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National Education Strategy Briefing 4/18/91 [OA 6897] [1]
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NATIONAL EDUCATION STRATEGY 1 STATE DINING ROOM LUNCHEON
APRIL 18, 1991 \ 1:30 PM
THANK YOU. I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW PLEASED I AM TO HAVE
ALL OF YOU HERE ON THIS IMPORTANT DAY FOR AMERICAN
EDUCATION. I WOULD LIKE TO THINK OF TODAY AS THE TURNING
POINT -- THE DAY WE LEAVE ALL THE PESSIMISM ABOUT AMERICAN
EDUCATION BEHIND, AND JOIN TOGETHER TO DO EVERYTHING WE
CAN TO MAKE SURE OUR CHILDREN GET EVERYTHING THEY DESERVE.
- 2 -
WE WILL OUTLINE A FOUR-TRACK REFORM STRATEGY TODAY:
TO REFORM TODAY'S SCHOOLS; TO MAKE USE OF PRIVATE-SECTOR
EXPERTISE TO HELP INVENT NEW SCHOOLS FOR THE CHILDREN OF
THE 21st CENTURY; TO ENCOURAGE ALL ADULTS TO CONTINUE
LEARNING AND TO UPGRADE THEIR SKILLS; AND TO MAKE EVERY
COMMUNITY IN THE NATION A PLACE WHERE EDUCATION CAN -- AND
WILL -- HAPPEN.
- 3 -
EVERY ONE OF US HAS A ROLE TO PLAY IN THIS ENDEAVOR.
EARLIER THIS WEEK, GENERAL COLIN POWELL RETURNED TO THE
BRONX, TO VISIT HIS OLD HIGH SCHOOL. AFTER HIS SPEECH,
ONE YOUNG MAN, MIGUEL SANTIAGO, SAID THAT HE WANTS TO GO
TO COLLEGE AND MAJOR IN ENGLISH. HE SAID SOMETHING VERY
IMPORTANT ABOUT GENERAL POWELL. HE SAID: "I MEAN, HE
DOESN'T INSPIRE PEOPLE JUST TO BE SOLDIERS NECESSARILY.
- 4 -
HE INSPIRES THEM TO BE SOMEBODY."
I'M SURE THAT A LOT OF THE KIDS THERE FELT THE SAME
WAY. GENERAL POWELL'S SUCCESS SAYS TO THEM THAT IF HE CAN
GO ON FROM MORRIS HIGH SCHOOL AND BECOME A SUCCESS --
SERVE AS AN INSPIRATION TO OTHERS -- THEN so CAN THEY.
- 5 -
THAT'S WHY ALL OF US ARE HERE TODAY. WE'RE HERE TO
MAKE SURE THAT EVERY KID IN SCHOOL, THAT EVERY TEACHER AND
SCHOOL PRINCIPAL FEELS THAT SAME SENSE OF HOPE AND
POSSIBILITY. BUT WE ALSO KNOW THAT OUR JOB DOESN'T STOP
AT THE SCHOOLYARD GATE. EVERYONE PLAYS A ROLE IN THE
FUTURE OF OUR CHILDREN, AND I KNOW EVERYONE HERE IS
WILLING TO STEP IN AND DO WHATEVER HE OR SHE CAN.
- 6 -
INDEED, I'D LIKE TO THANK THE CORPORATE COMMITTEE FOR ITS
EXTRAORDINARY SUPPORT OVER THE YEARS, AND FOR ITS NEW
COMMITMENT OF TIME, EFFORT AND DOLLARS.
OUR CHALLENGE IS A GREAT ONE, BUT OUR DETERMINATION
IS EVEN GREATER. AND AS OUR HISTORY HAS SHOWN, ONCE WE
SET OUR MIND TO SOMETHING, THERE'S NO END TO THE
POSSIBILITIES.
- 7 -
UNFORTUNATELY, THE SECRETARY AND I HAVE TO LEAVE, BUT
BEFORE WE GO LAMAR WOULD LIKE TO SAY A FEW WORDS. THANK
YOU.
###
Are the Work
the 1985 fund
raiser for African
famine relief.
The result was
the best-selling
single of the
decade.
Creativity
comes naturally
to Jones. "When I'm composin,
pictures. When I see pictures, 1
music," he explains. "When I'm I
smoking I can't leave the work -
cause the ideas keep coming at me. I
find myself writing in taxis or in air-
LETTER PERFECT
planes, using menus, gum wrappers-
anything that's handy-to put down
EDUCATION SECRETARY Lamar Alexan-
ideas when the engine's stoked.
der grew up in a house where better
"Others may find it unusual that I
schooling was always part of the con-
can see and hear all the parts and
versation. His father served as principal
pieces of a work in my head, but it's
of a local elementary school, and his
no big deal because this is all I can do.
mother ran a preschool and kindergar-
I can't even drive a car.
"
ten in the family garage. The day he
-Alan Ebert in Lear's
was nominated for the Cabinet post,
Alexander was given some basic advice
"A MATTER OF DIFFERENCE"
by a former teacher: his mother.
In a published comment, Alexander
FOUR-TIME IDITAROD winner Susan
had dismissed his chances of being the
Butcher says the media try to make an
candidate by saying, "It's not me." Flo
issue out of the fact that she is a woman.
Rankin Alexander, 76, caught up with
Before her husband, David, was in the
her only son in his office at the Uni-
picture, she claims, the press asked her
versity of Tennessee, where he had
questions about her private life that they
been president since 1988. "If you are
did not ask any of the single men
going to go about this country as
competing in the grueling 150-mile
Secretary of Education, you can't say
sled-dog race. Butcher continues:
'It's not me,' she informed him. "It's
I have a hard time saying I am a
not I." -Kenneth J. Cooper in Washington Post
Do you have an anecdote for "Personal Glimpses"? See page 4.
142
Are the Work
the 1985 func
raiser for African
famine relief.
The result was
the best-selling
single of the
decade.
Creativity
comes naturally
to Jones. "When I'm composin,
pictures. When I see pictures, 1
music," he explains. "When I'm I
smoking I can't leave the work -
cause the ideas keep coming at me. I
find myself writing in taxis or in air-
LETTER PERFECT
planes, using menus, gum wrappers-
anything that's handy-to put down
EDUCATION SECRETARY Lamar Alexan-
ideas when the engine's stoked.
der grew up in a house where better
"Others may find it unusual that I
schooling was always part of the con-
can see and hear all the parts and
versation. His father served as principal
pieces of a work in my head, but it's
of a local elementary school, and his
no big deal because this is all I can do.
mother ran a preschool' and kindergar-
I can't even drive a car
"
ten in the family garage. The day he
-Alan Ebert in Lear's
was nominated for the Cabinet post,
Alexander was given some basic advice
"A MATTER OF DIFFERENCE"
by a former teacher: his mother.
In a published comment, Alexander
FOUR-TIME IDITAROD winner Susan
had dismissed his chances of being the
Butcher says the media try to make an
candidate by saying, "It's not me. Flo
issue out of the fact that she is a woman.
Rankin Alexander, 76, caught up with
Before her husband, David, was in the
her only son in his office at the Uni-
picture, she claims, the press asked her
versity of Tennessee, where he had
questions about her private life that they
been president since 1988. "If you are
did not ask any of the single men
going to go about this country as
competing in the grueling 150-mile
Secretary of Education, you can't say
sled-dog race. Butcher continues:
'It's not me,'" she informed him. "It's
I have a hard time saying I am a
not I." -Kenneth J. Cooper in Washington Post
Do you have an anecdote for "Personal Glimpses"? See page 4.
142
33% more per pupil spending (1991)
correctin draft
Vance grantt
DOEd. - Statistics
219-1659 you
Kirk Winters
Fwd
401-3080
Working Draft: 3/21/91
I. THE KICKOFF:
A (DRAFT) PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
Note: The speech draft for the President has been prepared assuming
he announces the education strategy in a nationally televised address
to an April White House gathering of the Cabinet, the 50 Governors,
50 congressional leaders (leadership plus Education Committees of
both Houses), business and labor leaders, and leading educators. It is
anticipated that background briefings with each group and the press
will be held the same day and the next day to provide more detail.
Last year, with the encouragement and help of Congress, the Governors and
I announced America's education goals for the year 2000. Tonight I want to
announce a strategy to move America toward those goals -- a strategy for
AMERICA 2000.
I have asked the Cabinet, Governors, congressional leaders, business, labor
and education leaders to join me here tonight because it will take all of us to get
this job done.
In fact this is a job that will take all Americans. It won't happen here in
Washington; it will be done in America's communities -- at the local level -- by
local leaders, by principals and teachers, by students -- maybe most of all by
parents.
When we think of what America should be in the year 2000 -- and then
look at where we are now -- it's easy to see we have a problem: Suddenly, the
world has changed; and we've been left idling our engines -- not teaching
enough, not learning enough, not doing enough to make our America all it ought
to be. Much of the evidence is all too familiar:
--
Low test scores, high drop-out rates.
--
Too many parents confident their school isn't part of the problem.
Too many children arriving at school from broken homes and broken
communities, underloved, and unready to learn.
Too many adults unable to read or write well enough for good jobs or
informed citizenship.
Too many workers who don't know what new skills they will need or
where to go to find them.
4
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Working Draft: 3/21/91
The list is familiar. Just one new example: The National Assessment figures
to be released in June will show that perhaps two-thirds of American high
school seniors don't know the math they need to get, perform, or hold a decent
job.
But I promise you that's the last bad news you'll hear tonight.
You see, in America, every half-empty glass is also half-full; every problem
is an opportunity waiting to be met. So once again we will shape the future and
make it ours.
When we think of what America could be in the year 2000 -- and what we
have to do to get there -- it's easy to see we have an opportunity. The
AMERICA 2000 education plan I announce tonight will mean four things:
--
For today's students, it will mean better and more accountable
schools.
--
For tomorrow's students, it will mean a New Generation of American
Schools.
---
For the rest of us, yesterday's students and today's workforce, it will
mean changing "a Nation at risk" into "a Nation of students."
And, outside the schools, it will mean communities where education
can happen.
With all four, the AMERICA 2000 plan will do what the cynics say can't be
done move us within reach of America's six education goals for the year
2000:
--
All children will start school ready to learn.
At least 90% will graduate from high school.
--
American students will leave the 4th, 8th and 12th grades knowing
what they need to know in English, math, science, history and
geography.
Our students will be first in the world in math and science.
--
Every adult American will be literate, able to compete in the workplace
and exercise the rights of citizenship.
--
Every school will be free of drugs and violence.
Bold goals? Of course! Worthy goals? Of course! Tough goals? Of course!
Impossible goals? Not for Americans!
5
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Working Draft: 3/21/91
We learned at least three things from Operation Desert Storm that will help
us in Operation AMERICA 2000: First, when America is careful to research and
develop the available technology we can stay ahead of the world. Second,
Americans can learn the skills they need to learn; we should never forget that
those smart bombs were delivered by an awful lot of very capable young men
and women. As I've said before: "The America we saw in Desert Storm was
first-class talent." Third, plain and simple, America can do anything it sets its
mind to doing; it feels good to know that again.
So now, let's get about doing what needs to be done about our schools --
making this land all it should be.
Tonight I issue this challenge to every city, every town and every
neighborhood in the land. I invite you, I encourage you, I challenge you to
become an AMERICA 2000 Community. An AMERICA 2000 Community is any
community that adopts all six education goals for itself, that sets a community
strategy for achieving them, that develops a Report Card to measure its results,
and that agrees to create and support a New American School.
America will meet both its goals and its dreams for the year 2000 because of
what each community does, not because of what Washington does. But the
Federal government can and will do a lot in the AMERICA 2000 program:
We will define new World-Class Standards for schools, teachers and
students in each of the five core subjects -- what Americans will need
to know and be able to do to work and live in the world as it is today.
We will create voluntary national tests for the 4th, 8th and 12th
grades in all five subjects -- so parents can know how their children
and their schools are doing. The American Achievement Tests, I call
them.
We will encourage use of these tests by offering Presidential Diplomas
to high school graduates who do well on the 12th grade tests, by
urging colleges to consider test results in their admissions, by urging
business to demand them in their hiring, and by helping issue Report
Cards comparing schools, school districts and States.
Having given parents the means to measure their schools, we will give
them the leverage to change their schools -- by urging Governors and
State legislatures to adopt choice -- and by changing Federal
education programs into choice programs, too.
We will challenge business and labor to create a parallel private sector
system of voluntary World Standards and skill certificates for the
skills adults need in today's workplace.
6
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Working Draft: 3/21/91
We will ask every employer to set up Skill Centers where workers can
find out what they need to know and where they can go to learn it.
We will establish such Skill Centers for our own employees in every
Federal Agency.
We will challenge every company and labor union to be sure 5% of
the workforce learns a new skill every year. That will be the standard
for Federal employees too. And we will try to provide our own
personal examples: I start Spanish lessons next Tuesday; Barbara is
wrestling with Computer 101 already.
We will set another example for America's parents by thanking our
teachers -- with a White House ceremony at least once a month. We
will provide matching funds for new Core Course Teaching Academies
to upgrade teaching skills in the five core subjects -- and School
Leadership Academies to help school administrators get better at
school-site management.
In the teaching of adult education, we will call a national conference
of all providers -- from community colleges to labor unions --- to
promote standards and quality and launch our efforts to transform
the country into a "Nation of students."
And perhaps most dramatically, we will summon the creative genius
of America to invent a New Generation of American Schools.
The Education Department next month will ask for competitive bids on six
R&D contracts to design the elements of the New American Schools for 2000
and beyond. The goal of these schools will be for its students to learn to the
World Standards in the five core subjects. So that we can find out whether that
happened, the students will take the American Achievement Tests. And after
the R&D is paid for, they'll have to cost no more to operate than conventional
schools. But otherwise we will put no limits on the six R&D teams; in fact we
want them to dream great dreams; we want them to think great thoughts; we
want them to challenge themselves and us to make a quantum leap to the
schools of America's next century.
The New American Schools should be "break the mold" schools, designed for
one purpose: to meet the needs of our children for the next century.
Their designs and ideas and products will not be patented; they will be the
property of the American people. But if the R&D teams do their job right, and I
am confident they will -- if they bring to education the same American
ingenuity and excellence that created those Patriot missiles and smart bombs -
- every local community will want their help to create its own New American
School.
7
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Working Draft: 3/21/91
While American business is being asked to donate $180 million to jump-
start the two-year R&D phase, I will be asking Congress for one million dollars
each to jump-start the first 535 New American Schools --- to have them up and
running by 1996. And I will ask Congress to pay for the nationwide Electronic
Education Networks --- utilizing state-of-the-art software and satellite TV
technology -- that the R&D will inevitably recommend be part of a cutting-
edge school system for AMERICA 2000. It's time to put American education
"on-line."
The Governors will designate AMERICA 2000 Communities in their States -
- they may want to conduct a competition for this purpose -- and the first 535
of them will get the first 535 New Schools by 1996, at least one in each
congressional district. (I have asked Secretary Alexander and will ask the
Governors to be sure that at least half of the first 535 New American Schools be
located in urban neighborhoods and rural areas where the problems of at-risk
children command the attention of a caring Nation.)
I predict that by 2000 there will be thousands more New American Schools
open or on the way. The process will become another of those things the
American people always do to stay true to our legacy -- another renewal of
American freedom. The people, as always, will get way out in front of their
leaders; many communities will build their own New American Schools. They
won't wait for Washington planners or Washington money or Washington red-
tape. They'll just do it. Because it's needed. Because it's right.
In none of this am I talking about cookie-cutter schools, invented by a
university think tank or imposed by a Federal regulation. The whole system is
designed so Governors and local communities can go shopping among the R&D
teams -- mix and match, if you will -- using one team's ideas in one
community, another's in a second, perhaps a combination in the third.
In the end, I predict that each New American School will be at least slightly
different from the rest. That of course is the genius of the American system --
local control that reflects local differences. It would never work any other way.
And so I have come full circle. The Federal government, the White House,
the Cabinet, the Congress, the Governors can all help and we all will. But in
the end, just as what goes into each New American School will be decided by
each community, whether we move toward the education goals for AMERICA
2000 will be determined by each community.
Once more, here is what we're asking each AMERICA 2000 Community,
each town, each neighborhood in America to do: Accept the six goals as your
own; set a community strategy to meet them; produce a Report Card to measure
results; agree to create and support a New American School. The first 535 of
the AMERICA 2000 Communities picked by the Governors will get the first 535
New American Schools -- and these will be up and running by 1996.
8
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Working Draft: 3/21/91
Nobody's going to tell you what has to go into your community's strategy for
AMERICA 2000. Only you know that. That's what local control means. But as
you study those six education goals you will quickly realize that New American
Schools alone won't be enough:
Adult literacy and skill training will take community commitment to
life-time learning.
Drug-free and violence-free schools will take community commitment
to neighborhood law enforcement and neighborhood caring.
Assuring that children start school ready to learn will take community
commitment to protecting at-risk children and fostering parental
responsibility, as well as help from government through such
programs as Head Start.
Let me add a personal word of caution to the planners, the R&D dreamers,
the community architects: To work, the New American Schools and the
AMERICA 2000 Communities must be more than computers and
telecommunications. School is not just a place to learn technology; like the
home, school is a place to teach and learn sound values, a place where children
can love and be loved, and build relationships with others who care.
Conversely, school must not be the only place where such values are learned or
taught, or where children are loved and cared for.
We have been asking our schools to get back to basics. Now is a good time
to ask the same of ourselves. It is time America ended its no-fault era.
Accountability in our schools is essential; so is accountability in our homes, our
families, our lives individual accountability.
AMERICA 2000 will require values, skills, and caring. If we teach
yesterday's values but forget tomorrow's skills we will lose America's future. If
we teach tomorrow's skills but forget yesterday's values we will lose America's
soul. And if we look only to our own success without caring for the well-being
of our neighbors, we will lose America's heart.
The New American Schools start with one of those values, one of those
beliefs from yesterday, from the Old School: America can do anything that
needs doing.
