1. Ed Reforms: 1980’s – Present

2. Early 1980s: Education in Trouble
1983: A Nation at Risk (Nat’l Commission on Excellence in Education)
Four Areas of Concern
Curricula: not challenging
Expectations too low
Too little time, too much wasted time
Teachers not well-prepared

3. Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession
A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the Twenty-First Century (1986)
Shift focus of reforms
Teachers as solution to, not cause of, problem
Teacher Professionalism Movement
Multiple spin-off organizations

4. Curriculum and Instruction
“Constructivism”
“Whole Language”
Ken and Yetta Goodman
Frank Smith

5. Curriculum and Instruction
WL spread widely across U.S.:
“ Reading Wars”
Skills-based, phonics based instruction vs. WL
California mandated it in late 1980’s

6. Accountability Throughout 1990s, “high stakes accountability”
NC’s ABCs of Education, e.g.
All states now
Tests are norm-referenced (vs. criterion-referenced)
State, district, school
National Assessment of Educational Progress

7. Since NAR: What Has Changed
Content Recommendations
“New Basics”
State graduation test: 22 states as of 2001
Raising Academic Expectations
Time
Recommended 7 hr day and day school year
Improving teaching

8. Since NAR: Improving Teaching
Meet high educational standards
Aptitude for teaching
Competence in an academic discipline
Increased Pay
Market Sensitive
Merit Based
Career Ladders
Special Incentives, esp. Science and Math

9. What Has Changed 1982 2001 1999 % with MA/MS 31% 39% % with BA 94%
90% (Emergency Cert’s)
1999
% with BA in academic subject area
28%
23%
% with BA/MA in math or science 7% 5%
Semesters of math/science 6 4

10. What Has Changed 1982 2000 % pay based on performance < 1% <1%
Avg. Teacher Pay
$33,884
$37,865 (inc. 12%)