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Education Address, 9/4/91
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McGroarty/Dooley
August 28, 1991
3:30 pm
[MAINE. ED]
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: LEWISTON HIGH SCHOOL
LEWISTON, MAINE
SEPTEMBER 3, 1991
xx:00 A.M.
Thanks, all of you, for this warm welcome. It's my pleasure
to welcome all of you back to school -- to meet with the new
Lewiston High Class of '95. //
[Introductory acknowledgements: Gov. McKernan,
Congresswoman Snow, Sec. Alexander, etc.] [[Let me say to Lamar
Alexander: I'll keep up with my computer lessons, but I will not
write a report on "What I did on my summer vacation." //]]
Barbara and I remember our own kids going to school, first
in Texas, later on in Washington, D.C. Our kids are grown -- now
it's the grandkids, {x} of them, starting a new school year just
like all of you. //
When you're growing up, the new year doesn't begin January
1st -- it starts today. [[I saw that this morning at Farwell
Elementary School. Still, some of those kindergardeners seemed
disappointed I didn't bring along Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Freshmen are more sophisticated -- but look closely, and you'll
see the telltale signs of excitement. ]] With the new year, the
Each of you
slate's wiped as clean as the blackboard.
Every kid has a shot
at straight A's -- if you can keep them.
2
As adults, we've got to capture that same sense of
expectation -- that feeling that the school doors open onto a new
world of possibility. Because the fact is, we face a challenge
that shapes our future. The ringing of the school bell sounds an
alarm -- a warning to all of us who care about the state of
American education.
Every day brings new evidence of the crisis we confront.
Take the latest SAT scores -- the ones that show the national
average for math falling for the fourth straight year. Scores on
the Verbal SAT dropped again -- to the lowest level ever. These
sad statistics tell us again what we already know: our schools
don't work. //
But what's worse is poll evidence that suggests too many
parents and students remain unconcerned -- unconvinced that the
state of our schools should worry them. Sure, they're aware
something is wrong: Ask them to grade the nation's schools, and
not even 1/4 will give them an A or B. But ask them to grade
their own school, and you get a different answer: 3/4 grade
their school as good -- even excellent.
We seem seem to think the crisis in American education
plagues some other city or state, or some other school across
town -- anywhere but our school. It's (bold) time we get our heads out
of the sand -- shake off our complacency. Our schools are
failing us -- not just our students or parents, but society as a
whole. //
3
What's at stake goes beyond some abstract notion of the
state of American education. What matters is the state of every
school and each individual student -- here in Lewiston, and in a
hundred thousand schools in cities and towns all across America.
What's at stake is what kind of country this will be -- not
tomorrow, but ten years from now. Not next week, but for the
next generation. You don't get a second chance to change the
future. //
Almost two years ago, this nation's Governors and I
established six ambitious National Education Goals -- goals
posted today right here on the walls of this gym. In April, at
the White House I announced America 2000: a national education
strategy to move us toward those goals. //
Today, I want to
:
[ [For the freshmen here, it's hard to
focus on the future. How can you think about graduation -- when
you're still trying to get your locker open? //]]
By the year 2000, we pledged to raise the national
graduation rate to at least 90%. In 1990, Lewiston High
graduated 95% of its class -- well above the national average.
Lewiston has cut its drop-out rate in half in four short years.
You've earned the right to be proud. But before you get too
comfortable, keep in mind that even at 95% {more than 20} of the
freshmen seated behind me won't be walking across that stage to
get their diploma 4 years from now at the Civic Center.
//
4
By the year 2000, we've challenged ourselves to become first
in the world in math and science. Right now, we stand 13th --
behind {country}. Maine ranks {xx} among the 50 states.
Ranking first means more than engaging in some sort of
intellectual Olympics. Where we rank in the world matters here -
- and it should matter to you. Think of the world we live in.
The daily discoveries in science. The political upheavals that
change the face of nations. Think of the Soviet Union -- the way
we saw 70 years of history swept away in seven days of whirlwind
change.
Just as surely, the world changes Lewiston. For most of its
history, Lewiston was a mill town, producing textiles and shoes.
Times change -- today, Lewiston's traditional industries account
for only 10% of the local economy. Increasingly, the mothers and
fathers of this freshman class work in new companies employing
new technologies. Some have even started small businesses of
their own.
This country was built by generations of Americans with
strong backs, and the will to work from sun up to sundown. As
citizens of the next century, today's 9th Graders will be called
on to work with their minds -- to keep pace with the
technological revolution transforming the world. The pioneers of
the next American century must be trail-blazers of a different
sort, equipped to explore the far corners of the future -- and
the deepest recesses of the human mind. //
5
Sometimes we think of education reform as a return to the
schools of an earlier era. But the best schools of the 1950's
wouldn't pass the test in 1991. And the very best schools right
now won't be good enough for the year 2000 -- for the new century
and new world beyond.
But we won't make progress if we can't measure success. By
the year 2000, we must call on students at grades 4, 8 and 12 to
demonstrate their competence in five core subjects. Each state
has to develop its own means of measuring progress -- its own
report card. Each student and every parent deserves to know
whether they and their schools measure up to world class
standards.