Meeting the goals of AMERICA 2000 needs doing. It will take all of us. But
we're ready!
Thank you. God bless you! And God bless the United States of America!
9
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
II. POLICY SUBSTANCE
THE PROBLEM: AMERICA'S SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE GAP
In the Persian Gulf these past few months, we witnessed a triumph of
American character, ability, and technology -- a victory for America and all that
she stands for. Operation Desert Storm helped show that education -- the
source of our knowledge and skills -- is essential to America's continued liberty,
prosperity, and world leadership.
Unfortunately, such knowledge and skills are shared by too few Americans,
and they are not being adequately transmitted to the next generation. Our
country is idling its engines, not knowing enough, not being able to do enough,
to protect the precious conditions of liberty and make America all that it can be.
The President said it in Charlottesville:
After two centuries of progress, we are stagnant... Fewer than
one in four of our high school juniors can write an adequate
persuasive letter. And only half can manage decimals, fractions
and percentages. And barely one in three can locate the Civil
War in the correct half-century. No modern nation can long
afford to allow so many of its sons and daughters to emerge into
adulthood ignorant and unskilled. The status quo is a guarantee
of mediocrity, social decay and national decline.
Eight years after the National Commission on Excellence in Education
declared the United States a "Nation at risk." we haven't turned the situation
around. Almost all our education trend lines are flat, some still declining.
We're spending far more money on education this year than when George
Bush was elected Vice President in 1980. Total outlays for elementary and
secondary schools have more than doubled since 1980; even after considering
inflation, we now spend 36 percent more per public school student. We invest
more in education than in national defense. But our results have not improved
and we're not coming close to what is necessary to realize our potential.
Nor is the rest of the world sitting idly by, waiting for us to catch up.
Serious efforts at education improvement are underway in most of our
international competitors and trading partners. Yet while we spend as much
per student as almost any country in the world, American students are at or
near the back of the pack in international comparisons. If we don't make
radical changes, that is where they're going to stay.
Meanwhile, our employers cannot hire enough qualified workers.
Productivity lags. Immense sums are spent on remedial training (much of it at
the college level). Companies export skilled work or abandon projects that
require it.
10
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Shortcomings are not limited to what today's students are learning in
school. The fact is that close to 85 percent of America's workforce in the year
2000 is already in the workforce now. They are the products of the same
education system we have just described as severely deficient.
Perhaps twenty-five million adult Americans are functionally illiterate.
Another twenty-five million working adults need to update their skills or
knowledge.
While more than four million adults are taking basic education courses
outside of K-12 -- and millions more are learning new skills through employer
or union programs -- there is a shortage of trained teachers for these programs
and a paucity of good instructional materials.
Even more important: No system matches training to needs; no organized
network ties learning new skills to getting new jobs; no uniform standards
measure the skills needed and learned.
Most important: While the age of technology, information and
communications rewards those nations whose people learn new skills to stay
ahead, we are still a country that groans at the prospect of going back to school.
At best, we are reluctant students in a world that rewards learning.
And there is one more big problem: Today's young Americans spend barely
nine percent of their first 18 years in school, on average. What of the other 91
percent, the portion spent elsewhere?
--
For too many of our children, the family that should be their
protector, ombudsman and moral anchor is itself in a state of
deterioration.
--
For too many of our children, such a family never existed.
--
For too many of our children, the neighborhood is a place of menace,
the street a place of violence.
--
Too many of our children start school unready to meet the challenges
of learning.
--
Too many of our children arrive at school hungry, unwashed, and
frightened.
--
And other modern plagues touch our children: drug use and alcohol
abuse, random violence, adolescent pregnancy, AIDS and the rest.
No civil society or compassionate nation can neglect the plight of these
children -- in almost every case, innocent victims of adult misbehavior.
11
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
But we see that few of those problems are amenable to solution by
government alone, and none by schools alone. Schools are not and cannot be
parents, policemen, hospitals, welfare agencies or drug treatment centers. They
cannot replace the missing elements in communities and families.
Schools can contribute to the easing of these conditions; they can sometimes
house additional services; they can welcome tutors, mentors and caring adults;
but they cannot do it alone.
At one level, everybody knows this. Yet few Americans think it has much to
do with them. We tend to say that, "The Nation is at risk, but I'm all right,
Jack." Complacency is rampant with regard to one's own school, one's own
children, in one's own community.
This leaves us stuck at far too low a level, a level we ought not tolerate. One
of the lessons of the education reform movement of the 80s was that little
headway can be made if few of us see the need to change our own behavior. Yet
few of us can imagine what a really different education system would look like.
Few of us are inclined to make big enough changes in familiar institutions and
habits.
Until last year, few could even describe our education goals. As a Nation,
we didn't really have any.
12
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
THE NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS
In 1990, the President and the Governors adopted the following six goals for
American education in the year 2000:
Goal 1:
All children in America will start school ready to learn.
Goal 2:
The high school graduation rate will increase to at least ninety
percent.
Goal 3:
American students will leave grades four, eight, and twelve
having demonstrated competency over challenging subject
matter including English, mathematics, science, history, and
geography, and every school in America will ensure that all
students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared
for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive
employment in our modern economy.
Goal 4:
U.S. students will be first in the world in mathematics and
science achievement.
Goal 5:
Every adult American will be literate and will possess the
knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy
and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
Goal 6:
Every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and
will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning.
Adoption of these goals was a significant national event, and some headway
has been made toward their attainment. But the time has come for bolder
action. As the President said of our soldiers in the Gulf: "The America we saw
in Desert Storm was first-class talent." Our problem isn't lack of natural
ability. let alone guts or spirit. It's that so much of that talent today is
underdeveloped, so much of that courage untapped.
The time has come to lay out a bold strategic plan that will move us toward
achieving all six education goals for 2000 and thereby renew American
education. What follows describes that plan.
13
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
THE IDEAS
Better schools will happen when local communities make them happen --
not when Uncle Sam mandates them. But Washington can point directions,
provide tools, set standards, spur competition, report results and inspire
involvement.
The call to action involves four different areas: By fostering accountability
and choice, we must make today's schools better and more accountable for
today's students; for tomorrow's students, we must create a New Generation of
American Schools; for ourselves -- yesterday's students -- we must head back
to school to acquire the skills and knowledge that good jobs demand; and,
outside the schools, where our children spend 91 percent of their lives, we must
build AMERICA 2000 Communities. All four areas must be worked on at the
same time.
1. FOR TODAY'S STUDENTS:
BETTER AND MORE ACCOUNTABLE SCHOOLS
To move America toward the six national education goals for the year 2000,
school by school, community by community, State by State, we must
aggressively promote an eight-part improvement package:
a.
Develop and implement clear new standards for the performance ACTION
of America's elementary and secondary school students.
The New World Standards to be established will define what American
students need to know and be able to do to live and work in today's world.
Accountability begins with these standards: expectations and benchmarks
against which we can measure student achievement and school performance.
These standards will be developed on the basis of thoughtful, forward-
looking judgments about what young Americans need to know and be able to do
upon completion of schooling. The United States has never had such standards
before. Defining them is where any effective education reform strategy must
begin.
Whatever specific mechanism is chosen in the coming weeks -- commission,
task force, etc. -- its charge will include:
--
Determining how many standards there should be for each grade.
--
Defining each standard in clear general terms that can be applied
consistently in different subjects and grades.
--
Examining standards used in other countries and determining how
the "world standards" to be used in the United States should be
related to them and updated regularly.
14
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
--
Proposing a national examination system that will define standards
and essential content of each of the five core subjects, and enable the
Nation, the States, and individual schools and students (and their
parents) to know how well the standards have been met.
b.
Create the American Achievement Tests (AAT) as the anchor for a ACTION
system of voluntary national examinations based on the New
World Standards. These principles will guide administration policy
toward testing:
--
There should be developed a system of national (not Federal) exams
keyed to new national anchor tests the American Achievement
Tests in each of the five core subjects.
--
If different tests are used in different States and schools, results must
permit fair and reliable comparisons among students taking these
tests.
--
The tests will be available for all students in grades 4, 8 and 12.
--
Each test will be a worthwhile examination of important knowledge
and essential skills.
--
While leadership will encourage their use, they will be entirely
optional for the State, district or school.
-- The permanent role of the Federal government in relation to these
tests will be as limited as possible.
Among the issues demanding prompt resolution are:
--
How best to develop the new American Achievement Tests.
--
By what means other (non-Federal) tests can be linked so that
multiple tests are available that are faithful to the same standards
and test security.
--
In what order (of subjects and grades) the new tests should be phased
in.
--
How the new national testing system should be organized, governed
and paid for.
National anchor tests keyed to new world standards in five subjects at three
grade levels may not be fully available until late in the decade.
Because it will take that much time to develop the American Achievement
Tests with the requisite care, it is necessary also to fashion an interim system ACTION
15
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
of individual testing perhaps based on the existing National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP-linked tests in reading, writing, and
mathematics could be made available by 1993 or 1994 to States and localities
that want to use them.
Up to now, NAEP results have been available only at the national and
regional levels, not at the State, district, school, or individual student level. In
1988 Congress authorized a trial program to produce limited State-level NAEP
data in 1990 and 1992. No State-level data collection has been authorized
beyond 1992. We will propose that Congress authorize State-level data
ACTION
collection for all NAEP assessments after this trial period, as well as
optional use of NAEP at district and school levels by States that wish to do
this.
c.
Encourage use of the American Achievement Tests.
While the new tests will be voluntary, the Administration will aggressively
encourage their use. It will call upon groups and individuals to insist that
students prepare for these tests and that the content and skills covered by the
New World Standards and core course proficiencies be taught.
The Governors and legislatures will be urged to adopt the anchor tests or
equivalent exams for use in their States.
Businesses will be urged to take into consideration results on the tests in
their hiring procedures (with better pay for higher scores).
Colleges will be urged to consider results on the American Achievement
Tests in making admission decisions (with scholarship funds linked to test
scores). As part of the Higher Education Act reauthorization, Federal merit
ACTION
scholarships will be proposed, rewarding academic excellence among needy
students. (A version of this idea is in the 1992 budget.)
High school students who distinguish themselves on the American
Achievement Tests will receive a Presidential Diploma -- an emblem on their
ACTION
diploma that signifies world-class performance.
The rhetoric of the campaign will, of course, ceaselessly urge parents to seek
accountability in their children's schools by insisting that these tests be given
and results reported.
d. Provide and promote Report Cards (school, district, State).
If choice is the ultimate leverage that parents will have to assure change,
Report Cards on schools are their means to gain information on which to base a
confident choice.
At no level should these reports disclose individual student performance
(except to parents and teachers). But a public reporting system -- school,
16
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
district, State, and national -- should provide ample information on
institutional and system performance. The availability of national anchor tests
in all five core subjects at three key grade levels allows for just such
comparisons -- including a national Report Card measuring State
ACTION
performance, to be prepared in conjunction with the National Education
Goals Panel.
By encouraging performance-based decisions by business, colleges and
parents -- and by encouraging competition among schools, districts and
States -- Report Cards may prove the single most powerful tool in this
accountability package.
e. Provide and promote choice of schools.
We should aim to give all families, regardless of income, real options among
good schools. Parental choice creates market-based accountability, encourages
school diversity and competition, empowers parents and provides them and
their children a sense of investment in their education.
Today, in America, school districts operate what we have come to call
"public" schools in ways that foster uniformity and discourage choice and
accountability. It doesn't have to be that way.
In encouraging choice, we should not limit it to municipal "public" schools.
Neither should it be confined within school district boundaries.
Choice should occur across present jurisdictional boundaries. Schools can
still serve the public and be accountable to the public even if they are sponsored
by such providers as universities, public agencies, corporations, non-profit
organizations, secular private entities and (after working through the
constitutional issues) church-affiliated groups. In other words, we should
redefine "public school" to mean any school, regardless of aegis, that is publicly
chartered, receives substantial public funding and is accountable for its results
to an appropriate public authority.
In addition to underwriting choice demonstration projects at the State and
local level, as proposed in the FY 1992 budget, the Administration should seek ACTION
congressional approval to apply the choice principle to Federal education
programs, beginning with Chapter I.
NOTE: Congress has rejected this idea in the past but proposing it
again will show readiness to "put our money where our mouth is." The
"piggy-back" voucher envisioned here is somewhat more ambitious (but
no costlier) than the proposal in the 1992 budget.
To be consistent, we should also promote choice in education systems
ACTION
under Federal domain -- e.g. schools for children of military personnel and
Native Americans. The relevant Federal agencies should cooperate to develop a
plan for this.
17
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
f.
The school as the site of reform.
One of the great lessons of the reform effort of the 1980s is that change
must occur school by school. We now recognize that individual schools must be
"site-managed" in order to be effective. Schools need strong leadership and
their leaders need the freedom to run them while being held accountable both
for their results and for making well-conceived efforts at improvement.
This strategy will foster school site management and promote the training of
effective school leaders in several ways.
We will encourage States to allow the leadership of individual
ACTION
--
schools to make decisions about how resources are used in their
school. While being given this freedom, they will be accountable for
results toward achieving the national goals.
We will seek congressional authorization to vest greater decision- ACTION
making power at the school site through an Education Flexibility
Act. Regulations controlling how States, districts, and schools spend
their Federal funds will be eased and greater flexibility and decision
making authority conferred on those leading the schools.
The Department of Education will provide matching funds to
ACTION
establish 50 School Leadership Academies. These will cost about
$12.5 million a year and will help train world class principals and
other school leaders in school improvement strategies and
accountability systems that will create in our schools the conditions to
reach the goals. These Academies may involve collaboration between
schools of management and schools of education.
g. The teacher as the heart of the school.
The character that teachers embody and demonstrate, as well as their
knowledge, their skills, and their understanding of how children learn -- these
constitute the heart of the school. If we demand more of the schools, we must
also support, strengthen and make more attractive the profession of teaching.
This package will help update the knowledge and skills of today's teachers,
encourage alternate certification of new teachers, and shape a professional
climate to attract our best:
We will encourage more pay for: teachers who teach well;
ACTION
teachers who teach core courses; teachers who teach in
challenging or difficult settings; and experienced teachers who
serve as mentors for new teachers.
18
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
We will work with agencies such as the Humanities and Arts
ACTION
Endowments to identify and honor outstanding teachers in their
fields, as the National Science Foundation does for mathematics and
science teachers.
--
Relevant Federal agencies will provide matching funds to support ACTION
Core Course Teaching Academies -- summer or term-time sessions
in the five core subject areas -- to give teachers the knowledge, the
skills, and the tools they need to help students meet the New World
Standards. ($200,000 to each of the 200 best proposals -- a
minimum of two per State -- would cost $40 million annually and
would serve about 20,000 teachers.) The Chicago project supported
by the Department of Energy and led by Leon Lederman is an example
of such an activity.
We will support one-time Federal funding ($10 million) for the
ACTION
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. This group is
grappling with the difficult problem of establishing a generally
accepted evaluation process to encourage and reward excellence in
teaching. It is reasonable to support that effort. Federal funds,
limited to the Board's R&D work, will be conditioned on a system of
accountability for the Board's own performance.
NOTE: Although this could well spur alternative certification, it would
reverse previous administration policy (which endorsed the idea of a Board
but opposed Federal funding).
As part of the Educational Excellence Act, we will seek congressional
ACTION
authorization to make grants to States and districts to develop alternative
certification systems for teachers and principals. New college graduates and
others seeking a career change into teaching or school administration are often
frustrated by certification requirements that do not relate to subject area
knowledge or leadership ability. This initiative will help States and districts to
develop means by which individuals with an interest in teaching and school
management or leadership can overcome those certification barriers.
h. Promote more study and learning time for students.
The President will appoint a Commission on Time, Study, Learning and ACTION
Teaching and charge it with appraising the quality and adequacy of American
students' study and learning time in an era when New World Standards of
achievement need to be met. Issues to be examined include the length of the
school day and year, the extent and role of homework, how time is currently
being used for academic subjects, year-round professional opportunities for
teachers, and the use of school facilities for extended learning programs. This
Commission would issue its report by 1993.
OPTION: This could be either a Presidential or Secretarial Commission.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
3. FOR OURSELVES (YESTERDAY'S STUDENTS/TODAY'S WORKFORCE):
A NATION OF STUDENTS
If eighty-five percent of America's workforce in 2000 is already in the
workforce, improving today's and tomorrow's students is not enough to assure a
competitive America in 2000, either. We need to move from a "Nation at risk" to
a Nation of students -- and that means all of us, young and old. Nearly all of
us need to know much more than we do now.
The need isn't just at work. To live well in America today, we need to know
?
more about operating modern devices (PCs, etc.), about effective parenting,
about health and personal fitness, about civic participation, about how to
improve our literacy skills, our understanding of international politics, our
capacity to solve community problems and more. Education is not just about
making a living. It is also about making a life.
By word and example, the President needs to challenge grown-up Americans
to go back to school.
If twenty-five percent of us take this challenge in the 90s, national economic
productivity will rise, more parents will think about what a good school is, and
more students will learn study habits and respect for learning from their
parents.
If half of today's workforce takes the challenge to learn new skills in the 90s,
America will still be the leader of the world's economy -- and a sturdy beacon of
freedom's blessings to the whole world.
To become that Nation of students, we need to adopt an accountability
package for learning past K-12 that's as strong as the package envisioned for
the schools. (Note: The details of the package should be planned jointly with
the Department of Labor, OPM and OMB.)
a.
Focus, Coordinate, and Define the Nation's Literacy Efforts, not
just in relation to reading and writing, but also in the knowledge
and skills that make us better and wiser.
Enlarge and regularize the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). We ACTION
do not have enough systematic information to accurately assess adult literacy.
Such data are essential for sound policymaking.
It should be a national priority to produce timely, accurate and regular data
on adult literacy and skill levels. This information can serve as a definition of
what has to be done -- and a basis against which to measure progress.
