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A Nation at Risk Anniversary Reflections
The 'At-Risk' Decade
As a nation, as a culture, and as a people, we like to label things. We identify places, periods, epochs, and situations with colorful descriptive terms. We especially like to identify eras, such as the Ice Age, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, and the Gay Nineties, the Roaring Twenties, and the Reagan Era. If we were to attach a label to the 1980s, we could not do much better than to dub these years the "At Risk Eighties." We are still at risk, of course. And that risk is not so much in commerce or industry or science or technology, for we have had to learn to improve quickly and to upgrade our efforts in those areas. Otherwise, those enterprises would long since have ceased to prosper. However, the world's greatest social invention, universal education, a distinctly American achievement, is now in a state of disrepair, for we have failed to maintain this system that is so vital to our national success. It is as if we have used modern technology to till the soil well for the current growing season but have allowed the next season's seeds to decay. In 1981 Secretary of Education Terrel Bell empaneled the National Commission on Excellence in Education, on which I served, to study the quality of American education. The report of the commission, A Nation at Risk, was released in April 1983. From that time on, at risk became part of the popular jargon. Everything and everybody was said to be at risk. The nation was teeming with at-risk students, at-risk parents, at-risk educators, at-risk legislators, at-risk school board members, and at-risk communities. A Nation at Risk had defined our nation as a place of serious risk. As the principal of a large Detroit high school, I represented urban public education on the commission. My two years as a member were some of the most exacting, exciting, and electrifying years of my professional life. I was deeply impressed -- and as deeply disturbed -- by what I saw, experienced, and learned about American education during those years. I completed that tour of duty with a renewed veneration for many of my colleagues, with admiration for a host of great teachers, with respect for many superintendents, with appreciation for a lot of school board members, with deference for some governors, and with disappointment in and disdain for many elected public officials. The text of A Nation at Risk told Americans, "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war." The language may have been startling, but this nation has proved time and again that it is its own worst enemy. We do not need foreign enemies as long as we continue to self-destruct. Our children might be better off if they declared sovereignty and then asked for foreign aid. This nation, claiming to uphold the principles of honesty and integrity, has broken all the treaties with its children. In the 1980s we have provided our children with technology that was unimaginable just a few years before: video machines, laser discs, computers, graphing calculators, satellites, high-tech telephones, pagers, CD ROMs, fax machines, microwave ovens, VCRs, and a variety of robots. Yet, despite all this technological wizardry designed to erase the drudgery and reduce the hazards of daily tasks, we have lacked the ingenuity to improve the social and physical environment of our children. While the last decade has been one of tremendous technological advances, socially it has been a time of disintegration -- of families, health care, guidance, housing, child care, and that abstract but altogether necessary component, compassion. A SENSE OF HISTORY The purpose of American education has changed considerably since the Pilgrims established schools for Bible reading and for religious leaders. The period of Reconstruction saw the establishment of schools to improve the lot of African-Americans. During the decades of massive immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the principal role of education was to Americanize the newcomers. During the early 1900s, education sought to prepare the growing middle-class population for college. Keeping young people out of the adult labor market appears to have been one of the major focuses of education during the Great Depression. Now that our economic institutions have shifted direction from the service of a rural, agrarian society to the service of an urban, suburban, and industrialized information society, the purpose of the schools has changed accordingly. Schools have never been limited to a single concern, but the complex demands of our largely urban, high-tech world have focused schools' efforts on at least two major roles: the acculturation of the young (especially immigrants) and the preparation of the young for the adult labor market. In the past, schools pursued somewhat narrower purposes than they do today; therefore, it was easier to achieve success. But as schools took on more of the traditional functions of the home -- along with a new responsibility for improving the nation's economic growth -- their leadership, facilities, and resources could not keep pace with their growing responsibilities. Consequently, schools could not meet all the needs of today's students as well as they had met the more restricted needs of students in the past, and schools were charged with having failed large numbers of youngsters. Many youngsters for whom the schools have not worked well live in the nation's inner cities and are members of minority groups. Formerly labeled "educationally disadvantaged," "culturally deprived," or something similarly pejorative, these youngsters have been referred to since 1983 as "at-risk students." Of the many problems that beset American education, the most serious and significant