One of the key reasons for the poor performance we see today
comes from having asked too much of teachers -- expecting them to
act as social workers, part-time psychologists and family
counselors. At the same time, we've asked too little of our
students, of ourselves and our society. We've shied away from
asking our students to excel -- and holding them accountable when
they don't. We've allowed grades to inflate and standards to
yeah!
crumble We've worried more about how our students feel than
what they learn. That's got to change. When a student
222
could
be
graduates, he deserves to leave school with more than self-
touchy.
esteem. He deserves an education. //
:
That every American child should start school ready
to learn, that every American adult should be literate -- and
that every American school must be drug-free.
6
Here in Lewiston, some of today's new freshmen got their
start in school in Head Start -- a proven program I want to open
up to thousands more pre-school children. In the battle against
illegal drugs, Lewiston schools have taken the lead through
D.A.R.E. and other drug prevention programs beginning in
elementary school. And right here at Lewiston High, after the
high schoolers go home, adults come to school to learn to read,
and to study for their GED -- living proof it is never too late
to learn. //
Every community and every school must make those goals their
own -- as this state does today with Maine 2000.
///
So far, I've spoken about our schools -- about the
revolution in American education that must take place within
these walls. But the fact is, the revolution can't stop here.
Even the best school can never be good enough.
Here's a "word problem" that shows why. Assume a child goes
to school from Kindergarden to 12th grade, and never misses a
day. Subtract summers and weekends -- all the hours before and
good!
after school. What you're left with is 9%: that's the small
fraction of their lives our children spend in school.
[[Now, maybe parents won't find the fact our kids spend 91%
of their time outside the classroom too hard to believe --
especially when it seems like we spend 50% of our time nagging
our kids to clean their rooms. ]]
But what happens in that 91% makes all the difference in the
world. When we see that dismal drop in SAT verbal scores, it
grod point!
7
points beyond a failure in the school. It means we're not taking
the time to read to our kids -- to talk with them -- to teach
them the arts of communication, how to think in words.
The first lesson of the 91% must be learned by parents. Mom
and Dad: Don't make the mistake of thinking your kids only learn
from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. You are -- and always will be --
your sons' and daughters' first teachers.
//
I!!!
The average parent spends 15 minutes a day -- 15 minutes --
in conversation with their child. Most people spend that much
time on coffee break. The freshman here today may think they're
a bit old to have their homework checked. And maybe as parents -
- certainly this President will admit -- our calculus and
computer skills may not be all they should. Then again, the
Class of '95 is old enough to watch the evening news with their
parents -- to talk about what's going on in the world, to take
interests, opinions, and ideas seriously. //
What happens at home matters. When our kids come home from
school, do they ever pick up a book -- or do they sit glued to
the tube watching music videos? In our communities, do we value
education and intellect? In the working world, do we reward
employees who want to improve themselves -- do employers
encourage workers to go back to school, to learn new skills?
What we can do:
Don't be a stranger in your child's school. Visit the
classroom. Talk to the principal. Make it your business to find
out whether your child's school is drug-free.
8
For the older folks among us, don't complain about "kids
today" -- or that the neighborhood "isn't what it used to be."
Get involved. Go into your schools -- get active in the
community -- see what you can do to help.
That's what America 2000 Communities are all about. That's
what will reform our schools -- here in Lewiston and across the
country. That's what will lead to an American renaissance in
education -- a transformation that will make this Nation every
bit the leader in the next Century that it has been since 1776.
Start with the sense of possibility you feel today -- and do
not rest until this revolution is won. ///
Once again, my thanks to you for this warm welcome -- and
may God bless the United States of America.
# # #
August 30, 1991
MEMORANDUM FOR DAN MCGROARTY
FROM:
CAROL BLYMIRE
SUBJECT:
TV STIMULATION
Dan, I just spoke with Jennings Bryant, a tv/children expert
at the University of Alabama/Tuscaloosa. He said that the line
about TV not stimulating the mind is incorrect, and that it would
be misleading for the President to say that. He says that although
tv is sometimes "chewing gum for the eyes", it still registers.
His overall theory is that tv does stimulate the mind --
whether or not it helps or hinders a student in school, is a
totally different matter.
I also spoke to Fred Marino, Director of Public Affairs at the
College Boards. He said that POTUS can't say what is in the speech
now. He said that what President Stewart was saying in the Times
article is that students need to realize that the workplace doesn't
require good television-watching skills. You gotta' know how to
read and write, and be able to do it well. He thinks that reading
is becoming a lost art. TV can be a factor, as could be many
others, i.e. kids having to work after school, or take care of
siblings because both parents work, etc.
Anpther factual change. Scott Hamilton in Lesleye Arscht's
office called. He said that Lewiston's claim of a 95% graduation
rate is false. He said the principal took 100% and subtracted the
drop-out rate, which is not the way it is legally supposed to be
calculated. He said that we should stress reducing the drop-out
rate even more, for the goals section of that paragraph.