Tie Federal funding of adult education training programs to
ACTION
performance. Relevant Federal statutes regarding adult literacy (e.g. Adult
Education Act, Title IV of the Higher Education Act) should insist on
28
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
performance standards for all recipients. No Federal dollars should go to any
institution that cannot demonstrate performance up to those standards.
Propose a reauthorization of the Adult Education Act that includes the ACTION
principles set forth in this strategy. The Adult Education Act expires on
September 30, 1993; however, we may want to move more quickly to propose a
reauthorization package that includes the principles set forth here.
Negotiate with Congress on elements of the Sawyer-Goodling Literacy ACTION
Bill. This bill would authorize a variety of literacy-related activities, including a
National Institute on Literacy. Though opposed to it in the past, the
Administration has moved in the direction of supporting elements of this bill.
For example, the Department of Education already has a $5 million
appropriation to establish an Institute for Literacy Research and Practice. This
activity could be subsumed under new legislation. In addition, it could have a
clearinghouse function that provides the growing network of industry,
community and government Skill Clinics with information on available programs
and their results.
ACTION
Propose new adult literacy activities as part of the Educational
Excellence Act. The Administration's Educational Excellence Act anticipates a
variety of initiatives, including innovative adult literacy activities. This initiative
should be built around the principles set forth in this section of the strategy.
b.
Stimulate a private sector strategy to establish standards and
benchmarks.
The standards and benchmarks proposed for the schools (New World
Standards, core course proficiencies, American Achievement Tests) measure
academic skills and knowledge. Industry and labor need to develop a parallel
system of benchmarks for job skills and knowledge.
The SCANS commission of the Labor Department is making good progress in
defining the five core skills needed to perform a job (systems, personal
interaction, information, resources, technology). Just as national anchor tests
will be created for each core school subject, skill certificates are needed for each
core job skill.
And just as national benchmarks and assessments for the schools need to
be adopted at the local level to be effective, any system of benchmarks and
assessments for job skills must be voluntarily adopted by business and labor
(and tailored by and to each industry group) if it is to be effective.
The President will ask business and labor cooperatively to develop their ACTION
own world standards, core skill proficiencies and skill certificates -- and
apply these industry by industry. The goal is a job skill benchmark program
to parallel the schools benchmark program and to help all Americans determine
what they have to know to live and work in this changing world.
29
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
The process will benefit employees -- but it is just as much in the interest
of employers, helping them to define and identify the skills their employees will
need in the future and setting about to get them now.
OPTION:
The President can direct the Secretaries of Labor and/or
Education to lead and organize this effort. Other Cabinet
members will need to be involved as well, especially in fostering
efforts by industries with ties to their agencies.
c.
Promote Skill Clinics in every business and community.
Workers need to be able to find out what they need to know to hold a job or
get a better one. And they need to be able to find out where to learn it.
With a private sector system of skill standards, proficiencies and certificates,
Skill Clinics will be all the more essential for diagnosis and referral:
Employers will be encouraged to make Skill Clinics as available to their ACTION
workers as health clinics are today.
Future-thinking communities (AMERICA 2000 Communities) will
ACTION
provide one-stop diagnosis and referral at community Skill Clinics.
Each Federal agency will establish Skill Clinics for its employees.
ACTION
d.
Call a National Conference of Adult Education Providers
Many adult education providers already conduct a variety of training and
development opportunities. This diversity is a strength. But it is also a source
of much confusion.
We propose to convene a National Conference of Adult Education
ACTION
Providers, to launch our efforts to challenge the country to become a "Nation of
students." Among those to be included are community and technical colleges,
universities, trade schools, corporate training programs, trade unions, literacy
programs, libraries and commercial job-skill providers. Among the subjects on
the agenda will be:
--
Making adult education convenient;
--
Quality control of programs. perhaps through performance-based
ratings:
--
Getting reliable information about providers to the Skill Clinics that
will be making referrals;
--
Creating instructional materials that teach to world standards; and
30
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
How best to establish the principle of choice for Federal adult
education programs.
OPTION:
One option is to convert all adult education, JTPA and JOBS
programs to vouchers now.
e.
Set a national goal of five percent of adult workforce members a
ACTION
year gaining a new skill for work or additional knowledge for life.
If five percent of the workforce learned new skills each year, the upgraded
American workforce in 2000 could out-think and out-produce anyone in the
world.
"Learning a new skill" means more than watching a how-to TV show or
attending an occasional art appreciation class. It means consciously and
systematically upgrading your skill levels in order to do your job better, get a
better job or live a more fulfilling life.
Learning a new skill also includes acquiring knowledge not related to the
workplace. Studying a foreign language, joining a Great Books discussion
group, reading a book each month on history, science, or some other topic --
these are all to be encouraged and are included in the five percent target.
The President should challenge the private sector -- and each individual
business and union -- to hit that target. He should ask business and labor to
establish systems to report back to him annually on their progress toward that
goal.
Five percent per year might also be an appropriate standard for every
AMERICA 2000 Community to adopt as they compete to win that designation.
And the five percent per year goal should be the minimum requirement for
every agency of the Federal government.
f.
Make the Federal government the most visible example of
employee skill-upgrading.
The President will ask the Director of OPM to recommend a
ACTION
government-wide program for skill-upgrading, based on the goal of five
percent of all employees learning a new skill every year.
Each Cabinet member and agency head will be asked to tell OPM what they
do now and how they see the program evolving most effectively in their offices.
Fully fifteen percent of the entire American workforce is employed by
government at all levels. This program, combined with Federal agency Skill
Clinics (see above) and Cabinet examples (see below) could prove a powerful
example to State and local governments as well.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Note: Worthy as it is, this program will cost money and we cannot yet
determine the dollar costs. But it must have adequate support. Setting up
Skill Clinics and Cabinet examples without the means for employees to do
what is asked of them would invite criticism.
g. Set personal examples.
ACTION
The President should learn a new skill himself. It might be how to use a
computer. It might be learning Spanish -- to communicate with his extended
family. But the Nation should see him conscientiously working at improving his
skills. (It is less important that he become fluent than that he be committed to
the effort -- and willing to be seen making it.)
Note: Which new skill is totally up to him.
The First Lady, the Vice-President, and all Members of the Cabinet should
be asked to do the same.
If they all do so, it will be reasonable for the President to ask the same of:
-- Governors and legislators;
-- Members of Congress;
-- Business CEO's and union presidents;
-- Members of the entertainment industry.
When the entire leadership of the Nation provides leadership by example,
the Nation will follow. Just think of the media features, day after day.
The personal commitment will establish the bona-fides that allow Secretary
Skinner to encourage the trucking industry to establish its own skill-training
program, Secretary Kemp to do the same with builders, Secretary Cheney to do
so with defense contractors, etc.
We will be well on our way toward becoming a Nation of Students.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
4. AND, OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLS:
COMMUNITIES WHERE EDUCATION CAN HAPPEN
Even if we successfully complete the first, second and third parts of the
education strategy -- if we create better and more accountable schools for
today's students, design and establish a New Generation of American Schools
for tomorrow's students, and lead today's adults back to school -- we still will
not have done the job.
Even with accountability embedded in every aspect of education, achieving
the goals requires a renaissance of sound American values -- proven values
such as strength of family. parental responsibility, neighborly commitment, the
community-wide caring of churches, civic organizations, business, labor and the
media.
We've been asking our schools to get back to basics. Now it's time to ask
the same of ourselves:
It is time to end the "no-fault era."
As we shape tomorrow's schools, it is time to rediscover the timeless
values that are necessary for achievement.
Accordingly, our education strategy has an additional part. Though carried
out largely beyond the schools, this is also the part that drives the rest of the
strategy.
As we approach the new century, we seek communities worthy of New
American Schools, communities attentive to the 91 percent of children's lives
that today takes place outside the school, communities in which children reach
school ready to learn, in which the school and its environs are safe and
drug-free, in which the needs of "at risk" youngsters are met, in which strong
values are forged and sound character developed.
Government at every level can play a useful role, and it is incumbent upon
us to see that this is done efficiently and adequately. But much of the work of
creating and sustaining such communities can only be performed by those who
live in them: by parents, families, neighbors and other caring adults; by
churches, neighborhood associations, community organizations, voluntary
groups and the other "mediating structures" and "small platoons" that have long
characterized well-functioning American communities.
Such groups are essential to building the networks of relationships --
James Coleman calls this "social capital" -- that nurture children and provide
them people and places to which they can turn for help, for role models and for
guidance.
33
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
NOTE: Much the same reasoning underlies the efforts of the President's
Office of National Service and Points of Light Foundation, with which this
effort must be closely coordinated.
Government Policy and Programs
Many Federal and State programs provide support and services for
communities and help to meet the needs of children. Housed in many agencies
and intersecting with State needs and priorities in clumsy ways, these programs
provide services that are ill-coordinated, sometimes ineffective, and often
extremely cumbersome.
That can be changed. A mechanism will be established at the Cabinet
ACTION
level to join with the Governors in reviewing an array of policies and
programs, with an eye to giving States maximum flexibility, minimizing
Federal red-tape, permitting States to harmonize eligibility requirements
and adapt these programs to local needs and priorities. We suggest a
Domestic Policy Council subcommittee or Cabinet committee, perhaps co-
chaired by Secretaries Sullivan and Alexander, that would work with the
National Governors' Association (and other State and local officials).
Much of this kind of analysis has already been done in connection with the
Administration's "opportunity action plan" and many parts are already planned.
Further work should be done in connection with the AMERICA 2000 Education
Strategy, with particular attention to the needs of children, the importance of
social capital and the environment in which education is most effective. By
January 1992, when the next State of the Union message and FY 1993 budget
are presented. it should be possible to unveil a comprehensive policy package.
Among the programs and policies worthy of attention (examples only):
--
continued expansion of Head Start to serve all disadvantaged children:
expansion and improvement of the Even Start program, and the
programs of Preschool Grants for young, disabled children and Grants
for Infants and Families, providing early intervention for children with
disabilities from birth to age three;
--
day care and child care services;
"one-stop shopping" for federally financed social services;
--
a model statute for consideration by States that would toughen
sentences and fines for persons convicted of distributing drugs in or
near schools, playgrounds, etc;
Federal statutory protection from civil liability for teachers and
principals who mete out discipline;
34
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
a model statute for States to promote parent accountability, such as a
reduction in welfare benefits for parents of truant children, fines for
parents of juvenile lawbreakers, etc.
In the Communities
Government cannot do this big job alone, and an important part of the
education strategy and accompanying campaign -- is to drum an important
truth into the national consciousness: if the our education goals are to be met
and the needs of our children properly attended to, it will be because adults
shoulder their responsibilities. because millions of individuals pay closer heed to
the consequences of their own behavior, and because we come to understand as
a society that government -- even when it's working well -- cannot supply most
of what healthy communities require. This is also the fundamental distinction
between the usual Democratic approach, limited to government programs,
spending and services, and a sound Republican strategy that gives proper
weight to values, behavior, individual responsibility, voluntarism and non-
government structures and institutions.
A senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services recently
recounted this revealing anecdote: in her prosperous suburban neighborhood, a
little girl of two or three was spotted meandering alone down the street,
obviously having left her home and yard. The neighbor who saw her, rather
than dashing out to retrieve the toddler from harm's way, phoned the police
department and suggested that they come and do something about the
situation. (They did.) Asked later why she had not handled the problem
directly, she commented that she didn't think it was her place to interfere in the
affairs of the child's family or to be seen to "pass judgment" on their conduct.
This is exactly the sort of attitude -- and behavior -- that we seek to
change. "Responsibility" is a term too often scorned today, living as we do in a
society that is quick to say that people and institutions are "at risk" but that
scrupulously refrains from suggesting that anyone is ever "at fault." We readily
assert that a person or group is a victim of malign forces or circumstances
beyond its control, yet we are allergic to holding people and institutions to
account for the consequences of their own actions.
Our tendency to lay the problem at someone else's doorstep is by no means
confined to minority groups or impoverished neighborhoods. Teachers in middle
class suburbs note that when they voice criticisms to parents about the
behavior or academic progress of children, the parents are apt to react by
denying the problem, castigating the child for it, or denouncing teacher and
school for having failed to solve it. But it works both ways: when the same
teachers are criticized for the paltry knowledge and weak skills of their students,
they are likely to suggest that parents are responsible. They don't want to be
held to account, either.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Somebody else is at fault for what happens to us, but we are not at fault for
what we do to ourselves. We're victims of circumstances beyond our control or
perhaps just bad luck.
Nor will it do to expect the schools to rectify this situation for us. School, as
noted earlier, typically engages less than ten percent of a youngster's time
during his first eighteen years on earth. (Allowing for eight hours of sleep a
night, the school's share of waking hours rises to 13 or 14 percent.) When it is
successful, it imparts to the child a reasonable quantity of knowledge and skills
in such subjects as geography and math, science and literature. But that is
about all it is really good at. To look after other aspects of children's
development -- and get them to school in such condition that teacher and
curriculum can succeed with their parts -- we must look in other directions.
In calling on adults in tens of thousands of communities to do their parts,
however, we will need to do more than tap into a pre-existing sense of obligation
or impulse toward voluntarism. In many instances, we need to try to create that
sense. If it came naturally to most Americans in 1991 to behave properly, to
assume responsibility for themselves and their children, and to look after one
another. many more would already be doing so. Because so many are not, a
more activist stance by our national leadership is called for: to stir people to do
something they may know in their hearts is right but aren't yet motivated to do
on their own.
Here, the primary roles of the President, his Cabinet and other national
leaders and opinion shapers are to exhort, encourage, exemplify, honor and
reward those who do an excellent job, making clear that it is not the same as -
- and is more important than -- government actions. Perhaps the most
significant mission of the President will be rallying enough other campaigners:
sports and entertainment figures. civil rights and religious leaders, elected
officials and business tycoons, labor leaders and television personalities -- in
truth, just about anyone whose advice may be listened to and whose example
may be emulated.
The message we want them to send involves families, first and foremost.
Parents make a huge difference in how much and how well their children learn.
We're coming to understand this -- and starting to lose patience with those who
shirk their duties. On the 1990 Gallup education survey, Americans were more
critical of contemporary parents than of schools! Only one respondent in four
gave honor grades to "the parents of students in the local public schools for
bringing up their children." Perhaps people are ready for some tough talk --
and strong leadership -- on this front.
More than talk is possible. Parents can be reinforced too. Thoughtful books
and self-help manuals are available for those seeking to strengthen their
parenting skills. A number of States and localities have also mounted
systematic programs of education for young and inexperienced parents, most
often low-income mothers with pre-school children. (The Federal Even Start
Program helps in this regard.) Many of these are modelled on the Home
36
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters that was pioneered in Israel.
Missouri's "Parents as Teachers" plan, promoted by Governor Ashcroft and
already replicated in half a dozen other jurisdictions, makes available in-home
training (and group sessions) for parents of babies and toddlers. There is some
(preliminary) evidence that these children acquire stronger cognitive and social
skills in their early years.
Middle class families can improve, too. "Parenting classes," some of them
conducted by school systems, some by churches and other agencies, assist
inexperienced, frustrated or confused parents to puzzle out matters as basic as
getting their children to clean their rooms or eat dinner without tantrums, to do
their homework or get along better with their siblings. This doesn't have to be
formal; far more parent education probably occurs over the back fence or by
chatting with scarred veterans than sitting in class. The large point is that our
American zest for self-improvement can be channelled into the systematic
improvement of parenting.
Parents aren't the whole story, though. Hundreds of other organizations
help to shape what happens to the child outside school: libraries, churches,
Scout troops, summer camps, health and welfare organizations, Little League
teams, community and neighborhood groups, extended families, law
enforcement agencies, and so on. Our hope is that communities will scan that
list for more adults who can contribute to the social capital available to children,
adults who, in Urie Bronfenbrenner's phrase, are "crazy about" kids and able to
help them.
The engine for generating such movement and for bringing all four ideas of
the education strategy to life is a competition among communities to be
ACTION
designated (by the Governors of their States) as an "AMERICA 2000
Community." Such designation is also a precondition for a community to
receive one of the first 535 New American Schools.
The President would announce the basic standards for an AMERICA 2000
Community, which are:
1.
Adopt the six national education goals;
2.
Set a community-wide strategy for achieving them:
3.
Develop a Report Card to measure its results (including, but not
limited to, the performance of its schools and students on the new
world standards, as gauged by the American Achievement Tests) and
to make those results known to its residents;
4.
Demonstrate its readiness to create a New American School and to
support such a school for at least ten years.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
The Governors will award the actual designation, aware that the first 535
New American Schools (and Federal start-up funds that accompany them) will
be awarded to AMERICA 2000 Communities.
The States may use additional criteria if they need to, but at the national
level every effort will be made to avoid specifying any further conditions for
communities that need to discover for themselves what meeting the six goals
means. It is clear, however, that:
It would be self-defeating to open a New American School in a
community without an adequate plan to make it work. a plan in
which teachers, principals, and parents join with the rest of their
community to develop.
No school. new or old, can succeed if the "other 91 percent" of its
children's time is allowed to undermine what the school is seeking to
accomplish.
Communities with significant numbers of "at risk" youngsters must
take even greater pains to ensure that the non-academic needs of
those children are adequately met.
Meeting Goal #1, which deals with preparing children to learn, will
oblige the community to consider parental responsibility, how to
provide suitable pre-school services, and how to help more adults
acquire effective "parenting" skills.
Meeting Goals #2, 3 and 4, which deal with school curriculum,
standards and completions, will cause the whole community to realize
that it must get involved with its schools.
Meeting Goal #5, which deals with universal literacy and adult
skill-learning, will lead to plans to become a "community of students."
Meeting Goal #6, which deals with drug and violence-free
environments, will require the community to consider neighbor
awareness and parental supervision.
Since each congressional district is to have at least one New American
School, it will be prudent for Governors to consult with their
congressional delegations in identifying the AMERICA 2000
communities.
