We will never achieve the national goals by continuing to do what we have always done.
It is almost seven years since the nation's governors and President announced a set of national education goals for the year 2000. We are now three years away from the turn of the century. How are we doing? According to "Building a Nation of Learners, 1996," the National Education Goals Report, which came out a couple of weeks ago, we haven't made much progress.
The education goals are very ambitious, but they reflect what we must strive for if our children are to get an education equal to that of students in other industrialized nations. Among them are calls for students in grades 4, 8, and 12 to demonstrate competency in nine core areas; for an increase in the high school graduation rate to 90 percent; and for "safe, disciplined, and drug-free schools."
The report is not encouraging about our meeting these goals. We have not raised the percentage of students graduating from high school or made significant improvements in student achievement. Furthermore, drug use among students is up over last year and teachers report more threats and injuries, so learning is still being compromised by schools where discipline is poor and teachers and students are not safe.
Am I being impatient? I don't think so. The truth is, we will never achieve the national goals by continuing to do what we have always done. We will not get there with a fragmented curriculum and a system in which there are no consequences for success or failure. We will not get there when achieving at a seventh- or eighth-grade level is all students need to graduate from high school and when colleges and universities continue to admit these graduates in large numbers.
As the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, about which I wrote last week, confirmed, the successful school systems of our competitor nations have common curriculums, either state or national; they have agreed about what their students should know. They also have a common way of measuring student achievement to make sure that students in every school get the same high-level curriculum and teaching, and their exams have important consequences for the students. However, it is not enough for us to grab on to the idea of standards and assessments.
In fact, most states have started developing standards, but a recent AFT study found that fewer than one-third had standards in core subjects that could be the basis of a rigorous curriculum. And most states that have graduation exams still target them at an eighth- or ninth-grade level. Vague standards and easy exams may keep politicians out of hot water, but they also keep us marking time when it comes to achieving the education goals.
There is another problem, too -- a scatter-shot approach to education reform. While states are working to come up with standards -- and curriculums and assessments based on these standards -- many are also "experimenting" with schemes that pull in the opposite direction. Charter schools encourage people to create their own curriculums and assessments. With vouchers, public money goes to private schools for whom state-developed curriculums and assessments are irrelevant. These schemes are very trendy, and politicians who support them are likely to get praise for being innovative, but they divert money and energy that we need to reach the education goals.
You see the same thing in the Congress. When Congress passed the Goals 2000 legislation, it established funding to encourage and help states create standards and assessments. But now Congress has gone out of its way to encourage states to spend their Goals 2000 money on technology. Why should states carry on with the tough and controversial job of setting standards when they can substitute the easy one of buying equipment? Why should politicians risk votes when they can get applause?
Congress also missed a chance to help achieve the goal of safe and disciplined schools. One answer to continuing discipline problems is alternative settings, classes for students whose behavior regularly makes it impossible for other kids to learn. But these alternative settings are expensive, and the school districts that need them most are often reluctant ( or unable) to spend the money. And yet, when Congress decided it had $51 million extra to put into education, it poured the money into charter schools. This is like letting a bridge fall down because you don't want to spend money on repairs and then building a tunnel to take its place.
If we are serious about the education goals -- and we should be -- we have to bend all our efforts toward attaining them. It is a lot easier to do a little of this and a little of that, but as we should already see, that's not the solution of what ails our education system; it is more like the problem.