AUG-27-1991 10:23 FROM DOEd OFFICE of SECRETARY IU
94566218
8.02
EXPIRATION ADUCATION 8 SEAL NEW TION
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
August 27, 1991
MEMORANDUM FOR TONY SNOW
DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT
FOR COMMUNICATIONS, DIRECTOR OF
SPEECHWRITING
FROM:
LESLYE ARSHT
COUNSELLOR TO THE Suly SECRETARY AND
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
SUBJECT:
Our Discussion of the President's Education
Address This Afternoon
While this may seem a lot for a fax, I thought you would benefit
from an advance look at the discussion points that have been
provided to us by Checker Finn, the Partnership for a Drug-Free
America, and others. We will, of course, want to talk this
through with you this afternoon and look forward to doing SO.
Attachment
CC: Stephen I. Danzansky
And
theme.
100 MARYLAND AVE., S.W. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20202
AUG-27-1991
10:23
FROM
DUEd
OFFICE
of
SECRETARY
TO
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Syst89-
* As far as I know, this will be the President's first "address to
the nation" about education. Previous major speeches on this
did
a
subject have been to specific audiences: the governors in
Charlottesville, the gang in the East Room on April 18, etc. None
School anti-
has been aimed at Everyman, at John & Jane Doe, at the kids, at the
mass of educators, etc. This calls for a somewhat different tone
duy address.
and voice: not the head of the executive branch of the federal
government, not a Washington player (it's good that he'll be in
Maine), not a politician, not a sender-forth of bills and
proposals. Instead, this is the time to be the "President of all
the people", to speak in plain language to ordinary people about
their children, their schools and their future. He should be both
critical and inspiring. Above all he should be honest. People
should leave their radio or TV saying "That Bush makes a lot of
will it
sense. Maybe it's time to take this stuff seriously,"
becarrief?
t The opening of the new school year is the obvious time to ask
people to think seriously about education in general, about their
own children and schools and communities in particular. Summer is
over. Time to buckle down to work. But not in the old familiar
routines. The President's theme should be that it's time--it's
finally time, indeed it's past time--to change: to change how we
think about education, how we behave with respect to it, what
happens around our kitchen tables and our family rooms and in our
classrooms. In our town halls and legislative chambers, too. This
year ought to be viewed as the year we don't just talk about the
"education crisis" but, rather, actually begin to alter our
behavior. Behavior, lifestyle, how we spend our time--these will be
hard to change, but they are what has to change along with our
ideas and priorities and values. If we had nine such years of
change in a row--culminating in school year 1999-2000--and if those
changes went further each year (and were cumulative), we could
reach our goals. More important, our kids would know more; our
econony would be stronger: our culture and civic life would be more
vibrant; our communities would be better places to live; we'd be
more prosperous and more competitive; and we'd feel better about
ourselves as people and as a country. Probably feel better about
our own children (and grandchildren, nieces, nephews, neighbors,
etc.), too, and about their prospects in life.
+ Some bad news/cold shower is needed, indeed is virtually
unavoidable. He doesn't have to be dour in tone or shake his finger
at people, but he has to tell this national audience, perhaps in a
mood of brisk, blunt candor and realism--face the facts, even when
we'd rather not--that education is in sorry shape. And he needs to
deal with widespread retail complaceny by telling people that this
problem lives in their own house and neighborhood, not across town
or on the other side of the state. I'm appending to this memo most
of a recent article called "Whither Education Reform?" In
connection with the point I'm making here, let me call your
attention to several paragraphs that start with "But I'm gloomy",
especially the one beginning "Our elected officials have also let
us down...."
2
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* Às you know, a couple of days after you get this memo, and about
a week before the President's address, the College Board will
release the 1991 SAT scores. (The ACT scores may be coming out
then, too, but I haven't seen them.) They're pretty grim, down two
points in verbal, the same in math. This represents the first
decline in math in a decade and the lowest verbal score ever. Nor
are these isolated phenemona: the 1990 NAEP math results, released
in June, were described by you as "an alarm that should ring all
night" or words to that effect. A bunch more NAEP results from 1990
will come out on September 30 as part of the first report card of
the NEGP. They aren't any more cheerful. Nor is much else in that
report card.
* That first report card will, of course, be depicted as a sort of
"baseline" against which to measure the progress we make during the
rest of the decade toward the goals for 2000. Politically, the
President can also talk in terms of a woeful "baseline" from which
we can/must work our way upwards. This is probably the last time
he'll be able to characterize bad news as a baseline without being
held responsible personally for the lack of progress. That's
because the release in April of America 2000 positioned him as
"starting" in a serious way on education reform; no one would
expect those efforts to have borne fruit by September: but this
will be the last time he'll have that luxury. Which is probably a
reason to be especially candid, even alarmist about the bad news.
* There's good news, politically, too, and that's found in the
release (this week) of the 1991 Gallup education poll results. You
and Tony and the rest should see that these play a very large role
in the President's remarks. For the American people--as we knew
already, but powerfully reinforced by the latest data--are strongly
in support of virtually all the major elements of America 2000,
notably including the more radical proposals that educators (and
the Congress) are fussing so much about (national standards,
national testing, report cards, school site management, extra pay
for very good teachers, school choice, etc. etc.) The only partial
downer in the Gallup results involves private school choice, but
there's some good news on that front, too: the question was asked
two ways, and in the formulation that is closer to yours ("send the
child to any public, parochial or private school they choose") an
11-7
even 50% were in favor, 39% opposed. This is more support than in
the past. (Also note that Blacks and "inner city dwellers" are 57%
in favor.) on all the other key "America 2000" features, I think
it's fair to say that the American people are overwhelmingly
positive. Likewise about the six national goals.