As this AMERICA 2000 Community program moves forward, propelling other
elements of our education strategy with it, we will become a Nation in which
thousands of communities reinforce sound attitudes, renew healthy attitudes,
strengthen constructive patterns of behavior, reinvigorate important institutions,
and thereby become places where education happens.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
THE FEDERAL ROLE
The next part of this paper -- "44 New Actions" (Tab J, page 41) --
recapitulates the actions -- Federal and non-Federal, governmental and
private -- that are suggested as part of the AMERICA 2000 education strategy.
First, however, a word on how we see the Federal role in general.
This is important, inasmuch as the credibility of the whole strategy in many
quarters will depend on whether Washington is perceived to be doing its part
with the vigor and thoroughness with which others are being asked to do their
parts.
Three points are basic:
1.
The President should explicitly define the Federal role as he sees it,
and make clear that, within that definition, he is determined not to
skimp or shirk.
2.
As noted earlier. we see a fundamental distinction between the limited
role of the Federal government in the field of education, and an
expansive role for the President as national leader in persuading
Americans to solve their education problems. These roles should not
be confused. and it needs to be understood that the actions
recommended here for the Federal government itself, while in several
instances bold, do not fundamentally enlarge its role. The actions
recommended for the Nation -- many of them to be catalyzed by the
President -- are far more sweeping.
3.
The basic strategy, as noted from the beginning, is more "revolution"
than "program." more a "populist uprising" than a conventional cycle
of legislation-appropriation-regulation. It would be a mistake to see
this education strategy as fundamentally programmatic. It is more in
the domain of attitudes, ideas, values and practices. The
preoccupation of the press and the education establishment with
budget lines, bill-drafting and congressional maneuvers must not be
allowed to obscure this.
As is well known, the U.S. invests a significant amount of money in
education. Our spending per pupil -- and as a proportion of GNP -- ranks
among the highest in the world. In fiscal year 1990 we spent $370 billion on
education. more than on national defense ($299 billion).
Less than ten percent of that money came from Washington. Uncle Sam's
financial contribution makes him the junior partner in American education.
At the education summit, the President and Governors restated and
reaffirmed the limited Federal role in education. They agreed that Washington
should focus on helping the Nation achieve its new national education goals by
doing two things: I
39
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
"promot(ing) educational equity by helping poor children get off to a
good start in school, giving disadvantaged and handicapped children
extra help to assist them in their school years, ensuring accessibility
to a college education, and preparing the workforce for jobs;
"provid(ing) research and development for programs that work, good
information on the real performance of students, schools, and States,
and assistance in replicating successful State and local initiatives all
across the land."
This strategy is faithful to that conception of the Federal role in education,
while also emphasizing the President's "bully pulpit" and the value of national
leadership in spurring fundamental changes far beyond the Beltway.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
III.
44 NEW ACTIONS
This section contains a complete list of all the action items highlighted in the
strategy. The page number following the action item refers the reader to the page
number in the strategy document for more information.
41
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
IDEA 1: FOR TODAY'S STUDENTS:
BETTER AND MORE ACCOUNTABLE SCHOOLS
Action #1
Develop and implement clear new standards for the performance of
America's elementary and secondary students. Working in partnership with
the Nation's Governors through the National Education Goals Panel, develop New
World Standards for core course proficiencies in English, mathematics, science,
history and geography, and a voluntary system of exams to assess students in the
4th, 8th and 12th grades. A possible mechanism to accomplish this efficiently is
a special commission appointed by the Secretary. (p.14)
Action #2
Create new American Achievement Tests (AAT), which will serve as the anchor
for a system of voluntary national exams calibrated to the new world standards.
(p.15)
Action #3
Devise an interim system of individual testing for reading, writing, and
mathematics, perhaps based on the existing National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP). An interim testing system is necessary because it will take time
to develop the American Achievement Tests. (p.15-16)
Action #4
Seek congressional authorization for State-level NAEP assessments after the
current trial period, as well as for optional use of these assessments at district
and school levels. (p.16)
Action #5
Propose for enactment by Congress (as part of Higher Education
reauthorization) Federal merit scholarships to reward academic excellence
among needy students. (p.16)
Action #6
Create a Presidential Diploma (an appropriate emblem on their high school
diploma that signifies performance to New World Standards) to be awarded to
students who show a high level of proficiency in core courses, based on interim
national criteria initially, and eventually based on the American Achievement Tests.
(p.16)
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Action #7
Assist the National Education Goals Panel in creating a national Report
Card measuring and comparing State performance in all five core subjects at three
key grade levels. (p.17)
Action #8
Seek congressional approval to apply the choice principle to Federal
education programs, beginning with Chapter I. (p.17)
Action #9
Promote choice in education systems under Federal domain, e.g. schools for
children of military personnel. (p.17)
Action #10
Encourage States and localities to empower leaders of individual schools
to decide how their school resources will be used. (p.18)
Action #11
Seek congressional approval of an Education Flexibility Act that would cut
Federal red-tape and vest greater decision-making power at the school site. (p.18)
Action #12
Provide matching funds to establish 50 School Leadership Academies. (p.18)
Action #13
Encourage more pay for teachers who teach well, teach core courses, and work
in challenging/dangerous settings or serve as mentors for beginning teachers.
(p.18)
Action #14
Enlist the Humanities and Arts Endowments and other agencies to identify
and honor outstanding teachers in their fields, as the National Science
Foundation currently does for mathematics and science teachers. (p.19)
Action #15
Support Core Course Teaching Academies -- in the five core subject areas --
to give teachers the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to help students meet
the New World Standards. (p.19)
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Action #16
Support one-time Federal funding ($10 million) for the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards. (p.19)
Action #17
Seek congressional authorization for a grants programs that would support
alternative certification systems for teachers and principals. (p.19)
Action #18
Appoint a Presidential (option: Secretarial) Commission on Time, Study,
Learning and Teaching, and charge it with appraising the quality and adequacy
of American students' study and learning time in an era when New World
Standards of achievement need to be met. The Commission's report will be due in
1993. (p.19)
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
IDEA 2:
FOR TOMORROW'S STUDENTS:
A NEW GENERATION OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS
Action #19
Hold a competition and let contracts by early 1992 for up to six R&D teams
to design a New Generation of American Schools. (p.21)
Action #20
Ask the Governors to lead the New American Schools effort in their States.
(p.23)
Action #21
Ask the State legislatures to: support the creation and operation of New
American Schools; embrace the New World Standards; mandate the American
Achievement Tests; and insist on school, district, and State-level Report Cards.
(p.24)
Action #22
Ask the Congress to provide $550 million in one-time start-up funds for the
New Generation of American Schools -- $1 million for each of the first 535+ new
schools. (p.24)
Action #23
Ask the Congress to provide one-time start-up funding for the design and
establishment of Electronic Education Networks. (p.24)
Action #24
Ask American business to become deeply involved in the R&D competition,
and to contribute the $180 million needed to support that R&D effort. (p.25)
Action #25
Ask the American business also to help organize community plans for
competing for designation as an AMERICA 2000 Community, to help plan and
operate new schools, and to participate in accountability efforts. (p.25)
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Action #26
Ask all community members -- parents, teachers, principals, students,
businesses, churches, labor unions, volunteer organizations, media and community
leaders -- to get involved, to compete for designation as an AMERICA 2000
Community. (p.25)
Action #27
Ask educators to answer the question, "What would it take to create a New
American School here in our community?" (p.26)
Action #28
Ask children to study more, learn more, and meet higher standards. (p.26)
Action #29
Ask parents to get more involved in their children's education and in the
work of the New American Schools. (p.26)
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
IDEA 3:
FOR OURSELVES
(YESTERDAY'S STUDENTS/TODAY'S
WORKFORCE):
A NATION OF STUDENTS
Note: The details of these actions need to planned jointly with the Department
of Labor, the Office of Personnel Managmement and the Office of
Management and Budget.
Action #30
Regularize and expand the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), to meet the
need for systematic information on the literacy evels of America's adults. (p.28)
Action #31
Tie Federal funding of adult education training programs to performance
standards, so that these programs, in turn, will insist on performance standards
for all recipients. (p.28)
Action #32
Propose a reauthorization package for the Adult Education Act that includes
the principles of choice and accountability set forth in this Strategy. (p.29)
Action #33
Negotiate with Congress on elements of the Sawyer-Goodling Literacy Bill.
(This bill would authorize a variety of activities, including a National Institute on
Literacy.) (p.29)
Action #34
Propose new adult literacy activities as part of the Administration's Educational
Excellence Act, incorporating the principles of choice and accountability set forth
in this Strategy. (p.29)
Action #35
Ask business and labor cooperatively to develop their own world standards,
core skill proficiencies and skill certificates for jobs and work, and to apply
these industry by industry. (p.29)
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Action #36
Encourage employers to make Skill Clinics as available to their employees
as health clinics are today. (p.30)
Action #37
Encourage AMERICA 2000 Communities to provide one-stop diagnosis and
referral at community Skills Clinics. (p.30)
Action #38
Require each Federal agency to establish a Skill Clinic for its own
employees. (p.30)
Action #39
Convene a national conference of adult education providers to launch our
efforts to change the country into a "Nation of Students" who go back to school to
gain new skills for work or additional knowledge for life. (p.30)
Action #40
Set a national goal that 5 percent of adult workforce members a year will
gain new skills for work or additional knowledge for life. (p.31)
Action #41
Ask the Director of OPM to recommend a government-wide program for skill-
upgrading, so that the Federal government becomes a visible example of
systematic employee skill-upgrading. (p.31)
Action #42
Encourage all members of the Administration, beginning with the President,
to set personal examples of gaining new skills for work or additional knowledge
for life. (p.32)
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
IDEA 4:
AND, OUTSIDE THE SCHOOLS:
COMMUNITIES WHERE EDUCATION CAN HAPPEN
Action #43
Give the States maximum flexibility to design and implement integrated
programming to serve children and communities, including streamlined
eligibility requirements and reduced Federal red-tape. This will be done by
establishing a planning mechanism -- perhaps a Cabinet committee working with
the National Governors' Association -- to develop necessary legislation as well as
procedures for waivers, regulatory changes, etc. (p.34)
Action #44
Initiate an AMERICA 2000 Community recognition program to energize all
four parts of this strategy. Governors would choose these communities based
on their plans to meet four basic standards: 1) Adopt the six national education
goals; 2) Establish a community-wide strategy for achieving them; 3) Develop a
Report Card to measure its results and to make these known to residents; 4)
Demonstrate the community's readiness to create a New American School and to
support such a school for at least ten years. (p.37)
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
PURPOSE: To move America toward the six education goals that the
President and the Governors have defined, thereby transforming American
education, closing today's skills and knowledge gap, and helping to make this
country "all that it can be."
OVERVIEW: The President would lead a "populist crusade," ("revolution,"
"revolt," "uprising") community by community. to educate ourselves and our
children so that we can live and work in the world as it is today: a revolution in
how we do things, a restoration in what we believe in, a homecoming to sound
values of community, family. and personal responsibility.
The strategy calls for:
Assuring accountability in the classroom.
Unleashing America's creative genius to jump-start a New Generation
of American Schools.
Transforming a "Nation at risk" into a "Nation of students," (or a
"Nation of Americans learning").
Nurturing the family and community values essential to personal
responsibility, strong schools and sound education.
ADDRESS TO THE NATION: Immediately following this Executive
Summary is the draft of a speech that the President might deliver in April before
a White House gathering of governors, business leaders, congressional leaders,
educators and other distinguished Americans. This event would unveil the
education strategy and kickoff the AMERICA 2000 campaign. It should be
nationally televised. The text is meant to be clear to the average parent, citizen
and voter. It sets forth in plain English the background, need for and major
elements of this strategy.
IDEAS: This strategy incorporates four ideas that must be pursued
simultaneously:
1. For today's students:
110,000
schools
m
U.S.
BETTER AND MORE ACCOUNTABLE SCHOOLS
World-class education standards and benchmarks (e.g. the American
Achievement Tests, a voluntary national examination system), so
parents can know how well their children and schools are doing.
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Choice, so parents have the leverage to act.
A focus on the school as the vital site of reform.
Stronger and more professional teachers and principals.
More study and learning time for students.
2. For tomorrow's students:
A NEW GENERATION OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS
Up-front support for national R&D teams (uniting private
corporations, think tanks, education innovators) to unleash America's
creative genius to help communities create new "break the mold"
schools that truly meet the needs of our children for the new century;
these teams work with Governors, legislators, educators and
communities to create at least 535 such schools by 1996, many more
thereafter.
R&D teams also help Congress and the President to make available
nationwide Electronic Education Networks (electronic library data
bases, state-of-the-art software, satellite TV teaching resources, etc.)
to put American education "on-line."
3. For ourselves (yesterday's students/today's workforce):
A NATION OF STUDENTS
Literacy for all adults, defined not only as the ability to read and
write, but also the knowledge and skills that permit a full life.
Industry- and labor-driven standards and benchmarks so workers
can find out what today's jobs require.
Worksite and community Skill Centers so workers can learn what
skills they need and where to gain them.
"Back to school" examples from government and business leaders.
Federal government as "exemplar."
4. And, outside the schools:
COMMUNITIES WHERE LEARNING CAN HAPPEN
Schools cannot do it alone; they don't have enough leverage. Even if we
successfully complete the first, second and third parts of the education strategy,
2
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
we still will not have done the job. Of course we ask government at all levels to
target and coordinate its assistance for those most in need through programs
such as Head Start. But government can't do It alone, either. We also seek a
renaissance of American values, attitudes and behavior, and personal
responsibility. and therefore call on community leaders -- all adults -- to create
and renew communities that support this education strategy.
To make this happen, the President will challenge every community in
America to compete for the AMERICA 2000 designation. To receive it,
communities must: embrace the national education goals, create a community-
wide strategy for reaching them, devise report cards for monitoring their
progress, and take other steps necessary to make their communities places
where learning can happen. Governors -- with the optional assistance of a
blue-ribbon panel -- will decide which communities in their States are
designated AMERICA 2000 Communities. There are only two stipulations:
every congressional district must receive at least one New American School, and
half of these schools must be located in inner city or poor rural areas. For each
of the first 535+ New American Schools, Congress will provide one-time start-
up support of $1 million dollars.
PRESIDENT'S TIMETABLE FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL MONTHS:
March 1991
--
Sign-off on strategy.
April 1991
--
Address to the Nation: announcement of strategy.
--
Planning. legislation submitted to Congress, public funding
activities begin.
--
President meets with business and education leaders.
--
President meets with Governors and legislators.
September 1991
--
State of Education Address by the President in Iowa (2nd
Anniversary of Education Summit).
--
"School day" scheduling as school year begins.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Working Draft: 3/21/91
VI. THE CAMPAIGN: MAKING IT HAPPEN
This Section outlines a plan to implement the substance of AMERICA 2000.
A comprehensive plan pursuant to this outline will be prepared by the
Secretary's office within 45 days of sign-off on the strategy.
A. OVERVIEW
AMERICA 2000 is more than a concept, slogan, dream or happening. It is a
campaign, to be executed like one -- with priorities, check points and defined
responsibilities.
1. The Campaign Management.
The spokespersons will be The President, the Secretary, the Deputy
Secretary and the Cabinet. The campaign chairman will be the Secretary, with
the manager and communications director running the campaign out of the
Department.
2. The AMERICA 2000 Coalition.
It is the public organization -- with co-chairs from the Department (Deputy
Secretary), Congress (Committee Chairs), Governors (NGA Chair), Mayors,
business, labor, teachers, principals, higher education, and vocational
education.
3. The AMERICA 2000 Communities.
They will be the focal point of the campaign. They will be designated by the
Governors on criteria announced by the President. States may operate
competitions for this designation. The first 535 will receive the first New
American Schools. They will be helped to understand their role and how to
meet it by the Governors and by the regional offices of the Department, armed
with campaign material, how-to brochures and reports of how others are doing
it. Each AMERICA 2000 Community will get a town-line sign, etc.
4. Who Does What?
The President will announce the strategy, set his own learning example,
honor teachers at least monthly, schedule a School Day monthly and deliver an
annual State of Education address.
The Department will coordinate the strategy and run the campaign,
establish voluntary benchmarks for the schools, help issue national Report
Cards, install the principle of choice in Chapter I and other Federal programs,
set up the Core Course Teaching Academies, and run the conference of adult
education providers.
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The Cabinet will set up Skill Centers, implement the workforce goal of
5%/year learning a new skill, set their own learning examples, coordinate
relevant Department policies and undertake School Day scheduling when they
can.
The Congress will consider the Education Excellence Act, fund the 535 New
American Schools with $1 million each, fund the establishment of Electronic
Education Networks, and be mentors to the New American Schools in their
districts.
The Governors will designate AMERICA 2000 Communities, encourage use
of the national accountability benchmarks, promote choice, and promote the
workforce goal of 5%/year learning a new skill.
The business community will fund the New School R&D, establish private
sector skill benchmarks to parallel the school benchmarks, create/promote Skill
Centers, accept the workforce goal of 5%/year learning a new skill, set personal
examples for it, and help all AMERICA 2000 Communities plan for and create
their New American Schools.
5. "School Day" Scheduling.
Starting in September all officials are asked to do it if they can. The
President will do it monthly, the Secretary weekly. A "School Day" consists of
traveling to visit a school, hearing their presentations, making appropriate
awards, restating the objectives of the education strategy, inspiring parental
involvement, and meeting with the local media on the subject. A "full" School
Day includes teaching a class, meeting with the local AMERICA 2000
Community committee, and meeting with the parents, teachers and community
leaders in a "cover dish" supper in the school at the end of the day. School
Days will be in AMERICA 2000 Communities, both before and after the New
American Schools are created.
6. The Kickoff.
The AMERICA 2000 strategy would be announced at a two-day White House
series of meetings in April with congressional leaders (the leadership of both
houses plus all members of both Education Committees), all 50 Governors, 50
selected business CEO's, and 50 representatives of the education community.
In addition to detailed group briefings, the President would announce the
strategy to them in a nationally televised address (see Tab B, page 4 for draft.)
