Inside American Education (49 page)

An alumni association can at least subscribe to alternative student newspapers, to hear something other than what the college administrators feed them in the melange of public-relations handouts which constitute the typical alumni magazine. Merely by encouraging student and faculty groups to send to the alumni association any material they wish to have considered for distribution to those on the alumni mailing list, an alumni association can open its eyes to a world it may never have suspected existed.

For both trustees and alumni, the equipping of themselves institutionally with alternative sources of information may well increase the candor and reliability of the information they receive from official sources.

CONCLUSIONS

All the ingredients for a successful educational system already exist in the United States—some of the leading scholars in the world in numerous fields, masses of college-educated people capable of teaching in the public schools, and a public whose willingness to provide financial support for education has far outstripped educators’ willingness to buckle down to the task of teaching academic skills to the next generation. The problems are fundamentally institutional. Changing those institutions is the key to changing behavior and attitudes too long insulated from accountability.

The political task is enormous, but no more so than the task of others before who have made vast changes in the social landscape of the United States, or who created this country in the first place. The stakes today are our children’s future—and nothing should be more worthy of the effort.

NOTES

EPIGRAPH

The National Commission on Excellence in Education,
A Nation at Risk: The Full Account
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: U.S.A. Research, 1984), p. 13.

CHAPTER 1: DECLINE, DECEPTION, AND DOGMAS

¹
Ernest L. Boyer,
High School: A Report on Secondary Education in America
(New York: Harper & Row, 1983), pp. 23, 25, 32.

²
Faith Keenan, “8th-Grade Students No Math Whizzes,”
San Francisco Examiner
, June 6, 1991, p. A22.

³
Cooperative Institutional Research Program,
The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1989
(Los Angeles: The Higher Education Research Institution, University of California at Los Angeles, 1989), p. 6.

⁴
Cooperative Institutional Research Program,
The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1990
(Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institution, University of California at Los Angeles, 1990), p. 43.

⁵
Matt Freeman, “Rise in Grades Attributed to Better, Concerned Students,”
U. The National College Newspaper
, October 1988, p. 27.

⁶
Seth Leopold, “Are Grades Inflated Here?”
Chicago Maroon
(University of Chicago), October 4, 1988, p. 3. According to David Riesman, “only a few institutions, such as the outstanding women’s colleges and the college of the University of Chicago, maintained the older norms.” David Riesman,
On Higher Education: The Academic Enterprise in an Era of Rising Consumerism
(San Francisco: Jossy-Bass Publishers, 1980).

⁷
Paul Hollander,
Anti-Americanism: Critiques at Home and Abroad, 1965-1990
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 203.

⁸
Peter Scalet, “G.P.A., Work Load Contribute in Determining Academic Rigor,”
College Reporter
(Franklin & Marshall College), October 2, 1989, p. 1.

⁹
Computed from Chris Gilleland, “Academic Dishonesty,”
The Critic
(North Carolina State University), p. 14.

¹⁰
“Education Openers,”
Wall Street Journal
, Supplement, February 9, 1990, p. R5.

¹¹
Curtis C. McKnight, et al.,
The Underachieving Curriculum: Assessing U.S. School Mathematics from an International Perspective
(Chicago: Stripes Publishing Co., 1987), pp. 18, 20, 22, 24, 40.

¹²
Diane Ravitch and Chester E. Finn, Jr.,
What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?
(New York: Harper & Row, 1987), pp. 53, 62.

¹³
Joyce D. Stern and Mary Frase Williams, editors,
The Condition of Education: A Statistical Report
, 1986 Edition (Washington, D.C.: Center for Education Statistics, 1986), p. 36.

¹⁴
Susan Dodge, “Average Score on Verbal Section of ’89-90 SAT Drops to Lowest Level Since 1980; Math Score Unchanged,”
Chronicle of Higher Education
, September 5, 1990, p. A33.

¹⁵
Karen DeWitt, “Verbal Scores Hit New Low in Scholastic Aptitude Tests,”
New York Times
, August 27, 1991, pp. 1ff.

¹⁶
Archie E. Lapointe, Nancy A. Mead, and Gary W. Philips,
A World of Difference: An International Assessment of Mathematics and Science
(Princeton: Educational Testing Service, 1989), p. 38.

¹⁷
Diane Ravitch,
The Schools We Deserve: Reflections on the Educational Crises of Our Time
(New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1985), p-8.

¹⁸
Ben Stein, “Ben Stein’s High School Diary,”
Los Angeles
, December 1986, p. 178.

¹⁹
Carl Rogers,
Freedom to Learn for the 80’s
(Columbus: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1983), p. 3.