* This creates a sizable opportunity for a "populist appeal" in
this address, and for being pretty candid about the "forces of
resistance to changes that the American people want to see and are
ready to make". I believe the President should be bluntly critical
of the "education establishment" for resisting these changes. (He
should, of course, also have some very nice things to say about
teachers, principals and other individual educators.) I think he
3
AUG-27-1991 10:25 FROM DUEd OFFICE ot SECRETARY
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should also be pretty tart about the business-as-usual,
resistance-to-change, cling-to-the-old-ideas,
respond-to-the-producers-rather-than-the-consumen attitude of so
many in Congress.
* These points have their counterparts in most states and
localities; that, too, should be said; the populist appeal is not
just an inside-the-beltway discussion. You've heard me suggest that
the big power shift that needs to take place in American education
is from a system in which the "producers" call most of the shots to
one in which the "consumers" are really in charge. The Gallup data
suggest that if the consumers were in charge, the system would
operate by very different rules, and according to very different
principles, than it does today. The President should say this. And
should place himself squarely on the side of the consumers
* But the consumers really do need to be jarred out of their
retail-level complacency, too. The problem isn't just in the
education establishment. We have met the enemy and he is us.
Education results are only going to change if actual behavior
changes in millions of individual households, tens of thousands of
individual classrooms and schools. This means lifestyle changes,
changes in the 91 percent, changes in how we spend our time and
relate to our kids, changes in the attitudes and practices of
parents, employers, college admissions offices, lots of major
institutions in addition to the schools. This is not something
folks particularly want to hear. But they need to. Blunt candor,
remember? And they need to feel that the President is serious about
it, not looking to assign blame so much as to persuade a great many
people that they have a very large role to play in the revival of
American education, not that this is something only for schools to
deal with.
* Obviously he should reiterate the national goals. Spell them out.
Read them. Say he believes in them. That the American people
believe in them. The Gallup data also suggest, however, that few
think these goals can be achieved by the end of the decade.
Perhaps, he might say, that's because people haven't yet rolled up
their sleeves to work for what they believe in. (Possible analogy
here: on August 19, how many people really expected the coup in
MOSCOW to be reversed two days later? Fatalism and defeatism may be
the biggest enemies of all.)
* Obviously he should also reiterate the main themes of America
2000. For all the pooh-poohing that it's received on the Hill and
from the education establishment, the Gallup data prove that most
Americans favor making these changes. Will we find ourselves
hailing the victory of the popular will over the forces of reaction
in the Soviet Union--and expect any less of ourselves? On a major
domestic issue the resolution of which is entirely within the
control of the American people?
* There should be some words in here specifically ained at parents,
4
AUG-27-1991 10:25 FROM DUEd OFFICE of SECRETARY IU
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what they can do, what responsibilities they should assume (Diane
is especially good at crafting this kind of language.) But the
address should make plain that he isn't talking only to or about
parents. Every American, including the many millions who do not
have school age children, is a "consumer" of American education and
has a role to play in its renewal. (The Gallup data show a low
level of direct involvement/participation by Americans in the
activities and policy decisions of education--albeit a higher level
than in 1983. Most people are still behaving as if this is somebody
else's problem.)
* This is not the speech to address the civil rights stuff
directly, but the President should signal his understanding that
disadvantaged and minority kids in many cases have especially
severe education problems and need especially vigorous efforts to
solve these. Many such efforts must involve the 91 percent, not
just school stuff. This could also be the place to edge into the
multicultural fray by indicating that there is a great deal that
all our children need to learn, that we want the curriculum to tell
the whole story (including everybody's pieces of it), but that we
also want all children to study and learn that entire story.
* You don't need my advice on this point, but to keep attention
focused outside the Beltway, on the states and the localities, a
considerable plug should be given to "America 2000" states and
communities.
That's about it. That's actually a good deal more than any one
address can accommodate. But I don't believe I've said anything
that doesn't belong in there one way or another! Let me know if I
can do anything further.
5
AUG-27-1991
10:26
FROM
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OFFICE
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Addendum: Finn article. Note that a goodly amount of the data in
here is slightly out-of-date and could be updated with new NAEP
results, new Gallup poll findings, etc.
Whither Education Reform?
From one source after another, for the past decade we've been
receiving evidence that American education is doing a mediccre job,
one that ill-serves this country and our children. What is most
alarming is that after a sustained period of valiant reform
effort--and no small investment of resources--we've got so little
to show for our labors and our money.
For the U.S. as a whole, per student expenditures for public
education increased an average of 33 percent in real dollars (i.e.
after allowing for inflation) during the 1980's. Besides spending
more on it, we've been trying conscientiously to make the
enterprise more effective. Yet test scores remain flat, or
declining. International comparisons continue to show us near the
back of the pack. Remedial education is the fastest-growing
activity on many college campuses. Employers say they still can't
find competent workers. The quality of our civic and political life
keeps eroding.