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B. THE JOBS TO BE DONE
Here is a list of the big jobs to be done -- aside from obvious specific items
in the substance Section. It's a checklist for both the planning and for our own
regular Report Cards on our own progress. AMERICA 2000 must:
1.
Create a populist revolt -- a New American Revolution.
2.
Arouse communities to collective action.
3.
Cause focus on all six education goals to assure progress beyond the
schools.
4.
Cherish and honor the principle of local control.
5.
Change adult opinion that their children's schools are O.K.
6.
Change adult attitudes toward going back to school.
7.
Get the parents into the schools.
8.
Honor, respect, reward and renew teachers.
9.
Compare students, schools, districts, States.
10.
Give parents the knowledge to judge schools.
11.
Give them the leverage to change schools.
12.
Put America's creative genius to work on the problem.
13.
Channel the available resources of business and increase them.
14.
Win the Cabinet, Governors and Congress as allies, keep them as
allies, and choreograph their campaign roles.
15.
Make the Federal government and its leaders exemplars wherever
possible.
16.
Get the talk right (rhetoric and progress).
17.
Program enough success to assure momentum.
18.
Keep sustained focus on the targets.
19.
Answer the question: "What should I do?"
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20.
Reward success, spur ambition -- in the schools, in the campaign.
21.
Plug in to the sense of renewal that the turn of the century creates.
22.
Tap the optimism and pride of America's can-do spirit.
23.
Make it happen in every State, every District.
24.
Make the campaign the catalyst -- a sparkplug that ignites 1,000 --
2,000 -- 50,000 points of light.
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C. WHO DOES WHAT?
1. The President will be asked to do the following:
a.
Sign-off on the strategy.
b.
Host an April '91 White House session with the Governors,
congressional leadership, business and education leaders for a
national TV announcement of the strategy.
c.
Get the Governors on board at that April meeting.
d.
Recruit business and its funds at that April meeting.
e.
Hold weekly White House ceremonies to honor teachers,
starting in April '91.
f.
Make a September '91 State of Education address -- and
regularly thereafter.
g.
Schedule "School Days" starting in September '91 (up to one per
month, whenever possible). A "School Day" consists of traveling
to visit a school, hearing their presentations, making
appropriate awards, restating the objectives of the education
strategy, inspiring parental involvement, and meeting with the
local/regional media on the subject. These will be in AMERICA
2000 Communities both before and after the New American
Schools are built.
h.
Learn a new skill himself, as an example.
i.
Encourage the Cabinet to do the same.
j.
Help recruit the networks to the AMERICA 2000 Coalition at a
White House meeting.
k.
Appoint a Presidential Commission on Time, Study, Learning,
and Teaching.
1.
Hold White House award ceremonies for outstanding students
on the national tests.
m.
Call a National Conference of Adult Education Providers.
n.
Take part in television public service ads on the subject.
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O.
Let the R&D teams make presentations to him.
p.
Visit the New American School R&D teams in 1992.
2. The Education Department will
a.
Plan the AMERICA 2000 campaign.
b.
Create and run the AMERICA 2000 Coalition as the campaign
vehicle.
c.
Redraft the Educational Excellence Act to embrace the
AMERICA 2000 education strategy.
d.
Lead the effort to establish the New World Standards, core
course proficiencies, and American Achievement Tests.
e.
Establish a system to report and disseminate test results ---
and reward performance.
f.
Seek authority from Congress to install the choice principle in
Chapter I and other Federal programs.
g.
Set and execute a system for awarding the Presidential
Diplomas.
h.
Establish and provide matching funds for School Leadership
Academies and Core Course Teaching Academies.
i.
Set the RFPs for, award and supervise the New American School
R&D team contracts.
j.
Run the National Conference of Adult Education Providers.
k.
Name the teachers to be honored at the White House.
3. The Secretary of Education will
a.
Supervise implementation of the strategy.
b.
Coordinate the strategy with the Vice-President, First Lady and
relevant Cabinet officers.
C.
Coordinate the strategy with the Governors.
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d.
Coordinate the strategy with the congressional leadership --
and sell them on the Educational Excellence Act which will
embrace the strategy.
e.
Serve as Chairman of the AMERICA 2000 Coalition and
campaign -- and select all campaign personnel.
f.
Starting in September, undertake at least one "School Day" per
week. (See above for definition.)
g.
Undertake his own "back to school" learning example.
h.
Undertake a consistent public schedule with national and
regional media to keep the objectives and programs of AMERICA
2000 front and center.
4. The Vice-President will be asked to
a.
Coordinate his "competitiveness" efforts with the strategy
whenever appropriate.
b.
Undertake his own "back to school" learning example.
C.
Undertake one School Day per month. (See above for definition.)
5. The First Lady will be asked to
a.
Encourage her Literacy Office staff to participate in the planning
to be certain that the programs are totally consistent.
b.
Undertake one School Day per month. (See above for definition.)
c.
Undertake her own "back to school" learning example.
6.
Specific Cabinet Secretaries and Agency Heads will be asked to
coordinate aspects of the AMERICA 2000 strategy:
a.
The Secretary of Labor -- on development of planning for the
workplace skill benchmarks, creation of Skill Centers, and
setting the national workplace goal of 5% learning a new skill
each year.
b.
The Secretary of Commerce -- on maximizing business
participation in the coalition and in implementing the adult
education efforts of a "Nation of students."
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C.
The Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and
the Attorney General -- on assuring that the AMERICA 2000
Communities are best advised on how to implement Goal #6
(drug-free schools).
d.
The Secretary of HHS -- leading Cabinet-level committee on
Idea 4, and communicating effectively with "AMERICA 2000
Communities" on programs important to achieve Goal #1
(readiness for school).
e.
The Secretary of HUD -- on communicating effectively with
Governors and Mayors to assure active participation of urban
neighborhoods in the AMERICA 2000 Community program --
and to encourage builders to participate in the "Nation of
students" program.
f.
The Secretary of Defense -- to encourage defense contractors to
participate in the "Nation of students" program.
g.
The Secretary of Transportation -- to encourage the
transportation industry to take part in the "Nation of students"
program.
h.
The Director of OPM will be asked to develop a proposal for
making new skill training available in all federal departments
and agencies.
1.
The White House Office of National Service and the Points of
Light Foundation will be asked to assure maximum synergism
between the two programs.
7. All Cabinet Secretaries will be asked to
a.
Undertake their own new skill-learning examples.
b.
Participate as they see fit in the School Day program. (See
above for definition.)
c.
Establish Skill Centers in their departments.
d.
Set a minimum goal of 5% of all employees learning a new skill
each year -- and, with OPM guidance, establish a program for
skill training that helps them do it.
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8. All 50 Governors will be asked to
a.
Designate the AMERICA 2000 Communities -- with the first
535 to get the first New American Schools.
b.
Create the first 535 New American Schools by 1996, including
at least one in each congressional district.
C.
Encourage all communities to become AMERICA 2000
Communities and help them understand best how to do it.
d.
Be sure that half of the first 535 AMERICA 2000 Communities
and New American Schools are in urban and rural
neighborhoods with high concentrations of at-risk children.
e.
Encourage and facilitate business participation in local
AMERICA 2000 Community planning and in funding of the New
Schools at the local level.
f.
Encourage use of the school benchmarks (New World
Standards, core course proficiencies, American Achievement
Tests).
g.
Encourage State universities to give weight to test results in
applications and scholarships.
h.
Undertake their own new skill-learning examples, establish
Skill Centers in state government, and encourage state
employees to learn new skills too.
1.
Adopt a School Day program of their own.
9. The Congress will be asked to
a.
Pass the Educational Excellence Act which will reflect the
AMERICA 2000 strategy.
b.
Install the principle of choice in Chapter I.
c.
Authorize needed changes in the National Assessment.
d.
Appropriate $1 million in one-time start-up funds for each of
the first 535 New American Schools.
e.
Appropriate one-time funding for the national Electronic
Education Networks that emerge from the R&D teams to service
the New American Schools.
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f.
Encourage and work with local communities to become
AMERICA 2000 Communities.
g.
Be mentors to the New American Schools in their districts.
h.
Encourage parents, teachers and taxpayers in their own
States/districts to utilize the national benchmarks developed for
measuring the effectiveness of schools, including the American
Achievement Tests.
1.
Adopt individual School Day programs of their own.
10.
American business (the top 1000 companies and beyond) will be
asked to
a.
Provide the $180 million for the New American School R&D
teams.
b.
Participate (where appropriate) in the New American School
R&D teams.
C.
Help Governors and communities plan for and fund the New
American Schools.
d.
Utilize results from the American Achievement Tests in hiring -
- and consider rewarding good test results with higher pay.
e.
Establish a private sector system of job skill standards and skill
certificates to parallel the school benchmarks for cognitive
learning.
f.
Make diagnostic and referral Skill Centers as available to
employees as health clinics are now.
g.
Accept the national workplace goal of 5% learning a new skill
every year, and meet the goal industry by industry, business by
business.
h.
Have CEOs set an example by "going back to school" themselves
to learn a new skill.
i.
Consider contributing funds to a Coalition communications
fund for national advertising on better schools.
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11.
Educators will be asked to
a.
Help define the New World Standards, core course proficiencies
and American Achievement Tests.
b.
Use the national benchmarks to measure their own institutions.
c.
Award Presidential Diplomas to graduates who excel on the
12th grade tests.
d.
Use/require the test results in college admissions decisions and
scholarship awards.
e.
Attend the Core Course Teaching Academies and School
Leadership Academies.
f.
Take part in a National Conference of Adult Education Providers
to improve standards, information and quality.
g.
Take part in the President's Commission on Time, Study,
Learning and Teaching.
h.
Participate in the R&D teams for New American Schools.
12.
AMERICA 2000 Communities will be asked to
a.
Adopt the Nation's six education goals.
b.
Set a community strategy for achieving them.
C.
Develop a Report Card to measure its results.
d.
Agree to create and support (for at least 10 years) a New
American School.
13.
The AMERICA 2000 Coalition and campaign staff will
a.
Ask every city, town and neighborhood in America to become an
AMERICA 2000 Community.
b.
Utilize the regional offices of the Department of Education to
communicate and assist in the AMERICA 2000 Community
program.
C.
Coordinate the Administration's School Day scheduling.
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d.
Establish an effective system to communicate to all American
parents their rights of choice under Federal law.
e.
Plan and execute a media information program to assure high
public recognition and understanding of the program.
f.
Assure sustained attention to and support for the program
through progress reports, award ceremonies and feature
attention to local examples.
g.
Ask the print media to consider regular update and feature
reporting on AMERICA 2000 Communities in their areas.
h.
Provide the press with a constant flow of skill learning, School
Day, AMERICA 2000 Community and New American School
examples to sustain coverage.
1.
Organize an appropriate press/PR plan for announcement of
the R&D program, RFPs, team selections, progress reports, on-
site visits and recommendations.
j.
Develop and disseminate appropriate campaign materials,
including:
--
AMERICA 2000 graphics.
--
AMERICA 2000 Community signs, materials.
--
Brochures explaining the program.
--
Brochures explaining what could be included in an
AMERICA 2000 Community strategy.
--
Video presentations on the same, for local community
use.
--
Brochure on "100 ways to improve schools without
spending a cent."
--
Video presentation on the same, for local community use.
--
National press kits.
--
Local press kits.
--
Related PSAs.
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k.
Design the Presidential Diploma emblem.
1.
Coordinate private sector involvement including R&D team
funding.
m.
Develop (with private sector) a national AMERICA 2000
advertising campaign, paid with private sector funds.
n.
Ask the networks to assure news programming time to the effort
on a regular basis -- and consider volunteering advertising
time.
O.
Ask the entertainment industry to assure the availability of
effective spokespeople and role models for new skill learning -
- and to make the industry fully aware of the campaign in order
to maximize help in the communications effort.
p.
Ask the sports industry to assure the availability of effective
spokespeople and role models for "new skill learning" -- and to
make the campaign part of its organized communications
efforts.
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D. KEY CAMPAIGN PERSONNEL
1. Spokespersons: The President, the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary,
Cabinet members.
2. Campaign Chairman: Secretary Alexander.
3. Co-Chairs of the AMERICA 2000 Coalition:
For the Department: Deputy Secretary Kearns
For the Congress:
Senator Kennedy/Congressman Perkins
For the Governors: NGA Chairman Ashcroft
For the Mayors:
For business:
For labor:
For the teachers:
For the principals:
For higher education:
For vocational education:
4. Campaign Manager: (in the Secretary's office)
5. Campaign Communications Director: (in the Secretary's office)
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E. SOME EARLY TIMELINES
1.
This document amended and approved by the President: ASAP.
2.
Completion of comprehensive planning and selection of key campaign
personnel: 4/15/91.
3.
White House meeting(s) to (a) announce strategy to congressional
leadership, Governors, business and education leaders; (2) via TV
publicly announce strategy; (3) get Governors on board; (4) get
business on board and ask for their funding: 4/91.
4.
Education Excellence Act submitted to Congress: 4/91.
5.
Start White House ceremonies to honor teachers: 4/91.
6.
President begins his own "new skill learning" example: 5/91.
7.
RFPs for R&D process: 5/91.
8.
Coordination of planning with Cabinet: 4-5/91.
9.
Coordination of planning with Governors, Congress, business:
Summer '91.
10.
State of Education Address by President: 9/91.
11.
Beginning of School Days: 9/91 (Monthly for President, First Lady,
Vice-President; weekly for Education Secretary)
12.
Coordinated announcement of first 50 AMERICA 2000 Communities;
10/91.
13.
Award of R&D contracts: 11/91.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Brown University
Coalition
One Davol Square
Providence, Rhode Island 02903
of Essential Schools
(401) 863-3384
February 22, 1991
Lamar Alexander, President
University of Tennessee
810 Andy Holt Tower
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996
Dear Lamar,
As promised, here is a letter intended to provide some sense of my
ideas for a "New Schools Initiative." To some of my hunches, I've tied what
I sensed were your priorities as you outlined them when we met in
Knoxville.
Before launching in, however, I would like to express the concern that
you will confront-as you doubtless know-a major problem of starting a
New Schools Initiative when many existing schools, particularly those
serving the poor, are in desperate straits. These schools' ability to cope with
their constituencies has eroded noticeably even over the last two years, and
some are close to collapse-by which is meant that they tolerate large
numbers of dropouts and warehouse the remnant that shows up, the usual
American-"system" of educating far too many of our children. I hear of this
from even the toughest, most realistic and determined school friends, and
visits to their schools confirm their descriptions. To say that we are losing a
good part of a generation is not apocalyptic talk: it is the truth. Those within
the American polity who deny it haven't gone to schools recently, listened
carefully to the voices there and assessed the facts dispassionately. Any
91
education initiative the Administration launches, such as that for New
Schools, must be paralleled by (even stop-gap) relief in some measure to
schools-hower ill-designed these institutions now may be.
Now, on to the specifics on the ideas of federal involvement in the
push for new kinds of schools.
Why should the federal government take the initiative to provoke the
development of "new" sorts of schools through the establishment of New
School Design Centers?
First, the "reform" movement, now over a decade old, still has not
affected fundamentally the often inefficient ways in which schools operate-
their organization of resources, their routines, their assumptions.
Increasingly, it is clear that the failure of the reform movement to show
significant progress in student achievement arises from this reality. Simply,
"reform" from the "outside" has failed to provide the leverage required for
substantive change. The time has come to focus imaginatively on redesign at
a scale which is likely to affect the "insides" of schools.
Second, one of the most impenetrable barriers to changing schooling is
the lack of exemplary schools which are substantially different in philosophy
and design from the status quo. Clearly, there are some, especially in the
small "alternative school" sector, but such institutions have usually been
kept administratively off to the side and are neither seen nor employed
politically as potential influences on the major body of schools. Simply, the
"system" as a whole has neither found a way to marshal commitments for
significant change in the center of its business nor felt significant incentives
to do so. The time has come to provide those incentives.
Third, there are remarkably few organizations operating at an
appropriate scale which are devoted to the rethinking and reshaping of
schools. Schools cannot be redesigned piecemeal: everything important
within a school affects everything else important there. Substantial redesign
by and of an existing school while it is operating is often every bit as difficult
2
as rebuilding an entire car while it speeds along an Interstate. Thus, if more
than small adjustments in the means of education are needed-and they
are-New School Design Centers devoted to serious comprehensive school
design are necessary. Such Centers, located throughout the country, can
provide the necessary background work and prototypes to provoke and
support school people as they press ahead with the shaping of New Schools
for their particular neighborhoods. Schools in the process of creation and
change can take innovation to as well as draw inspiration from the Centers.
Fourth, if "choice" is one of the strategies we are going to use to move
our schools forward, we must provide parents with different worthwhile
options for educating their children. Choice means little if the available
alternatives are generally mediocre, or if they are essentially alike,
Tweedledum and Tweedledee. We need, therefore, to get significantly new
options in place which reflect the excellence we all seek for our schools.
Fifth, we need to pull the best people currently working in our schools
into the light, where their ideas can be seen and their influence felt. This
strikes an additional old but nonetheless urgent refrain: we must find ways
to attract an array of talented, diverse people to work in schools, people who
otherwise would not seriously consider entering the field of education, let
alone become teachers. These school leaders, teachers and administrators,
both those currently in school and those not yet in the profession, will be the
architects of the best New Schools which may emerge. We need to hook their
work within these New Schools to the proposed New School Design Centers
in order to give them the support and influence they and their schools
deserve. Simply put, identifying and supporting educational leadership may
be one of the most important and enduring side effects of the New Schools
initiative.
Finally, this initiative represents a proper role for federal activity. The
national need for educational reform crosses state lines-indeed, it calls for
the kind of influence which the individual states, with their myriad
responsibilities and limited budgets, cannot properly muster in order to shake
our conventional, entrenched view of schools. Eventually, this New Schools
3
initiative should reinforce, rather than replace or abrogate, state and local
activity, but it needs a federal-level jump-start. It could be argued to be an
extension of over twenty-five years of federal initiative in educational
research and development.