²⁰
Ibid.
, p. 2.

²¹
Ibid.
, p. 3.

²²
Ibid.
, p. 20.

²³
Ben Stein, “Ben Stein’s High School Diary,”
Los Angeles
, December 1986, p. 178.

²⁴
Diane Ravitch and Chester E. Finn, Jr.,
What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?
, p. 13.

²⁵
The Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching,
The Condition of the Professoriate: Attitudes and Trends, 1989
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 19, 23, 27.

²⁶
Ibid.
, p. 22.

²⁷
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,
Campus Life: In Search of Community
(Princeton, 1990), p. 10.

²⁸
Susan Dodge, “Poorer Preparation for College Found in 25-Year Study of Freshmen,”
The Chronicle of Higher Education
, November 20, 1991, p. A39.

²⁹
Bill Richards, “Wanting Workers,”
The Wall Street Journal
, Supplement, February 9, 1990, p. R10.

³⁰
Sam Ginn, “Time to Get Down to Business on the Reform of Education,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, August 19, 1991, p. B3.

³¹
John Hood, “When Business ‘Adopts’ Schools: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child,”
Policy Analysis
(Cato Institute), June 5, 1991, p. 3.

³²
Steven O’Brien, “The Reshaping of History: Marketers vs. Authors,”
Curriculum Review
, September 1988, p. 11.

³³
Stanley W. Lindberg, editor,
The Annotated McGuffey Selections from the McGuffey Eclectic Readers, 1836-1920
(New York: Van Nostrand, 1976), pp. 19, 20.

³⁴
Ibid.
, pp. 71, 125, 167.

³⁵
Harvey C. Minnich, editor,
Old Favorites from the McGuffey Readers
(New York: American Book Co., 1936), pp. 154, 167, 247.

³⁶
Stanley W. Lindberg, editor,
The Annotated McGuffey
, p. xv.

³⁷
Avis Carlson,
Small Wonder … Long Gone: A Family Record of an Era
(Evanston: The Schori Press, 1975), p. 83.

³⁸
John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe,
Politics, Markets & American Schools
(Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990), pp. 105-111.

³⁹
Joyce D. Stern and Mary Frase Williams, editors,
The Condition of Education
(1986), p. 36.

⁴⁰
James Cass and Max Birnbaum,
Comparative Guide to American Colleges
(New York: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 67, 79, 91, 112, 149, 422, 457, 462, 472, 478, 658, 682; James Cass and Max Birnbaum,
Comparative Guide to American Colleges
, Twelfth Edition, (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 51, 60, 77, 93, 126, 358, 384, 387, 394, 399, 538, 558.

⁴¹
Diane Ravitch,
The Schools We Deserve
, p. 48.

⁴²
Curtis C. McKnight et al.,
The Underachieving Curriculum
, p. 17.

⁴³
Ernest L. Boyer,
High School
, pp. 38-39.

⁴⁴
U.S. Department of Education,
What Works: Research About Teaching and Learning
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1987), p. 28.

⁴⁵
News from the College Board
, for release August 27, 1991, p. 5. This is quite clear as regards blacks and Mexican Americans. Puerto Rican SATs had a small gain in composite scores, their verbal scores having declined 3 points and their mathematical scores having risen 5 points.

⁴⁶
Paul T. Hill, Gail E. Foster, Tamar Gendler,
High Schools with Character
(Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 1990), p. 32; Susan Chira, “Where Children Learn How to Learn: Inner City Pupils in Catholic Schools,”
New York Times
, November 20, 1991, p. A14; Joe Davidson, “Private Schools for Black Pupils are Flourishing,”
Wall Street Journal
, April 15, 1987, p. 37; Stuart Steers, “The Catholic Schools’ Black Students,”
This World
, December 23, 1990, pp. 8 ff. See also Gary Putka, “Education Reformers Have New Respect for Catholic Schools,”
Wall Street Journal
, March 28, 1991, pp. 1 ff.

⁴⁷
Paul T. Hill et al.,
High Schools with Character
, p. 2.

⁴⁸
Ibid.
, pp. 2, 14-56. See also Thomas Sowell, “Patterns of Black Excellence,”
The Public Interest
, Spring 1976, pp. 47-50.

⁴⁹
“State Education Statistics,” (Wall Chart), U.S. Department of Education, February 1986.

⁵⁰
John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe,
Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools
, p. 126.

⁵¹
“The Myth Debunked—Spending Not the Cure-All for Schools,”
Education Update
(Heritage Foundation), Fall 1990, p. 1.