To be sure, American education can boast some remarkable
accomplishments over the decades. We have done well at constructing
a universal and flexible system in which just about everybody can
have just about as much education as they want, pretty much
whenever they want it. We've also done well in recent years at
opening access to minorities, immigrants and the handicapped. We
are pretty good at recognizing student differences and trying
through the schools to respond to them. Ours is an adaptive and
fairly forgiving system in which it's never too late to try again.
We've hugely opened access to higher education, too, such that
we're the only country in the history of world where more than half
the secondary school completers at least commence further studies.
(How many of them wind up with & college degree is another, and far
gloomier, story.)
All true and all good. But these accomplishments cannot mask
the bad news, above all the weak intellectual skills and knowledge
possessed by our average high school graduate, and the widening gap
between those skills and knowledge and the levels required for the
kinds of jobs we're creating in America today, the kinds of jobs we
have to be able to fill with qualified individuals if we are to be
economically strong, not to mention culturally vibrant, civically
alert and internationally secure.
The problem is not with basic skills any longer. According to
National Assessment data, just about everyone who sticks with
formal education through high school graduation now acquires
rudimentary literacy and numeracy. At these modest levels, we're
doing satisfactorily. We have successfully made it "back to the
basics". It is when we look at the levels we really think people
should reach that attainments plummet. Here is a single example
from a recent math assessment:
"Christine borrows $850 for one year from the Friendly Finance
Company. If she pays 12% simple interest on the loan, what will be
6
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the total amount that Christine repays?"
This problem is not very difficult. It can be solved several
different ways. It requires a bit of thought, to be sure, but
nothing fancy. It typifies what National Assessment calls "level
350", however, and that is a level of skills being reached by only
six percent of our eleventh graders. If just six out of a hundred
high school juniors can solve problems of this level of difficulty,
that means 94 cannot.
Similar examples could be given in reading, writing, science,
history and geography.
What all this says to me is that, while our schools are not
producing new adult illiterates, they're graduating an enormous
number of people with mediocre skills and knowledge, and that,
above all, is why the nation is still "at risk".
I'm dwelling on outcome gauges, and this is appropriate if one
accepts a more general proposition: that America is in the midst of
a vast transformation of the very meaning of education. For a long
time we construed education in terms of intentions and efforts,
plans and inputs, institutions and services. Now we're moving,
albeit in fits and starts, to redefine education in terms of how
much people actually learn. One day we will say of a person "He had
no education", however long he may have spent in school, if in fact
he hasn't learned. The education system of tomorrow will be
outcomes-driven and highly accountable for its results.
Yet when viewed in those terms, our reform efforts to date
haven't borne much fruit. No, I'm not passing final judgment.
American education is large, decentralized, ponderous and slow to
change. Kids still take seventeen years to reach their seventeenth
birthday, and they need twelve or thirteen of those years to pass
through the schools. Some of the boldest reform plans, such as
those in Chelsea and Chicago, in Milwaukee and Kentucky, are really
just commencing. There may be progress in the making that hasn't
yet shown up in the outcomes data. We all hope so.
K
But I'm gloomy. The main sources of my gloom are clues that
people probably aren't changing their actual behavior at what I'm
going to term the "retail" level of education. There's a kind of
widespread schizophrenia in which people seem, on the one hand, to
acknowledge that we have a very serious national education problem
but also seem, on the other hand, to be reasonably contented with
their own and their children's education and with their local
1/<
schools. The nation may be at risk but "I'm all right Jack." Here
is some evidence:
First, the children think they're doing well, even when
they're not. The most recent international comparative assessment
(of math and science performance among 13 year olds) found American
youngsters at or near the bottom. That part did not surprise me.
What staggered me were the responses to the background question
asking the children to agree or disagree with the statement "I am
good at mathematics". It turns out that U.S. youngsters led the
world in believing themselves to be good at math, even while
trailing the world in actual math performance. 68 percent of them
1/2
concurred with the statement. In Korea, whose youngsters did the
best on the math test itself, only 23% judged themselves to be good
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FAX NC. 2027853948
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at mathematics. It seems to me we must consider the possibility
that we've been giving our children too much positive feedback and
too many encouraging statements designed to build their
self-esteem, statements that may not have been justified by the
reality of their performance.
Harold W. Stevenson's pioneering comparative research at the
University of Michigan has found essentially the same thing: "When
asked to rate such characteristics as ability in mathematics,
brightness, and scholastic performance," Stevenson writes,
"American children gave themselves the highest ratings, while
Japanese students gave themselves the lowest. American children
believed their parents and teachers were more satisfied with their
performance and worried less about their own performance in school
than did Chinese and Japanese children."
Second, most parents also seem reasonably content with their
children's education. The annual Gallup education poll asks parents
to rate public-schools-in-general, the schools of their own
community, and then the school attended by their eldest child. The
pattern of responses has been essentially the same for the past
decade. Parents display low opinions of schools-in-general,
middling opinions about their local schools, and high opinions of
their own child's school. In 1990, they gave "honors" grades (A or
B, on the traditional scale) to the nation's public schools just 23
percent of the time, while rating the public schools of their own
community A or B 48 percent of the time. Às for the school attended
by their eldest child, it received honors grades from a remarkable
72% of parents.