How would the New Schools initiative operate?
The program would undertake three activities simultaneously. First, it
would solicit proposals for and ultimately launch up to ten new New School
Design Centers. These Centers could either be newly hatched or based on
currently existing reform alternatives, either alone or in combination. Hank
Levin's Accelerated Schools Project, Jim Comer's elementary-level school-
community collaboratives effort, Eliot Wigginton's Foxfire Project and our
own Coalition of Essential Schools/Re:Learning might be the sorts of
organizations which emerge as contenders. Second, the New School Design
Centers would support some 1,320 "new" schools over the 1992-1995 period.
The schools would initiate action and would draw on the Design Centers'
assistance in developing their plans or redesigns. At least ten percent of the
federal funds received by a participating school would have to be spent on
New School Design Center services. Third, the program would fund a section
in each state department of education needed to launch and maintain the
program.
What criteria would be applied to New Schools launched and
supported by this program?
Several possibilities for selecting the range of the New Schools exist:
First, New Schools would be the product of any seriously committed
redesign effort. A "new" school could be a wholly new foundation or it could
be a fundamentally changed effort in an existing site. The guideline would
be: how does this fresh effort address schooling in a compellingly original
way? "New" does not necessarily imply "never before constructed or
existing." Rather, it should mean "representative of excellence never before
4
achieved on a grand scale." The "New Schools" should be a mix of literally
new and fundamentally reshaped institutions.
Second, New Schools would be representative and respectful of the
nation's norms in size, with no elementary schools smaller than 200 students
or secondary school smaller than 400 students. It is further likely that no
school, if it follows the precepts listed below, would be any larger than 800
students.
Third, New Schools would be representative in their student intake,
admitting a cross-section of the community. That is, they would not be
schools with starkly constricting admission requirements.
Fourth, New Schools would be respectful of their constituent
communities, deliberately shaped to accommodate the "best" values of each.
No two communities are ever quite alike, and no two good schools are ever
alike. New schools cannot be crafted and franchised like fast food emporia:
kids are not hamburgers, and the tastes of the public should and will be
richer, subtler, more controversial and more compelling than those it brings
to the take-out counter. The New Schools would be unlikely merely to
"implement" a plan from a Design Center. Rather, they would be provoked
and informed by a variety of the Center's designs.
We have experience in the Coalition of Essential Schools of local folks
redesigning their own schools on the basis of widely shared ideas and
principles. Schools in the Coalition and Re:Learning are strikingly different,
although they share a common core of beliefs about how schools should
serve kids and staff. In New York City, for instance, University Heights High
School and Central Park East Secondary School were both "new" schools
started with the nine Common Principles as their educational philosophy,
but each is responsive to its own community and therefore has its own spin
on the shared principles. Over the past several years, these two schools have
emerged as schools of choice for the students which they serve, as stellar
examples of the nine Common Principles "in action" and, simultaneously, as
uniquely different from each other and from other Essential schools. Far
5
from being the products of a cookie-cutter plan, University Heights High
School and Central Park East Secondary School reflect the characters of their
staff, their students, their leaders and their surroundings.
Fifth, New Schools would be respectful of individual students and
attentive to the differences as well as similarities among them, thereby
studiously avoiding the anonymity which plagues most large schools in our
day.
Sixth, New Schools would be respectful of the professionals planning
and operating them, giving substantial latitude to these folk who, of course,
know their particular students and what they need better than anyone else.
This school-level authority may well serve to "hold" the best of these teachers
in the profession and to attract more of their kind to enter it. Initiative for
effective change must lie in the hands of the people who work and grow as
professionals in the schools.
Seventh, New Schools would focus fundamentally, if not exclusively,
on the development of each student's intellectual skills, as these are the
fundamental and essential equipment for any sort of civic, occupational or
cultural life in our future. The expectations would have to be high and
readily held up for public review.
Eighth, New Schools would have to accommodate the context from
which their students come-that is, their communities' cultural, social,
economic and religious fabric. Schools would have to forge alliances, as
necessary, with other agencies to reinforce each community's ability to
support each child in a way which helps his or her ability to learn. This
allows the vast array of social services to work toward a single goal in a way
far more coordinated and reasonable than they often now can.
Ninth, New Schools would clearly reflect the practical expression of the
best of current scholarship about learning, child development and the nature
of American culture. In the last decade, policy makers have found research
about schooling (such as The Shopping Mall High School and John Goodlad's
6
work) so upsetting in its conclusions that it largely has been ignored. This
project would help find ways to heed the critique of existing practice.
Tenth, New Schools would be planned, ultimately, to operate at no
more than ten percent over existing per pupil expenditures (adjusted for
inflation).
Finally, New Schools would be held accountable by public authorities
primarily on the basis of the performance of their graduates and by those
graduates' assessment of the worth and dignity of their experience at that
school.
What criteria would be applied to the New School Design Centers?
First, the Centers' plans would have coherence and a definable
direction which promise greater intellectual effectiveness by and respect for
children. They would represent an array of approaches and would all be
chosen and developed on the basis of how well their directions serve our
children in ways better than the existing system offers.
Second, the Centers would have staffs which include experts in
learning and child development, in the keeping of schools and in the design
of social institutions.
Third, the Centers' plans would be rooted in the best of current
scholarship and knowledge of existing school practice. As well, the Centers'
ideas would consider the ways in which this school practice links with the
other aspects of students' lives and the other institutions which affect their
lives.
Fourth, the Centers would be staffed on a scale sufficient both to evolve
approaches to school design and the plans of prototype schools and to support
the activity of those New Schools which choose to ask for their assistance.
Staffing is a key issue-the duration of support demanded from the Centers
7
both to jump-start change and to help schools on the hard road toward
redesign cannot be underestimated.
Fifth, the Centers' approaches would be sophisticated not only about
learning and schooling but also about the varied social, geographic and
cultural contexts in which New Schools will have to take effective root. The
directions would not only reflect the best of educational practice in general,
but the particular needs and strengths of different communities. What works
in rural Kentucky, for example, may not be appropriate in the Bronx, in
suburban Seattle or in the towns of Texas. However, a strong foundation of
ideas about what makes a "good" school can connect all of the communities
in which New Schools would be located.
Sixth, the Centers could be parts of existing universities or not-for-
profit education development organizations such as the federal Regional
Education Laboratories, specially launched 501(c)3 units or, possibly, for-profit
entities.
Finally, the Centers would be funded by a mix of federal dollars, private
support and the "fees"-ten percent or more of a participating school's federal
funding-provided in payment for their services.
How would the New Schools Initiative work?
The fundamental principle is that authority should be deliberately
located, to the greatest possible extent, at the level of the New Schools
themselves. The New School Design Centers would create a rich "market" of
approaches and prototypes and principles from which the staffs of the New
Schools can borrow. Federal and state "control" would flow from generally
phrased criteria for selection of both New Schools and New School Design
Centers, the power of the committees making the initial selections and the
assessment of and by the New Schools' graduates. To put this more
specifically, both the New School Design Centers and the New Schools would
be chosen on the basis of federal and state criteria and then, having met these
8
standards, would be given freedom, protection and continuing authority over
their circumstances.
Year #1: Planning year
New School Design Centers: the Secretary would appoint a
committee for their selection. "Concept plans" would be solicited and
reviewed by that committee. The best of these would be selected and their
proposers each given a $50,000 planning grant to evolve detailed proposals.
No more than ten of these would be finally selected, for start-up by the
beginning of year #2.
New Schools: Each state would be given authority and funds to
support New Schools, up to a number equal to that state's number of federal
Representatives (the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Territories and the
Overseas Dependents' Schools would share funding for an additional five
New Schools). The state would also be given federal funds to administer the
program. Each governor would appoint a committee to select the New
Schools. The state departments of education would solicit applications and
assist groups in their preparation. The states would agree to sweeping
waivers from existing regulations for New Schools.
Year #2: Planning and initial operation
New School Design Centers: The Centers would start work, on a
deliberately "fast track." New Schools would start contracting for their
"business."
New Schools: Those selected would, supported by federal funds,
have a planning year, with at least twenty-five percent of the staff ultimately
needed to operate the full school already "on board." Their plans would have
to show a "phase-in" of district or state operating funds and a "phase-out,"
over four or five years, of federal funds (which would be limited to planning
and assessment functions and the assistance-no less than ten percent of the
federal grant-of a chosen Design Center). Schools which are not literally
9
new would still need to follow a similar planning process, with time created
for staff to design plans for the year to come. The state departments of
education would simultaneously start the second round of applications.
Years #3 and #4: Operations
New School Design Centers: Fully operational-save those
which might have failed to "attract" sufficient New School "clients" to justify
continued federal funding.
New Schools: Phased in, 440 each year over three years, for an
ultimate total of 1,320 New Schools. Each state starts its assessment project
with near-graduates and graduates of the New Schools.
What would the New Schools Initiative cost?
I have not hazarded even a guess at this, as it requires more detailed
estimations than I have had time to make. Suffice it to say that whatever
emerges is likely to be politically manageable. The R&D costs alone for
provoking the launch of fewer than 1,400 schools will hardly mirror the costs,
say, of the development of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle or the Patriot
missile-comparisons which may have to be made to get folks' attention.
Such is the sketch of a plan. I have tried to bring to bear both our own
experience within the Coalition of Essential Schools and what I sensed to be
your hoped-for scale. I must emphasize that the numbers above-1,320
schools and up to ten useful Design Centers-are far above what our
experience would say is possible, given the state of the field, the tenacious
hold of the "old way of doing things," the incentive and assessment systems
now in place (which reinforce, often, the worst of the "old way") and the
thinness of likely experienced support for this kind of activity from higher
education.
10
Of course, and at the same time, even 1,320 New Schools will be
insufficient to dent the system very much. They could, however, represent a
vanguard. And the four-year program sketched out here can be seen as but a
beginning.
To repeat my central arguments, merely fiddling with the "system"
does not go directly to the heart of our problem-which is ineptly designed
and mindlessly enacted schools. There is no surgical strike or silver bullet to
get done what needs to be done. Examples of better schools-ones which
"produce" kids who "do what they were not supposed to be able to do"-are
needed to push the process forward. Your plan can jump-start this process,
and-equally important-it can give support to the handful of folks out there
now who are trying to redesign what is offered to and expected of kids in
schools.
As a former governor, you know all too well that the decision of the
federal government since the early '80s to push onto states and communities
the costs of many social services is having its predicable result. The dictum
that the least government is the best government does not apply well to
schools, given the country's expectations of them and the fact that twenty
percent of school-aged children are poor. The argument that there simply is
"no money" to aid improvement of their education persuades no one who
watches the progress of the S&L bailout or the decisions following on major
military investments in the Persian Gulf. People know that this still
stunningly rich nation can do well by its children if it really wants to.
Simply, a New Schools venture is very badly needed-but, as
mentioned at the start of this letter, it must be allied with a parallel effort to
stem the hemorrhaging of many of the schools which now exist. One
without the other is hard to defend as a sensible strategy of national school
reform.
I hope this helps in some way. The initiatives you outlined at breakfast
are very promising. I do hope that you can visit Central Park East Secondary
School in East Harlem soon to get a sense of what a truly ambitious "new
11
OTHER FEDERAL EFFORTS ALREADY UNDERWAY OR
PROPOSED THAT RELATE TO THIS STRATEGY
This section outlines a number of current Federal actions and many proposals
included in the President's Fiscal Year 1992 budget that relate to the strategy.
These efforts, listed either as new initiatives or continuations of programs already
underway, involve the following agencies:
I.
Department of Education
II.
Department of Health and Human Services
III.
Department of Agriculture
IV.
Department of Labor
V.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
VI.
Interagency Efforts
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
I. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Twelve New Initiatives proposed in the forthcoming Educational Excellence
Act ($690 million requested for FY 1992):
Education Certificate Program Support Fund: To provide Federal funds as
incentives to school districts with parental choice programs that include both
public and private schools ($200 million requested).
Choice Demonstrations of National Significance: Grants to help States and school
districts determine how best to implement choice programs ($30 million requested).
Mathematics and Science Achievement Awards: Given to those school districts
whose students make the most improvement during the previous school year in
math and science, as measured by objective standardized tests ($40 million
requested).
New Magnet School Program: Not necessarily related to school desegregation, this
program would expand school choices for families. Amount requested not specified.
Proposed in 1990 but not enacted by Congress.
Alternative Teacher and Administrator Certification: Would provide Federal funding
to State systems for alternative routes to Teacher and Administrator Certification.
Amount requested not specified. Proposed in 1990 but not enacted.
Rewards for Schools that Raise Student Achievement Levels: Similar to the merit
schools recognition and reward program. Amount requested not specified.
Proposed in 1990 but not enacted.
Recognition and Rewards for Excellent Teachers: Amount requested and legislative
specifics yet to be determined. Proposed in 1990 but not enacted.
New Approaches for the Training of School Administrators: Amount requested and
legislative specifics yet to be determined.
Innovative Adult Literacy Activities: Amount requested and legislative specifics yet
to be determined.
Education Flexibility Proposal: States would be given greater flexibility in the ways
they can combine and use Federal education funds. They will be held accountable
for demonstrating that this has led to improved educational achievement for
students.
Chapter 2 block grant program: The State portion would be increased from 20 to
50 percent, and States would be encouraged to use these funds for choice
programs ($449 million requested for FY 1992).
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Chapter 1 Compensatory Education program: Enable districts to use Chapter 1
funds to provide families with more educational choices.
Other Education Department Efforts Not Part of the Proposed Educational
Excellence Act:
Federal Merit Scholarships for College Students: Building and expanding on
the proposed Presidential Achievement Scholarships program, with $170
million requested in the FY 1992 budget for $500 merit bonuses to outstanding
Pell grant recipients on top of the grants they are already receiving.
Partnerships for Innovative Teacher Education: The FY 1992 budget also
includes a request for $20 million for this new program for support of
professional development schools and other school-based strategies to provide
for the initial and continuing development of teachers, to assist those wanting
to make mid-career changes, and to help others wishing to enter teaching
through alternate routes.
Continuations
The following proposals in the President's Fiscal 1992 budget reflect the
Administration's efforts to apply its education reform strategy to current
Department of Education programs.
Increasing School Readiness of Disadvantaged Children: The Even Start program
($60 million requested in FY 1992 budget), the Preschool Grants program for
disabled children 3-to-5 years of age ($296 million requested in the FY 1992
budget), the Grants for Infants and Families program providing early intervention
for children with disabilities from birth to age 3 ($129 million requested in FY
1992).
Emergency Drug Grants Program: An Administration initiative to focus funds on
school districts with the most severe drug problems. $49.5 million requested in FY
1992, an increase of over 100 percent from 1991.
National Science Scholarships Program: Up to $6,000 in college scholarships for
students who excelled in science and math in high school. Funded at $10 million
in the FY 1992 budget.
Increased Funding for Mathematics and Science Education Programs: Includes
$239 million for the Eisenhower Math and Science Education State Grants and
$14.7 million for projects of national significance in math and science education -
- an eighteen percent and twenty-five percent increase (respectively) over 1991.
Additional Activities to Improve Adult Literacy: Besides what is in the Educational
Excellence Act and in Even Start:
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Adult Education Grants to the States: Helps the States teach basic skills to
approximately 2.9 million illiterate adults and assist another 1.3 million in
attaining high school equivalency ($222 million requested in the FY 1992
budget -- a 10% increase over FY 1991).
Adult Education National Programs: Would continue and expand the
Department's research, development, demonstration, and evaluation efforts on
adult literacy ($9 million requested in FY 1992 -- an increase of 15% over FY
1991).
Proposed Public Library Services Legislation: Requiring all Public Library
Services Program support ($35 million requested in the FY 1992 budget) be
directed toward reducing the number of functionally illiterate adults.
Indian Adult Education programs: A $178,000 increase (approximately 4
percent) over FY 1991 for combatting adult illiteracy in Indian communities.
II. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (HHS)
New Initiatives
The President's Fiscal 1992 budget includes $732 million for the new Child Care
and Development Block Grant, which was enacted last year and which provides
funds to States to support child care with an emphasis on low-income parents who
need the support in order to work.
Continuations
Services Integration/One-Stop Shopping Centers for Eligibility Determination and
Service Delivery: HHS has begun a series of efforts, described below, to promote
services integration and one-stop centers for determining an individual's eligibility
for multiple Federal programs.
13 Family Service Center Demonstrations: These Centers have been funded to
test the feasibility and effectiveness of designating one agency as the locus for
delivery of a wide array of services to Head Start families.
Comprehensive Child Development Centers: To provide comprehensive,
integrated services to enrolled 0-5-year-olds, their older siblings, as well as
parents and other family members. The centers are open and provide services
during hours when enrolled families are most likely to use them.
JOBS Program linkages: Case managers are seeking to link to other services
for welfare recipients, such as Head Start, Child Support Enforcement, refugee
assistance, and Medicaid.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Use of case management at homeless shelters and transitional housing: To
increase access to services for homeless families and their children.
HHS is also working with a number of States and cities to redesign services for
children and families. Many of these efforts include a one-stop approach for
eligibility determination and for provision of, or referral to, services. (One of the
best known such projects is "New Beginnings" in San Diego in which the
Alexander Hamilton School will house a number of programs. IBM has
provided funding to the New Beginnings project to develop computer networks
to facilitate eligibility determination.)
Head Start: The Administration is requesting $2.1 billion for Head Start in FY
1992 (a $100 million increase over FY 1991 and an $817 million rise -- 66 percent
increase -- since the beginning of the Bush Administration).
Parent-Child Centers: The Administration is requesting $31 million (more than a
100 percent increase since FY 1990) for these centers which, in conjunction with
Head Start, provide prenatal health care and ongoing health and parenting
education for low-income mothers and their children from conception to age three.
They also attempt to strengthen the parent's role as the principal influence in the
child's life. There will be 60 such Parent-Child Centers in FY 1992, up from the
current 37 centers.
III. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
New Initiatives
Linking Food Stamp Eligibility with Cooperation on Child Support Enforcement:
The Agriculture Department has proposed a new initiative that will, at first, allow
States the option of making household cooperation with local child support
enforcement agencies a condition of food stamp eligibility and, then, in 1994,
mandate such cooperation from households in all States (as is currently the case
in order to receive reimbursement under the Medicaid and Aid to Families With
Dependent Children programs).
Continuations
The Agriculture Department has also included significant increases in its budget
for several programs that help get children ready to learn in school:
School Lunch Program: Received a 7 percent increase over FY 1991.
School Breakfast Program: Received a 10.5 percent increase.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Summer Food Service Program: Provides funds for food services to needy
children during summer vacation -- received nearly a 10 percent increase.
Women. Infants. and Children (WIC) Program: Provides nutritious
supplemental foods, nutrition education and advice, and health care system
referrals to low-income pregnant, postpartum, and breast-feeding women,
infants and children up to age 5, determined to be at nutritional risk --
received a 9.5 percent increase.
IV. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
New Initiatives
New Youth Opportunities Unlimited (YOU) Program: This program, in conjunction
with the Youth Job Training Grants, will target comprehensive services to youth
living in approximately 25 high poverty areas. The Administration has requested
$25 million for FY 1992.
Continuations
Youth Job Training Grants: The Labor Department has requested $1.3 billion to
meet employment and training needs of at-risk youth.
Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills: Established to assess what
high school students should know when they graduate and go into the labor force.
SCANS is looking at both the functional skills needed for the workplace and the
enabling skills (reading, writing, basic mathematics, etc.) that allow an individual
to be a productive employee. The Commission expects to issue a report in June
1991 identifying the skills required and to come up with methods of assessing
those skills by February 1992.
V. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT (HUD)
New Initiatives
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has put together a
number of new programs and strategies in its FY 1992 budget request that
encourage home ownership possibilities for low-income Americans, choice, and
other empowerment ideas including:
The President's HOPE (Home-Ownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere)
Program: Authorized by the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990, HOPE is a
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
comprehensive program designed to enable low-income families to own their own
homes, preserve HUD-assisted low-income housing, combine homeless programs
with supportive services, enable elderly individuals to continue to live
independently, and expand economic opportunities. $2.1 billion is requested for
FY 1992, and a supplemental request has been submitted for FY 1991.
HOME Block Grant Program: $1 billion requested in FY 1992 for local jurisdictions
to increase the affordability of housing to low-income families. Funds can be used
for tenant-based rental assistance, acquisition, and rehabilitation of affordable
rental and ownership housing, as well as for housing construction. A
supplemental request has also been submitted for FY 1991.
Shelter-Plus-Care Program for the Homeless: Part of the HOPE program, it links
housing assistance for the homeless for the first time with supportive services such
as job training, health care, and drug treatment ($258 million sought in FY 1992,
and a supplemental request has been submitted for FY 1991).
Continuations
Community Development Block Grant Program: $2.9 billion requested in FY 1992
for a wide range of eligible activities, including the acquisition and disposition of
real property, construction of public facilities projects, rehabilitation of housing,
and provision of a variety of public services.
Drug Elimination Grants: Awarded to public housing communities especially
hard-hit by drugs for increased security measures, drug prevention, etc. ($165
million requested for FY 1992).
VI. INTERAGENCY EFFORTS
New Initiative
HHS and the Department of Education are planning to fund the development of a
workbook on school-based services integration, including the idea of one-stop
eligibility determination.
Continuation
HHS/HUD initiative to provide case management at public housing sites with high
numbers of welfare recipients.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
IV.GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
KEY TERMS
ALTERNATIVE CERTIFICATION
AMERICAN ACHIEVEMENT TESTS (AAT)
AMERICA 2000: AN EDUCATION STRATEGY
AMERICA 2000 COMMUNITIES
BETTER AND MORE ACCOUNTABLE SCHOOLS
BOARD-CERTIFIED TEACHERS
CHOICE
COMMISSION ON TIME, STUDY, LEARNING, AND TEACHING
CORE COURSE TEACHING ACADEMIES
CORE COURSE PROFICIENCIES
EDUCATION: MAKING A LIVING, MAKING A LIFE
ELECTRONIC EDUCATION NETWORKS
5 PERCENT OF ADULTS PER YEAR
535+ BY 1996
FROM A "NATION AT RISK" TO A "NATION OF STUDENTS"
JOB SKILL CERTIFICATES
JOB SKILL STANDARDS
KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS GAP
LIMITED -- BUT AGGRESSIVE -- FEDERAL ROLE
NATION AT RISK, BUT I'M O.K.
NEW GENERATION OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS
NEW WORLD STANDARDS
PRESIDENTIAL DIPLOMA
POPULIST CRUSADE
R&D TEAMS
REDEFINING "PUBLIC" SCHOOLS
REPORT CARDS
SCHOOL AS SITE OF REFORM
SCHOOL LEADERSHIP ACADEMIES
SKILL CLINICS
STATE OF EDUCATION ADDRESS
THE 91 PERCENT FACTOR
UNLEASH AMERICA'S CREATIVE GENIUS
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS
ALTERNATIVE CERTIFICATION: Programs designed to recruit into teaching
talented individuals who, although lacking traditional certification credentials,
are well-qualified to teach.
AMERICAN ACHIEVEMENT TESTS (AAT): The anchor for a system of voluntary
national examinations at the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades in each of the five core
subjects, tied to the New World Standards.
AMERICA 2000: AN EDUCATION STRATEGY: An action plan to move America
toward the six national education goals via a populist revolution, by assuring
accountability in the today's schools, unleashing America's genius to jump-
start a new generation of schools, transforming a "Nation at risk" into a "Nation
of students," and nurturing the family and community values essential to
personal responsibility, strong schools, and sound education.
AMERICA 2000 COMMUNITIES: Communities, designated by the Governors,
that adopt the six national education goals and set a community-wide plan for
achieving them, develop a Report Card to measure their progress, and
demonstrate readiness to create and support a New American School. First 535
such communities will open New American Schools in 1996.
BETTER AND MORE ACCOUNTABLE SCHOOLS: An eight-part improvement
package for today's schools, designed to move America toward the six national
education goals. Including New World Standards, American Achievement Tests,
Report Cards, and school choice.
BOARD-CERTIFIED TEACHERS: Teachers certified by the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards to have a deep knowledge of their subject and
demonstrated excellence in teaching.
CHOICE: Giving families - regardless of income the information to judge
and the ability to choose any redefined "public" school for their children.
COMMISSION ON TIME, STUDY, LEARNING, AND TEACHING: Presidential or
Secretarial commission to appraise the quality and adequacy of American
students' study and learning time, e.g. length of school day, school year,
homework.
CORE COURSE TEACHING ACADEMIES: Programs that train teachers in the
five core teaching areas to give them the knowledge, the skills, and the tools
they need to help students meet the standards of the American Achievement
Tests.
CORE COURSE PROFICIENCIES: The essential knowledge and skills in
English, math, science, history, and geography, that meet the New World
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Standards (as measured by the American Achievement Tests), and thus needed
to reach the six national education goals.
EDUCATION: MAKING A LIVING, MAKING A LIFE: Education is central to the
quality of our lives, not only our jobs. It is the foundation of everything we
think and do as citizens, parents, and workers. Through education, all
Americans can gain knowledge and skills to do a job better, get a better job, or
live a better and more fulfilling life.
ELECTRONIC EDUCATION NETWORKS: To put American education "on-line,"
these systems of information and data will utilize state-of-the-art software and
satellite communication technology to enable educators, parents, and learners
anywhere in the country to access high quality instructional materials and
information.
FIVE PERCENT OF ADULTS PER YEAR: The President's goal for the number of
adults returning to school each year to learn new skills for work or additional
knowledge for life.
535+ BY 1996: At least 535 New American Schools will be up and running in
AMERICA 2000 Communities across the country -- at least one in each
congressional district -- by 1996, as well as in the District of Columbia and the
Territories.
FROM A "NATION AT RISK" TO "A NATION OF STUDENTS": Adults -- today's
workforce --- return to school for further study or to learn a new job skill.
JOB SKILL CERTIFICATES: Certificate given (by the private sector) to those
who demonstrate proficiency in core job skills, as defined by the job skill
standards.
JOB SKILL STANDARDS: Jointly established by employees and labor for each
industry, using categories and definitions to be provided by the Department of
Labor's SCANS Commission, enables workers to determine what skills are
needed to perform a job and to appraise their own grasp of those skills.
KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS GAP: Too many Americans lack the knowledge
especially of English, math, science, history, and geography, and the skills
necessary to live and work successfully in the world as it is today.
LIMITED -- BUT AGGRESSIVE -- FEDERAL ROLE: While the Federal role in
education is and should remain limited, the Administration is committed to
providing research and development, assessment and information, assuring
equal opportunity, and above all, leading the nationwide effort to achieve the six
education goals.
NATION AT RISK, BUT I'M O.K.: Complacency about education at the local
level and about one's own children and own education. Three out of four
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Americans grade the Nation's schools "C" or below, yet just as many give honors
grades to their own child's school.
NEW GENERATION OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS: Major nationwide effort to
invent, design, and create 535+ schools by 1996 (and many more thereafter)
that are the best in the world. Located in AMERICA 2000 Communities, these
schools will realize all six national goals at operational costs not exceeding those
of conventional schools.
NEW WORLD STANDARDS: Definitions of what American students should be
expected to know and be able to do upon completion of schooling, meant to
function as benchmarks against which student and school performance can be
measured.
PRESIDENTIAL DIPLOMA: An award bestowed on high school graduates who
earn high levels of proficiency on the American Achievement Tests.
POPULIST CRUSADE: A national crusade led by the President --school by
school, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community -- to
transform American education and to spur fundamental changes in the way we
educate ourselves and our children. It also will be a restoration of what we
think is important, a homecoming in sound values and community attitudes.
R&D TEAMS: Partnerships of computer companies, universities, management
consultants, think tanks, education groups and others selected in a competitive
bid process to receive up to $30 million each over three years to conceptualize
and invent New American Schools.
REDEFINING "PUBLIC" SCHOOLS: Any school that is publicly chartered,
receives significant public funding, and is accountable for its results to an
appropriate public authority should be deemed a "public" school.
REPORT CARDS: A public reporting system on education performance of
institutions, providing maximum information at the school, district, State, and
national levels.
SCHOOL AS SITE OF REFORM: The individual school is education's key
action-and-accountability unit. The best way to reform education is to give
schools and their leaders the freedom and authority to make important
decisions about what happens in the while being held accountable for results
and well-conceived efforts at improvement.
SCHOOL LEADERSHIP ACADEMIES: Programs that train principals and other
school leaders in the design and execution of school improvement strategies,
accountability mechanisms, and school-site management.
SKILL CLINICS: Centers in every workplace and community where people can
go to get their own job skills evaluated, to find out what they need to learn to
hold a certain job or get a better one, and where they can learn it.
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STATE OF EDUCATION ADDRESS: A major address to the Nation by the
President in September 1991, the 2nd anniversary of the Charlottesville
Education Summit, and regularly thereafter.
THE 91 PERCENT FACTOR: The average American child, upon turning 18, has
spent only 9 percent of his/her life in school, and 91 percent elsewhere.
UNLEASH AMERICA'S GENIUS: Bringing the best minds and creative energies
from education, technological, management, and other fields together in a
pioneering effort to create a New Generation of Schools that are the best in the
world.
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
V. FACT SHEET
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AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Working Draft: 3/21/91
THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of the Secretary
March 21, 1991
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
FACT SHEET
AMERICA 2000 is a four-part strategy designed to transform American
education and help us reach our national education goals. It will do so by
moving Americans to act on the following four fronts simultaneously:
1. CREATE BETTER AND MORE ACCOUNTABLE SCHOOLS FOR TODAY'S
STUDENTS.
-Develop new world standards in five core subjects.
What does every American student need to know and be able to do -- in
English, mathematics, science, history, and geography -- to live and work in
the world as it is today? "New World Standards" will be devised to answer
these questions, standards that rank among the highest academic
expectations of students anywhere in the world.
-Create a system of voluntary national exams.
A system of exams will be created and made available for all 4th, 8th, and
12th grade students in the five core subjects. These "American Achievement
Tests" (AAT) will show how well students measure up to the New World
Standards. Until these state-of-the-art tests are fully developed (around
1998), a modified version of the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) will be available (by 1994) for testing individual students in
the 3Rs. Both the AAT and NAEP may be used by States, districts, and
schools. Both will be optional. And both will be developed based on
recommendations from the Commission on National Education Standards
and Tests.
-Encourage the use of the national tests.
We will urge Governors, legislatures, businesses, and colleges to use the
American Achievement Tests. Students who distinguish themselves will also
be awarded Presidential Diplomas.
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Working Draft: 3/21/91
-Provide and promote the use of Report Cards.
We will encourage schools, school districts, and States to issue regular
report cards on their educational performance. For the Nation and the
States, we will report student performance on the AAT as well as other
relevant information on education results. States, school districts, and
individual schools may also use AAT or NAEP to compare their performance
to others around the country.
-Provide and promote school choice.
We will fund State and local demonstration programs designed to offer
families choices among schools. We will promote choice in Department of
Defense schools and other school systems run by the Federal government.
Also, we will seek congressional approval to apply the principle of choice to
Chapter 1 and other Federal programs. In these and other efforts, we will
redefine "public schools" to include any school, regardless of origin or
auspices, that is publicly chartered, substantially funded from public
sources, and publicly accountable for its students' performance.
-Make schools the site of reform.
School choice and school-level Report Cards will help make schools the site
of reform. We also intend to strengthen their capacity to make decisions
and improve their results, by eliminating Federal red-tape. The Federal
government will establish and provide matching funds for 50 School
Leadership Academies, where principals can learn more about the New
World Standards, school-site management, building-level accountability,
and effective leadership.
-Recognize teachers as the heart of the school.
We will encourage States and communities to provide alternative routes to
certification, differential pay for teachers, and awards for outstanding
teachers. Federal agencies will provide matching funds for 200 Core Course
Teaching Academies -- summer sessions in the five core subjects for about
20,000 teachers annually. Also, we will support efforts to provide board
certification for excellent teachers.
-Promote more time for learning.
Do American youngsters spend enough time learning? Are the school day
and year long enough? How are class time and homework used in core
subjects? These and related questions will be examined by a Commission
on Time, Study, Learning, and Teaching. Its findings will be reported in
1993.
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2. CREATE A NEW GENERATION OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS FOR
TOMORROW'S STUDENTS.
-Challenge the best minds in America to design -- and to help communities
create -- the best schools in the world.
Up to six multi-member R&D teams will conceptualize and invent a New
Generation of American Schools by 1994. Their designs will be the basis for
helping 535+ American communities adapt and create their own New
American Schools by 1996, and thousands more thereafter. These new
schools will "teach to" the New World Standards. Their performance will be
measured using the American Achievement Tests. They will also make use
of Electronic Education Networks.
-Invite Governors to lead -- and State legislatures to support -- the creation of
New American Schools.
The AMERICA 2000 Communities competition will help Governors decide
which communities will create the first New American Schools in their
States. State legislators will be urged to support non-federal costs of school
creation, to embrace the New World Standards, to mandate use of the
American Achievement Tests, and to insist that schools and school districts
issue Report Cards on the performance of their students.
-Support new school start-up costs and begin bringing American education "on
line."
We will ask Congress to provide $550 million to support one-time start-up
costs incurred by the first 535+ New American Schools. That will provide $1
million for each New American School (during its first four years) to
underwrite special staff training, instructional materials, ongoing assistance
and technical support, or whatever else the school needs to get up and
running. We will also ask Congress to support the establishment (but not
the operation) of Electronic Education Networks that will enable New
American Schools to share information and ideas, access data and materials
in electronic (and print) libraries, and tap various information resources
across the country. In time, we hope that these networks will enable all of
American education to go "on line."
-Involve the business community.
We will ask business leaders either to compete for R&D contracts or to
contribute funds in support of the R&D efforts. Also, we will challenge
businesses to help provide leadership -- by participating in the creation of
New American Schools in their communities, by encouraging local schools to
use the New World Standards and American Achievement Tests, and by
calling on schools to issue report cards on their performance.
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-Challenge Americans to make their communities places where learning can
happen.
The AMERICA 2000 Communities competition is the symbol of a campaign
to get communities across the country asking: "What do we, as a
community, want for our children? What kind of community-wide strategy
is needed to provide it -- and to reach the national education goals?"
-Call on educators to accept new roles and take risks -- and to write the job
description of the New American Educator.
We will urge teachers, principals, and other educators to use the New World
Standards and American Achievement Tests. We will encourage every school
to issue Report Cards on the performance of its students. And we will ask
educators to help create the New Generation of American Schools.
-Challenge families and children to invest more effort in learning.
We will ask parents to push for the use of New World Standards, American
Achievement Tests, and Report Cards by local schools. We will invite
parents to participate in creating New American Schools in their own
communities. And we will urge all parents to do at home in those things
that we know can improve children's performance at school.
3. TRANSFORM AMERICA INTO "A NATION OF STUDENTS."
-Strengthen the Nation's education efforts for yesterday's students, today's
workforce.
How many American adults are literate, and at what levels are they
competent? To provide regular, timely, and reliable answers we will
regularize and enlarge the instrument for gathering such information, the
National Adult Literacy Study (NALS). To improve adult education and
literacy, we will seek to make Federal funding for such programs dependent
on performance. We will push for accountability and choice in the Adult
Education Act, and we will advance those twin principles in new adult
literacy activities proposed under the Educational Excellence Act. Also, we
will work with Congress to identify and improve worthy elements of the
Sawyer-Goodling literacy bill.
-Spur a private sector strategy to establish standards for job skills and
knowledge.
We will urge business and labor cooperatively to develop -- and then to
use -- world standards, core skill proficiencies, and skill certificates for each
industry.
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-Promote Skill Clinics in every business and community.