among them are those associated with at-risk students. They have attracted the attention of school boards, administrators, teachers, governors, and the President himself. The fate of these students will determine whether the nation is indeed at risk. As it was phrased in A Nation at Risk, "Part of what is at risk is the promise first made on this continent: All, regardless of race or class or economic status, are entitled to a fair chance and to the tools for developing their individual powers of mind and spirit to the utmost." Although much time, energy, and thought have been expended in trying to create an effective educational program for these at-risk students, the public and its political leaders have not been willing to support unconditionally the American creed of equal educational opportunity for all. A careful scrutiny of educational practices in schools today reveals an appalling gap between the rhetoric of equal opportunity and the reality of practice. Schools do not extend the same kind of justice and opportunity to at-risk students as they give to the children of the socially and economically well-off. Somehow, with all the technical ingenuity that we Americans possess, we have not been able to provide all students comparable access to talented, knowledgeable, and skilled teachers -- nor have we allocated resources for infrastructure and technology in a way that ensures that all facilities are comparable. THE TENOR OF THE TIMES As a member of the National Commission, I was afforded the opportunity to travel to many sections of the country to see, hear, and experience firsthand a number of revolutionary practices in the nation's schools. Such revolutions were and are taking place every day in some districts, in some schools, and in some classrooms. These are revolutions that are having a positive impact on students. Even more exciting than visiting these pockets of revolution has been serving as a high school principal in an urban setting during the past decade. In the wake of the commission's report, a most difficult part of my professional role was the task of convincing my colleagues that the report was not intended to damn the schools for political reasons. A Nation at Risk was certainly influenced by economic as well as political considerations, but it did not represent the views of any particular party. The report was designed to serve the welfare of the nation, and, in an effort to serve the national interest, the commission tried to deal honestly and sincerely with the schools. Although the commission's report was itself a reaction to concerns that had been expressed in a variety of school studies conducted by individual foundations and other agencies, the publication of the document spawned a whole new generation of reports -- on teacher training, on youth employment, on higher education, on vocational education, on science, on math, and on schooling in general. Eventually, the flurry of reports sparked by A Nation at Risk led to the adoption by the governors and the President of the national goals for education. Some other responses have been more controversial and disturbing, such as the radical notion of privatizing American schooling. THE RECOMMENDATIONS To deal with the concern about "a rising tide of mediocrity," most of A Nation at Risk was focused on five recommendations related to content, standards and expectations, time, teaching, and leadership and fiscal support. Content. The commission recommended that high school graduation requirements be strengthened and that all students seeking a diploma be required to take four years of English, three years of mathematics, three years of science, three years of social studies, and at least one semester of computer science. For the college-bound, the commission also recommended two years of foreign language study in high school. Although A Nation at Risk dealt primarily with the high school curriculum, the curriculum for the first eight grades was not entirely neglected. The report stressed that, in addition to fostering an enthusiasm for learning, the first eight years should develop a sound base for the recommended high school courses. In the wake of the report, high school graduation requirements across the country were strengthened. Many colleges and universities raised their requirements for admission as well. Prior to 1983 many school districts required just one year of mathematics and one year of science for graduation. During the decade since then, the national average has been raised to two years of mathematics and two years of science. Moreover, the amount of time devoted to science study in the first eight years has almost doubled since 1983. Science materials are more plentiful and have gotten better. Time spent on mathematics has not increased appreciably, but the techniques and technologies employed in teaching math have improved significantly, thanks largely to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Science Foundation. The most dramatic response to the commission's content recommendations has been in the area of computer science. In 1981, 18% of schools had computers. According to Market Data Retrieval, there were some 386,000 computers in schools during the 1983-84 school year. By 1991, however, 98% of the schools had computers. In 1981, 16% of schools used computers for instructional purposes. By 1991, 98% did so. In 1981, there were on average 125 students per computer; by 1991, there were 18 students per computer. The number of microcomputers installed in the nation's elementary and secondary schools topped 2.5 million during the 1991-92 school year. Standards and expectations. The commission recommended that schools, colleges, and universities adopt more rigorous and measurable standards and hold higher expectations for academic performance and student conduct. The commission also recommended that four-year colleges and universities raise their requirements for admission. Most of the major four-year colleges and universities have changed their entrance requirements since 1983. Many now require four years of English courses that include a range of content and skills, such as composition and literature, public speaking, analytical research, criticism and evaluation of literary works, history of theater, journalism, and creative writing. Many colleges now require three years of mathematics, emphasizing algebra and geometry as well as courses that require algebra and geometry as prerequisites. Two years of natural science and three years of social science are increasingly common as minimal entrance requirements. Colleges and universities seem to have been waiting for a catalyst to tighten up their admission requirements. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has raised its standards for the eligibility of athletes. Proposition 48 requires that prospective college athletes have a grade-point average of 2.0 on a four-point scale, that they complete a core curriculum of at least 11 academic courses, and that their combined score on the verbal and math sections of college entrance exams reach specified levels. An NCAA report based on a study of selected Division I instructors shows that the college graduation rate of student athletes increased after the NCAA's controversial Proposition 48 went into effect in 1986. The overall graduation rate for student athletes increased from 48.1% for those entering college in 1984 or 1985 to 56.5% for those entering in 1986-87. Time. The commission recommended that significantly more time be devoted to studying the "new basics" -- those areas mentioned in the content recommendations. The commission recognized that carrying out this recommendation might require both a more effective use of existing school time and a lengthening of the school day or school year. Between 1965 and 1983, Michigan reduced the school year for its students by the equivalent of more than 50 days. Impossible, you say? Prior to 1965, Detroit had a 200-day school calendar. During the early 1960s, the Detroit Federation of Teachers became the district bargaining unit. The union called a teachers' strike that lasted two weeks. One of the consequences of that strike was a reduction in the length of the state-mandated school year to 180 days, with 900 clock hours of instruction. This resulted in an immediate loss of 20 days from the existing calendar. During the social unrest of the late Sixties, several Michigan cities shortened their school days by changing the students' program to five straight classes -- eliminating lunch periods, study hall, and some extracurricular activities. The five-hour student day allowed the districts to meet the state requirement for 900 clock hours of instruction. The change from six classes to five reduced the students' calendar by the equivalent of 30 days. Allowing 10 half-days of student attendance to count as 10 full-attendance days when the days were used for professional development or for parent/teacher conferences lost another five days. It would be extremely difficult for today's students to show improvement over the performance of students who spent 50 extra days in school. Parents don't want their children to suffer such a disadvantage; even students know that a 50-day loss handicaps them. Only our "leaders" seem to be unaware of the problem. Since 1983 the school calendar in most locales has been increased by three to five days. Nationally, many school districts had a 170- to 175-day calendar before A Nation at Risk. The 180-day school calendar is now fairly standard. If school districts, state departments of education, and state legislatures continue to move toward lengthening the school calendar at the same rate as they have in the last decade, though it will take 40 years to reach a 200-day school year. Yet the 24th Annual Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa Poll shows that a majority of the public supports a 210-day school year. Could the followers be ahead of the leaders? Teaching. The National Commission on Excellence in Education offered seven recommendations with regard to teaching, covering such topics as preparation, salaries, and differentiated staffing patterns. Each of the seven recommendations was intended to stand on its own. The recommendations on teaching prompted more action than any of the others. Immediately after the release of the report, many states began to develop plans to administer competency tests to veteran teachers and to require all new teachers to pass such tests. Many school districts established their own hiring criteria, which exceeded those imposed by the states. While President Clinton was governor of Arkansas, he initiated a competency test for all teachers, over the vigorous opposition of the teacher unions. However, when the test was administered, 90% of the teachers passed; the 10% who did not pass were given assistance and additional opportunities to retake the test. In 1986 the Connecticut legislature passed a law requiring prospective teachers to take a licensing test designed to measure what a teacher needs to know in the classroom. Sixty-eight percent of prospective elementary teachers with bachelor's degrees passed; 70% of those with master's degrees passed. Teacher candidates who took tests in 22 subject areas achieved an overall passing rate of 83%. Since 1983, 48 states have enacted or approved raising admissions standards for teacher education programs, have re-evaluated teacher education programs, or have developed unified course requirements for students in such programs. The Holmes Group, which includes some of the major institutions that prepare teachers, issued Tomorrow's Teachers, a