Stevenson and his colleagues have something to say on this,
too. Here's a passage from a paper comparing the United States with
China:
"American mothers expressed strongly positive attitudes about
their child's performance; 35% of the American mothers, but only
13% of the Chinese mothers thought their child was doing 'very
well' in mathematics--the highest value on a 5-point scale. This is
in line with the large percentage of American mothers and fathers
who were satisfied with their child's general level of achievement
in school. Most American parents were satisfied and few expressed
dissatisfaction. Chinese parents were much more critical
Third, the teachers also say that they are generally content
with their schools. On a Harris poll, sponsored by the Metropolitan
Life Insurance Company and released in late 1989, 92% of teachers
averred that their present school is providing a good or excellent
education to its students. That's not to say teachers don't have
complaints, criticisms and faults to find, only that, when push
comes to shove, most of them think their school is doing reasonably
well as it is.
Fourth, public school administrators also view the education
world through remarkably rosy lenses. An Allstate survey reported
in January 1990 that 91 percent of school administrators
(principals and superintendents) think that American public
education today is doing an excellent, very good or good job at
turning out an educated population. (À group of business
executives, asked the same questions, checked in at just 23
8
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percent.)
Consider the implications for education reform: if the
children think they're doing pretty well, if their parents think
the children are doing well, if people think their local schools
are doing well, and if the teachers and administrators in those
11c
schools agree with this appraisal, why should anyone feel inclined
to alter his/her actual behavior, to demand different results from
themselves or their children, or to agitate for significant changes
in the schools their children attend?
Yet if the actual behavior of actual people doesn't actually
change in millions of individual cases, there is no reason
whatsoever to expect our averages and aggregates to change. Our
outcomes will remain flat. And that, I suggest, has at least
something to do with why the results of our reform efforts to date
have not been more positive. It also says to me that any education
improvement plan that does not deal directly with the "complacency
problem" is doomed to failure.
Why have we failed to get the message across at the retail
level? I can only speculate. Americans tend to be optimists to
start with. We think pretty well of ourselves. We don't much like
bad news. We're inclined to believe that things tend to get better,
not worse.
We also have what Dr. John J. Cannell calls the "Lake Wobegon"
effect of current state and local testing programs--the phenomenon
that finds virtually everyone to be performing above the "national
average"--and we have a flood of upbeat press releases pouring from
state and local education agencies, nearly always asserting that
results are good and getting better.
Our elected officials have also let us down by not looking us
in the eye and saying "When I talk about educational melt-down, Mr.
and Mrs. Abernathy, I'm talking about your Johnny and Janet and the
school they attend, not about somebody else's children or the
schools across town."
But another possible explanation also concerns me greatly.
There is some evidence that young Americans are behaving rationally
when they don't study very hard or learn much in school.
Outside the yuppie elites clawing their way into Andover or
Stanford, it turns out that few Americans actually reap significant
rewards from studying hard and learning a lot. Children ordinarily
get promoted from one grade to the next regardless of how they do.
Report cards customarily consist of good news and cheery, upbeat
comments, no matter the actual level of performance. High school
graduates entering the workforce earn the same (for as long as ten
years out of school) whether they take hard courses and earn high
grades or enroll in gut classes and get C's. Their employers merely
ask whether they received a diplomar nobody ever looks at their
transcripts, let alone compensates them differently according to
their school record.
Higher education is just as unhelpful. Admission to most
colleges and universities requires merely that you be able to walk
through the door and write a check; only a tiny fraction of
prospective college students seek admission to competitive
campuses. For most people, entry to the nearby state university is
9
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a sure thing, no matter what their high school record shows.
Think about it. If we don't differentially reward high
achievers--or penalize low performers-why should youngsters study
hard and learn a lot, particularly when they have so many enticing
distractions and short-term gratifications? Remember, they and
their parents think they're doing okay in school. so, in the main,
do their teachers and principals.
We do have some bold school reform experiments underway here
and there, and of course we hope they work out. But my hopes are
somewhat dimmed because I think we'.vè shoved a number of vexing
issues under the rug. The complacency factor is just the beginning.
Let me note five others that particularly perturb me:
1. We haven't been paying much attention to the truism that
people only learn that which they study. No state yet requires all
its youngsters to take the full array of academic high school
courses that the National Commission on Excellence in Education
termed the "new basics" in 1983: 4 years of English, three years
560
each of math, science and social studies, two years of foreign
language and half a year of computers. Because these courses are
,880
not required, few students take them. In the high school graduating
class of 1987 (the last for which we have data), only thirteen
percent displayed such a pattern on their transcripts. We are
flagellating ourselves because our children haven't learned things
that, in reality, most of them haven't even been exposed to.
2. A second neglected truism holds that people learn things in
rough proportion to the amount of time they spend studying. Yet the
time factor has barely been touched in the course of our reform
efforts. As a result, American youngsters spend less time engaged
in academic learning than anyone else in the industrial world. We
have shorter school days and years; our children do less homework.
They are more apt (at the secondary level) to spend their
after-school hours working at jobs. Is it any wonder that they wind
up knowing less than their age-mates in other lands? I suspect that
no reform scheme that fails to deal with the time factor will make
much difference in the outcomes of American education.