We will urge businesses to make Skill Clinics available to their employees.
The Federal government will do the same for its employees. Also, we will
encourage AMERICA 2000 Communities to establish community Skill Clinics
-- one stop service centers where any adult can get job skill diagnosis and
referral services.
-Call a national conference of adult education providers.
How can adult education be made more convenient? How might
instructional materials be improved? How can choice be expanded and
quality control strengthened? We will put these and other questions to
community colleges, trade schools, literacy programs, and others at a
national conference of adult education providers. This conference will
launch an effort to transform adult America into a "Nation of students."
-Set a national goal: five percent of the adult workforce per year will learn new
skills for work or knowledge for life.
We will challenge businesses, unions, and American communities to hit the
five-percent target and to report their results annually. We will urge every
Federal agency to lead by example and to meet the five percent goal. This
means not only learning for work but also learning for life -- studying a
foreign language, joining a Great Books discussion group, reading a book
each month on science, history, or some other topic.
-Make the Federal government the most visible example of employee skill-
upgrading.
-The Director of the Office of Personnel Management will recommend a
program to expand opportunities for federal employees to upgrade knowledge
and skills for their jobs and lives. We will urge each Cabinet member and
agency head to adopt that plan.
-Set personal examples.
-The President, Cabinet members, CEOs, union leaders -- all of America's
leaders -- will undertake to learn new skills themselves.
4. MAKE OUR COMMUNITIES PLACES WHERE LEARNING CAN HAPPEN.
-Improve the utility and effectiveness of programs aimed at meeting the needs of
children and communities.
68
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
Working Draft: 3/21/91
-We will establish a Cabinet-level mechanism to work with the Governors in
reviewing policies, coordinating Federal services and eligibility requirements,
and reducing red tape. These policy development efforts will include Head
Start, Even Start, Preschool Grants, day care and child care, one-stop
shopping for federally financed services, sentences for distributing drugs
near schools, protection for teachers and principals who mete out discipline,
model statutes for promoting parent accountability, and others. We
anticipate a comprehensive policy package in time for the FY 1993 budget.
-Call on community leaders and other adults across the country to ask -- and
to act upon their answer to -- the question, "What would it take to make ours
an AMERICA 2000 Community?"
It is time to bring an end to the "no-fault era" and to reaffirm such enduring
values as personal responsibility, individual action, and other core principles
that must underpin life in a democratic society. That is the aim of the
AMERICA 2000 Community campaign: to make our communities places
where learning can happen. It will call on communities across the country
to develop their own plans for reaching the national education goals. It will
urge communities to devise their own report cards for monitoring progress
toward those goals. And it will ask them to create one stop service centers
where adults can get job skills diagnosis-and-referral services.
Communities that take these and other steps will be designated as
"AMERICA 2000 Communities." The first 535+ of these AMERICA 2000
Communities will be given the chance -- and added support -- to create the
first of the New Generation of American Schools.
69
AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy
EXAMPLES
TALKING POINTS
PRESIDENTIAL VISITS FOR
AMERICA 2000
Following the President's release of the America 2000 report on
Thursday, April 18, Presidential visits to exemplary sites would
provide concrete illustrations of the potential for improvement
envisioned in the plan. Three sets of visits should be
considered.
For Friday, April 19, the preferred option would be a trip
to the West Coast that would include returning with
Governors Ashcroft and Gardner to visit:
-- The Missouri Parents as Teachers Program in which the
President could see new parents being trained as their
children's first teachers.
Washington State's Schools for the 21st Century which
illustrate schoolwide transformations through the
State's support for greater flexibility, local
decisionmaking and accountability.
--
Henry Levin's Accelerated Schools in San Francisco,
California which are designed to enrich the learning
process for highly disadvantaged children by focusing
on higher order thinking skills, high expectations for
students, and substantial parent involvement.
For Monday, April 22, a trip to the Midwest would illustrate
a different set of reform strategies, including:
--
Motorola University in Schaumberg, Illinois, which is a
leading example of one corporation's commitment to the
development of a first class workforce and continuous
learning.
--
Reading Recovery in Columbus, Ohio, which is a program
brought to the United States based on years of research
in New Zealand, that aims to prevent reading failure
through early intervention. The Columbus site would
show how one-on-one tutoring with children dramatically
reduces the likelihood that they will require later
reading remediation.
For Wednesday, April 24, a Washington, DC visit to the
National Summit on Mathematics Assessment, which will be a
gathering of educators, mathematicians, policymakers, and
other influential leaders to focus on what children need to
know in mathematics and how to assess this knowledge in
order for this nation to become number one in the world.
2
An alternative to this schedule if the President could not
make the Friday trip to the West Coast would be for the
President to visit the Midwest. In that case, an East Coast
tour could occur on Monday that would include:
-- James Comer's School Development programs in New Haven,
Connecticut, which would demonstrate how parents and
school staff can work together to bring about improved
test scores, even among the most at risk families.
--
School choice in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is one
of the oldest and most stable school choice plans in
the country. This choice plan brought parents back
into the public schools and represents a model for
"controlled choice" to encourage improved racial
balance.
If the President chooses not to go to the West Coast, we suggest
including Missouri's Parents As Teachers program on the Midwest
trip.
Attached are descriptions of the sites suggested above.
41
Missouri Parents as Teachers Program
All 543 Missouri school districts offer systematic parent
education and support services designed to assist parents in
their role as their children's first teachers from the third
trimester of pregnancy through age three. Many school districts
extend these benefits to families with four-year-olds as well.
State funds are used by districts to identify, recruit and engage
families who are traditionally underserved (e.g., teen or single
parents, limited English proficient, migrant, etc.)
Participating parents receive, free of cost, home visits by
parent educators who are trained in child development , periodic
screening of their child's educational and sensory development,
and information and referral to support programs. They meet
regularly with other parents of similarly aged children while
their children participate in play groups. Book and toy lending
libraries, newsletters and social activities are also offered.
Independent evaluations have shown that compared with a control
group, children in the program demonstrate advanced cognitive and
social development. In first grade, students who participated in
the program scored higher than the comparison group on
standardized reading and mathematics achievement. Teacher
assessments of personal and social development were also higher
for participants than for controls. Participating parents, too,
were more knowledgeable about child development, more active in
their children's schools and are more positive about the school
districts. The program has been recognized as effective by the
Department's Program Effectiveness Panel.
Parents as Teachers continues to expand beyond Missouri's
borders; as of March 1991, 195 programs were operating in 35
states outside of Missouri. In April, communities in Australia
will begin using the model.
Christopher Bond (R-MO) introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate
on March 5 to set up a $100 million competitive grant program
over five years for states that wish to begin or expand year-
round Parents as Teachers programs. The programs would be
required to provide home visits and group meetings for
participating families and administer developmental screening.
In addition the programs would be required to develop recruitment
and retention programs for hard to reach populations.
Washington State's Schools for the 21st Century
This pilot, begun in 1988, encourages systemic change in
Washington State schools by waiving regulations, supporting staff
development, and encouraging linkages between school districts
and institutions of higher education. Applicant schools document
plans for school wide transformation. They must commit to work
staff-administrator-parent cooperation in carrying out the plan,
justify specific state and local regulations to be waived, and
identify mechanisms to measure school-wide student and project
performance. Pilot schools participate for up to six years and
must submit annual progress reports to the state board of
education. The pilot is scheduled to run through 1994.
Some improvements are reported for a sample of projects which
made data available. Additional information will be released the
week of April 11, at the International Symposium for Action
Research in Seattle.
the 78th percentile) to 25 points (to the 79th percentile).
Impressive gains were made by Native American students at
Skyline Elementary when the school collaborated with Native
American elders in designing a cooperative skills program.
Reading scores for Native American students went from the
19th percentile to the 42nd percentile in two years.
The Yakima School District experienced reading gains in
grades 2 through 8 ranging from 9 to 20 points, while math
gains ranged from 0 to 33.
The middle school reporting data experienced a gain of 3
percentile points (to the 64th percentile).
One high school had a 50% increase in the number of
graduates from 1989 to 1990, while in another, 75 Advanced
Placement examinations were successfully completed.
In January 1991, Governor Gardner proposed elimination of most
State education requirements (such as the number and type of
courses needed for graduation) in favor of statewide performance
standards to be developed by a new State commission, with local
educators having wide latitude in determining how their students
would meet those standards. All students would have to
demonstrate mastery of the basic skills by the end of elementary
school. By the end of high school, students would earn
certificates of competency in core subjects. In March 1991, the
Washington House voted 92-1 to approve the reform. Its Senate
prospects are not as strong.
16
Henry Levin's Accelerated Schools
The Accelerated School is a type of elementary school designed to
enrich the learning process for educationally disadvantaged
students. The learning environment is distinguished by high
expectations for students, high status for teachers, and
substantial involvement of parents. Levin believes that parents
are equal contributing partners in their children's schooling.
In many of the participating schools, parents are required to
sign contracts committing themselves to participated in specific
activities. According to Hank Levin, the program's originator,
contracts help to make the commitment of both parens and school
staff explicit.
Accelerated Schools emphasize the need to develop higher order
thinking skills by showing students how learning can be fun and
relevant to their lives rather than focusing on repetitious
drills. The programs are still too new for formal evaluation,
however, in pilot schools, there has been an increase in parent
participation, a declining discipline problems, and improved
attendance.
Fourteen states are currently implementing the Accelerated
Schools model. One of these sites is the Daniel Webster
Elementary School in San Francisco, California. This school has
participated in the program since the Fall of 1987. Webster
serves grades K-5 and enrolls approximately 350 students.
Webster's students are 32 percent Hispanic, 24 percent black, 12
percent Chinese and 16 percent other minorities. Eighty-five to
ninety percent of the students receive free or reduced priced
lunches. According to the principal, the school is devoted to
helping students "learn at their own pace in a caring environment
where teachers are supported, and parents are involved in
activities supporting the school." The school offers substantial
instruction in the creative arts, while also emphasizing language
development and science laboratory work. Parents are an
important part of Webster's educational process. Indeed, an
average of 13 parents come to Webster every school day, helping
out in classrooms, resources rooms and the cafeteria. In
contrast to the original Accelerated Schools model, Webster does
not significantly extend the school day for its students.
However, Webster's teachers do offer one-hour tutorials. ED is
currently conducting a case study of this school.
29
Motorola University
This program is a leading example of one corporation's commitment
to the development of a first class workforce. Through internal
assessment, curriculum development, and a commitment to provide
each worker with a minimum of 40 hours of training each year,
this company has created an environment conducive to continuous,
lifelong learning. The University has also attempted to promote
public policies to improve workforce quality. Motorola
University links corporate education and training officials with
school systems, community colleges and other postsecondary
institutions in the communities where Motorola Corporation is
located.
Motorola University has overall responsibility for education and
training provided to employees, customers and suppliers of the
Motorola Corporation. Company policy requires 1.5% of payroll to
be spent each year on training and education. These resources
are used to conduct basic skill assessments, analyze the skill
requirements for various jobs, and develop appropriate
curriculum. Training is heavily based on real job requirements
and the curriculum reflects actual workplace needs. Several
corporate studies have linked this investment to increased
employee productivity.
Motorola has been active in the public policy arena to lobby for
policies to promote better workforce training. It has also
worked closely with schools, community colleges, JTPA and at the
state level to further the cause of improving the quality of the
workforce. Motorola's efforts demonstrate the need for
continuing education and training to improve productivity, and
the important role that the business community can play in
serving this need.
24
All Children Can Learn--Reading Recovery
Reading Recovery is an early intervention program for first grade
children having difficulty with beginning reading. It consists
of a specific set of strategies designed by Marie Clay, based on
years of research in New Zealand. The program includes
procedures for teaching reading, a staff development program
directed by a specially prepared "teacher leader,' and a set of
administrative systems that work together for quality control.
Reading Recovery is not a packaged program; it relies heavily on
training teachers to deliver highly focused lessons in which
students learn to monitor and correct their own reading and to
use many kinds of information (background experience, knowledge
of language, letter-sound correspondence) as they read.
In most cases, the lowest achieving students in the first grade
are provided intensive one-on-one tutoring by a certified teacher
for 30 minutes each day, in addition to regular classroom reading
instruction. When a given child has become a proficient
independent reader, the treatment is "discontinued. As
a
result, the success of individual programs is often measured by
the discontinuing rate. Evaluation, following exited students
through the third grade, has shown that these students continue
to be able to perform at grade level in their reading classes.
One of the unique characteristics of the Reading Recovery program
is that it is based on early intervention rather than
remediation. By providing intensive and focused intervention
while the child is in the process of learning how to read, the
intervention takes place before the stigma of failure occurs and
enables children to achieve grade-level reading skills before
falling hopelessly behind their peers. Another significant
aspect of this program's success is that it emphasizes providing
short-term help and assisting the child until he or she is
capable of benefiting from regular classroom instruction without
extra help. In addition, the Reading Recovery program stresses
teaching specific strategies to solve problems and encourages
students to be independent.
The program's adoption in the United States began in Ohio; it is
currently implemented in four states.
2
National Summit on Mathematics Assessment
This summit, sponsored by the Mathematics Sciences Education
Board (MSEB) of the National Research Council, will be held on
April 23-24, 1991. It will focus on basic principles underlying
effective mathematics assessment and standards for assessment.
These principles and standards have been developed in draft form
by the MSEB and flow from curricular standards developed by the
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).
Draft principles for mathematics assessment include:
The purposes of testing and assessment are to: improve
learning and teaching; judge the effectiveness of
instructional programs; assist in selecting individuals to
be placed in educational programs or to be certified; and
report the accomplishments and needs of the education
system.
The content of a particular test or assessment is derived
from the purpose to be served; different purposes require
different tests and assessment.
The content of tests and assessments is derived from the
consensus of the professional community of mathematics
educators and mathematicians and the public, on mathematics
that is necessary for the nation's youth to learn.
The primary use of results of tests and assessments is to
promote the development of the talents of all people.
Draft standards for mathematics assessment include:
Classroom assessment's primary purpose is to improve
learning and should include information on students'
knowledge and skills acquired, knowledge and skills yet to
be mastered, sources of error, learning behaviors to be
either encouraged or discouraged, and effectiveness of
teaching strategies.
External assessments should provide information about how
well schools are teaching students to apply mathematics to
produce solutions to real problems; communicate
quantitative information effectively, persist in a
demanding task, and work productively in a group. They
should also provide information on how well curricula are
aligned with the nation's vision for school mathematics,
the quality of mathematics instruction, teacher
qualifications, adequacy of instructional materials,
student/parent/teacher expectations for mathematics
achievement, and equity of opportunity to learn.
19
The School Development Program : The James Comer Model
The School Development Program, also called the Comer process, is
a theory of a model for school reform. Developed by child
psychologist James Comer and a team of researchers from Yale
University, the program was initiated in two public elementary
schools in New Haven in the late 1960's. Today, all elementary
schools in New Haven are Comer Schools and a number of schools in
Prince Georges County in Maryland have adopted the Comer Model.
The Comer process is essentially a prototype which includes the
following elements:
Three mechanisms: School Planning and Management Team,
Mental Heal Team, and Parent Group
Three principles: No fault, Collaboration, Consensus
Three operations: Comprehensive School Plan, Staff
Development, Monitoring and Evaluation
These elements have not changed since the genesis of the Comer
process. The Yale University Child Study Center staff believe
that each Comer school should have all three elements to "create
an ethos," through the form may vary from school to school.
Because the Comer process aims for systemic change that permeates
an entire school, implantation necessarily affect all teachers
and administrators.
The Comer Model is viewed by researchers as successful in that it
helps low-income and minority parents feel less alienated and
fearful of school administrators and school policies because it
draws them in to the school as part of the school planning and
management team. The parents are considered a welcome and much
need addition to school governance.
13
School Choice in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge Massachusetts was one of the first communities in the
United States to implement a voluntary school desegregation
policy that was community developed and not court mandated. The
policy, formulated by parents, faculty, students and community
representatives, has served as a model for "controlled choice"
programs throughout the nation. The program in Cambridge was
implemented over a three year period, from 1979 to 1981.
In Cambridge, Massachusetts school attendance zones were
abolished. Parents of children in grades K-8 can select from
among any of the district's 13 elementary schools. Assignments
are made on a first-come, first-served basis, providing space is
available and subject to desegregation constraints.
After the introduction of the school choice program, the
proportion of students electing to attend public schools rose
from 74 percent to 82 percent, and student achievement scores
have risen steadily. This kind of district-wide open enrollment
has proven so successful that it has been adopted in many other
Massachusetts cities, and several other states as well.
On March 22, 1991, Gov. Weld signed a law providing for
interdistrict choice. The Governor expressed his "hope that this
change will serve as a stimulus for some school districts to take
a hard look at their curriculum, their hiring practices and their
policies and to take some bold initiatives to improve their
districts and make them competitive with other public schools. "
Under the interdistrict choice legislation, the state pays
tuition and offsets it against state aid to the resident
districts. A number of issues still have to be worked out,
including transportation and coordination with the METCO
desegregation program.
NAME OF SPEECH & DATE OF SPEECH national Education strategy
Luncheon 4/18/91
NAME OF WRITER : Dooley
NAME OF RESEARCHER: McQrouty
SPEECH SYNOPSIS:
these are gust a set of short
that offer a friel outline of the national
Education Strategy and Hanks those present
for their support
NAME OF SPEECH & DATE OF SPEECH Befine article on fast Track
NAME OF WRITER :
April122 Mcneil Roel Call
NAME OF RESEARCHER:
SPEECH SYNOPSIS:
Potus presents the extension of fast
track as a test of our (U.S.) veliability to
stick to an agreement and bighlight the vital
nature of international had and that the
congress inst thut of the process.
He also remarks about how impor tant fast
track is to the success of the Uragnay Lound
of the GATT talks, the north american thee Trade
apreement, and the frade portion of the Enterprise
for the americas
isolationism and how america must lead the
He closes by highlighting the dangers of hade
way in the new challenge facing the world
economic property.