ground-breaking report on the need to reform teacher education -- and the Holmes Group has kept its professional network up and running ever since. The report of the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, led to the establishment of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education also tightened its standards in the late 1980s. Meanwhile, in the past decade teacher salaries have increased at roughly twice the rate of inflation. The need for more and better teachers is now clearly recognized. Leadership and fiscal support. The commission charged citizens across the nation to hold educators and elected officials responsible for producing the leadership and financial support necessary to achieve school reform. Since 1983 a great deal has been said and written about the critical role of leadership in school improvement, especially leadership at the school level. The effective schools research made it clear that a good school must have a strong leader for a principal. And more and more responsibilities have been given to the principal, ranging from bus duty to accounting for homeless children. Leadership at the school level has been the driving force behind much of the school improvement of the last decade. State and local officials, including school board members, governors, and legislators, have the primary responsibility for financing and governing the nation's schools. With a few exceptions, states have been negligent in their duties toward the children. This year will be the 25th year that Texas has been involved with the courts over equitable financing of public schools. As a result of a case involving school finance, Kentucky's entire education system was declared unconstitutional by the state courts. Similar cases are pending in other states. Public school financing is a national problem. State legislatures by and large have not accepted the principle that every student must have equal access to educational opportunity and resources. No district should be forced to close its doors because it cannot generate sufficient financial support. Nor should a district lose qualified teachers because it cannot pay competitive salaries. The states must accept their responsibility to every child. The adoption of the national goals for education represents a noble vision, but without adequate and equitable funding we will not reach those lofty goals. Excellence in education costs money. In the long run, however, accepting mediocrity costs far more. Just as the benefits of education are conferred as much on the population at large as on the individual, so the detrimental effects of inadequate schooling are borne by the entire society. The undereducated are subject to a disproportionate level of unemployment and, therefore, swell the welfare rolls. Moreover, those whose inadequate education deprives them of access to the goods of society may become alienated from the positive values of society and find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Education is an investment in both economic growth and social health. THE WORST OF TIMES More than a century ago Charles Dickens began A Tale of Two Cities with the words: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us. . . ." Today more people have more money than ever before. Yet more poverty than ever before exists in certain isolated rural communities and in the slum areas of our cities. Almost everywhere one can find comfortable affluence side by side with deprivation and poverty. There are more high school graduates than ever before; there are also more dropouts. There is more security; there is more uncertainty. There is more education; there is more miseducation. There is more success than ever before and also more failure. "It is the best of times, it is the worst of times." While the objectives, purposes, and ideals of American education are inspiring and the recent technology is amazing, something disastrous is happening to many of the students and their parents. It is as if a physician equipped with the best technology and drugs with which to treat conventional illnesses were suddenly to discover that the patient has an unknown disease that all the doctor's art and science cannot cure. As I reflect on the negative physical and mental conditions that plague our students -- teenage pregnancy, guns in school, homicide, illegal drugs, homelessness, poverty, suicide, AIDS, and unemployment -- I can only assume that the social environment for our young people has severely deteriorated since the release of A Nation at Risk. I will discuss these problems in the light of my own experience -- as a human being and as an educator. When I first tried to smoke cigarettes, there were approximately 10 brand names from which to choose. Today, when I look at the cigarettes available in the convenience stores or supermarkets, I see at least a hundred choices. The same range of choices exists with regard to automobiles, credit cards, and telephones. It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the annual pregnancy rate for teenagers is 110 pregnancies per 1,000 girls. Most of these girls are part of the school population and so become at-risk students. Dr. Charles Vincent, a noted Michigan obstetrician, has said that what he sees scares him. "It's a stream of unmarried teenagers having babies, a stream that swelled 25% in Michigan during the last decade." The drug culture has helped produce a different breed of client for our schools. Once again, the schools are unprepared. These new youngsters are creating havoc and presenting challenges that are demanding and frustrating. The numbers of drug-damaged babies, alcoholic babies, HIV-infected babies, and low-birthweight babies have increased significantly in the last decade. In major urban areas it is estimated that one child in 15 has some