3. Until very recently, we haven't been clear about our goals,
about what an adequately educated young American would actually
look like. Not long ago, Ernest Boyer compared education to "an
industry that's unclear about its product, and thus is hopelessly
confused about quality control." The governors and President Bush
have begun to correct this situation, with the six big (and to my
eye commendable) national education goals that they set forth in
early 1990. But few states have embraced these, or any other
explicit goals. This is a non-trivial matter. only when we can
describe what results we seek do we have a prayer of attaining
them.
4, It's not just that we haven't known where we're heading. We
also haven't known enough about the progress we're making. Our
information feedback and accountability systems are wholly
inadequate for the task at hand. We don't really know very much
about how well our children are learning or how well our
institutions are doing at the many levels where we need that
information: the individual youngster, the classroom, the school
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1991-92. 3
92 93 4
9394 5
94 6
95 96 7
building, the local school system, the state and the entire nation.
People only take seriously that which is measured and reported.
96978
Student learning outcomes at these six levels have not been
07989 9
satisfactorily measured or reported.
10
5. Finally, we assign too many things to schools that they
cannot do, and we do a weak job of enlisting others in their
1999-2000 11
missions. When they are effective, schools can do a good job of
2000-2001
12
imparting cognitive learning to children: history, chemistry,
literature, and so on. But they are not powerful enough instruments
that we should expect them also to prevent adolescent pregnancy, to
redistribute income, to stop the plague of drug abuse, to halt the
spread of AIDS, etc. Schools keep getting such additional duties
4th=
2000
thrust onto them (rarely with any more time in children's lives)
and they always agree to try. The sad fact is that alone they
cannot solve these problems and their willingness to try may let
3rd=
others off the hook. Spreading their efforts across too many fronts
2001
may also leave them effective on none.
Those are situations that don't just perturb me but that also
impede our ability to revitalize the education system in ways that
will yield better outcomes.
What to do differently? Everyone has his own version. Here,
briefly, is my own vision of the ten essential requisites of a
properly reformed education system.
First, we must set clear outcome goals having to do with
cognitive learning, spelling out the skills and knowledge that we'd
like every young American, regardless of background, to reach by
the threshold of adulthood.
Second, once we have an outcome standard, we should relate our
concept of compulsory school attendance to achieving it, rather
than attaining some arbitrary birthday.
Third, we must recognize that getting essentially everybody up
to a reasonable standard of intellectual attainment before they
exit the formal education system is going to mean that most young
Americans are going to have to spend a far larger fraction of their
lives learning academic things than they are accustomed to doing
today.
Fourth, what I've said implies a fairly substantial core
curriculum throughout entire school systems, states, perhaps the
whole country. How much of the total school curriculum should be
swept into this core is up for discussion. That there should be
one, it seems to me, is self-evident.
Fifth, outside that core, there should be much variety among
schools as to the rest of the curriculum, huge variation as to
pedagogy, and great diversity concerning things like school
climate, schedule, even the nature of the instructional setting.
Sixth, implicit in the previous point is lots of school-site
management. That, rather than central planning, is how authentic
diversity arises, and how those engaged in delivering instructional
services are most apt to get invested in what they're doing. We
know this from so-called "effective schools" research. I think
school site management can go quite a distance. In Chicago, it now
includes the power to hire and fire the principal. It could equally
include the ability to contract with independent providers for all
11
AUG-27-1991
10:31
FROM
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SECRETARY
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sorts of services, from lunch to security to specialized
instruction of various kinds. But with authority must go
responsibility, and that, in current education policy jargon, means
accountability for results. The school thus retains its autonomy,
indeed gains more, so long as its outcomes are satisfactory. When
they are unsatisfactory, however, all sorts of outside intervention
must follow. This appears to be the central dynamic in the new
Kentucky education reform legislation, perhaps the most
comprehensive such package in the nation.
Seventh, with schools encouraged to differ in many ways and to
manage their own affairs, it stands to reason that students and
their parents must be allowed to choose among them on the basis of
those differences. I don't just mean those families fortunate
enough to get into magnet schools or gifted-and-talented programs,
or to pay for private schooling. I mean every child and family. It
is a public policy sin to require a student, against his will and
his parents' wishes, to attend a poor school that he wouldn't go
claime
near but for the compulsion when there is a better one not far away
that he would prefer, if only it were permitted. I also believe
that the chief barriers to integration in this society are now the
district and municipal boundaries that function like educational
Berlin walls. They've torn down the one in Germany. How about
demolishing our own?
Choice also needs to be extended to teachers and principals.
Everybody in a school ought to want to be there.
Eighth, for all this to work, there needs to be a crackerjack
information feedback and accountability system, such that everyone
can see how individual children and whole schools, even whole
states, are doing. Accountability in education means knowing what
your goals are, having reliable information as to whether those
goals are being achieved, and then tying consequences to their
achievement and non-achievement. When the information feedback
system signals that goals are being met, good things should happen
to people. When the data indicate that the goals are not being
achieved, something must change-some sort of intervention must
occur--or we can be certain that the goals will continue not being
achieved.
