lost steam, especially when parents learned that students were being asked to write essays about how they felt about the relationship between Scout and Atticus (in To Kill A Mockingbird) instead of something significant like how the book illustrates racial attitudes of the 1930s.

While educational outcomes have changed little since 1983, the role of the federal government has increased significantly in public education. What is often times neglected is that comparing test scores from the 1960s with today is like comparing a Ford Fusion with a Ferrari. There is no basis for comparison. In 1963 most of the minority population did not attend school or at least did not attend schools where anglo kids did. Only the truly college bound took the SAT in 1963, while today at least a third if not half of s high school's senior class takes it. Scores are bound to drop or stay flat when those factors are calculated.

Look forward to me bitching some more on Tuesday's about the idiots running our schools, and the ridiculous ideas impacting student performance.

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