congenital problem that can impair his or her behavior and learning. The special section on at-risk youngsters in the September 1992 Kappan offers a good deal of hope for educating these children, but there can be no question that their needs are greater than those of the average child and that the schools face a serious challenge in dealing with their growing numbers. A higher percentage of our children live in poverty than a decade ago. We certainly don't need a great deal of research to determine that a child of poverty is at risk and that poverty is harmful to one's mental and physical well-being. Deborah Cohen reported in Education Week that child poverty rose steadily in the last decade and now pervades every region of the country, with 26.2% of children in cities with populations of at least 100,000 living in poverty. In some cities, one-half to two-thirds of minority children are poor. Most of these children come to school, but they are not ready for school as that institution currently operates. Nor is the school ready for them. At least three million U.S. households occupy structures that are considered deficient under federal guidelines. Such housing may, for example, lack ample heat and hot water or pose lead and electrical hazards. Children in these households experience severely crowded conditions; they also grow up in neighborhoods in which their sleep may be disrupted by neighbors' quarrels, their safety may be threatened by gangs and drug dealers, and their peace of mind may be disturbed by gunfire. Children frequently exposed to violence are preoccupied during the day and have difficulty sleeping at night. They can develop stomachaches, headaches, speech impediments, and facial tics. The rise in the numbers of the homeless is another indicator of the worst of times. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that there are 322,000 homeless children of school age. Some independent researchers calculate that the number could be as high as 1.6 million. These youngsters live in transitional housing or in temporary shelters. They come from diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds. They are often poorly clothed, ill-nourished, and in need of basic medical attention. Many, too, are learning disabled and have emotional and behavioral problems. Some have parents who have recently lost jobs; others have been living in shelters for the homeless for their entire lives. According to a report prepared in 1990 by the Population Reference Bureau for the Center for the Study of Social Policy, only 26% of the nation's children lived in a two-parent family with a bread-winner and a homemaker. That report also showed that, for the first time, the majority of women with children under age 6 were in the work force and that 64% of all children living with one or two parents did not have any parents at home full time. Many of these "latchkey" children are on their own from the end of the school day until an adult arrives home from work. Meanwhile, the growing presence of guns in the school has caused the CDC to become involved because the situation has become a significant health hazard for students, especially in the urban areas. The sophistication of the guns that some children bring to school exacerbates the problem. Some of the guns possessed by young people exceed the fire power of the police assigned to the school. Metal detectors, magnetic doors, and security officers are now common features of our urban schools. A study of 970 Seattle high school juniors revealed that 34% of the students (47% of males and 22% of females) reported having easy access to handguns. Some 6.4% reported owning a handgun (11.4% of males and 1.5% of females). Six percent of male students reported having carried a handgun to school at least once. From 1980 through 1989, the CDC reports that more than 11,000 persons died in the U.S. as a result of homicides committed by high-school-aged youths using firearms, cutting instruments, or blunt objects. Firearms-related homicides accounted for more than 65% of these deaths. What time is it? It is the worst of times. What is happening in our society? It is as if we are allowing a school bus full of screaming children to slide out of control down an icy hill. Community and political leaders see the bus careering down the hill, and they want to stop the screaming -- even if it means taking some of the children off the bus. They miss the point. The screaming is a symptom of the circumstances that have imperiled so many of our children in rural and urban education today. All across this nation, many of our children are screaming. They are poor, they live in shelters, they live on the street. The bus is silently sliding out of control, and these children are a sign alerting us that the slide will be fatal to the economic, cultural, scientific, and educational progress of the nation. In the land of the free, many of our children are not free. We know it, and they know it. Some are not free to receive equal opportunities. Some are not free because they are minorities. Some are not free because of poverty. Some are not free because they are female. Some are not free because they are teenage mothers. Some are not free because their families have disintegrated. Some are not free because of violence, drugs, and guns in their environment. All of them are not free because we are unwilling to free them. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, it is astounding that we do not have courage enough to do what we need to do. Ten years after A Nation at Risk, we still lack the will and the commitment to reduce the risks that imperil our children. • Search for more Kappan articles in the Publication Archives • Join or start a discussion about this article in the PDK Forum
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