Ninth, we need to integrate parents far more directly and
intimately into the work of formal education. This is commonly
assumed to be the toughest nut of all to crack, and it may well be.
Nor am I referring only to what happens in school. Parents are the
single most important influence in the 91 parcent of children's
lives spent outside school. (Yes, it's an amazing statistic, but
anyone can do the calculation. An eighteen year old American high
school graduate who started in kindergarten and has never missed a
day of school in his life has, in the average case, spent only nine
percent of his hours on earth under the school roof. Assume eight
hours of sleep a night and the school's share of waking hours rises
to just thirteen percent.) If we extend the school day and year, we
might get the school's share up to 15%. But that is still going to
leave 85% spent alsewhere. Parents aren't the only influence on
what happens during that time, of course, but they are the
strongest.
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Engaging parents in choosing the school is part of the
solution. Parent participation in education governance is another.
Explicit parent education programs are another. (Missouri is doing
this to particularly good effect.) Parent-teacher-student contracts
may be yet another. Much more imaginative use can also be made of
technology to assist the school to reach the home and vice versa.
Tenth and finally, we need to rethink our sources of teachers
and principals to staff this sprawling education system. We should
be seeking them in many places, not just among graduates of teacher
colleges and administrator training programs. We should be
differentiating their roles within the school, and paying them
according to those differences, as well as according to their
demonstrated competence, the demand for their particular specialty
and the difficulty of their assignment. (One example of this, of
course, is the idea of a career ladder, pioneered by Tennessee.) We
should routinely distinguish between novice teachers and master or
mentor teachers, and should create arrangements in which the more
experienced teachers can work with the less experienced, and in
which teachers can be more involved in the design of curriculum,
instructional materials and pedagogy. When visiting Asian schools,
I've been struck by the fact that, on the one hand, their teachers
work pretty much year-round (and teach very large classes). On the
other hand, at least at the secondary level, they teach only three
or four hours a day and don't have non-instructional duties in
between. Instead, they have time for class preparation, for going
over student work, for meeting with individual pupils, etc. Other
people in the schools handle the other tasks.
of course I cannot prove that these ten points (and their
corollaries) will improve our results. If we don't also solve the
half-dozen problems outlined earlier, they probably won't. But the
status quo isn't working. And neither are our conventional schemes
that carry the label "education reform".
13
TO
Hug-27-1991 10:32 FROM DUCO OFFICE OT SECRETARY
P.3
AUG 21 'S1 16:11 DRUG FREE AMERICA_
Some Possible Ideas for the President's Speech on Education/Drugs
1)
Americans are volunteering and are willing to volunteer more time and effort
to drug prevention activities
A recent national survey showed that one in ten adults are already involved in
anti-drug projects organized by schools, churches and community groups
59% of those surveyed said they would be willing to volunteer for such
activities
Schools, communities and religious groups must continue to draw on this
enormous resource of caring Americans
2)
One reason that caring Americans are taking action against drugs in the
realization that as long as we have a serious drug problem, all the other
social problems facing the nation are more difficult to solve problems in
our families, in our communities and in our schools
3)
We must never underestimate the power of individual and group action to bring
about change. There are, literally thousands of examples:
a) Zulekha Haywood, the 8 year old daughter of Spencer Haywood, NBA
All-Star; after a school class about drugs realized her father had a
problem and confronted him with it. It was that emotional confrontation
that got Mr. Haywood to seek help. Today, Spencer Haywood operates a
foundation in his name which offers basketball clinics and drug
prevention classes to youngsters in the state of Michigan.
b) Maxine Lewis, working with community groups, recently organized an
anti-drug event at Harlem's famed Apollo theatre. Over 600 children and
X
94566218
TU
FROM
DUED
ot
group leaders watched the half hour "Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue"
anti-drug film and participated in a powerful give-and-take anti-drug
session with a local rep star. As one group leader said, we can now go
back to our classes and have an in depth discussion and give our kids new
and more ways to say no to drugs.
c)
Parents in a Boston housing project have mobilized a Tenant Task Force
curi, wills the volunteer support of faculty and students from a local
University are holding Health Fairs to provide information and prevention
guidance on drug abuse and other health problems facing the community.
d) "Positive Directions", is an in-school anti-drug and career counseling
service of the Brooklyn, NY school system that goes one step beyond.
Recognizing that drop outs can not be totally avoided, it encourages
these teenagers to return for counselling. Jobs have been found and
lives straightened. In describing the motivation for the program, it is
said, "we have to try, we can't give up...they are our children.
e) Ruben was a 13 year old "crack runner" for a gang in Los Angeles. He
wasn't particularly aware of the gravity of his "job", but he knew it let
him hang out with the older gang members, and that it gave him a few
extra dollars.
One day a friend invited Ruben to play basketball at the Hollenbeck Youth
Center. While he was there playing ball and making new friends, Ruben's
gang was busted by the police. Ruben knew he was lucky and went back to
Hollenbeck the next day. He's been going there every day for the last
seven years.
Today, Ruben Palomares is an Olympic hopeful " training for his dream of
winning a boxing gold medal in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain He
gets up every morning at 5:00 AM and runs for two hours before heading to
work as a Hollenbeck coach and counselor. After work, Ruben spends three
hours in the boxing ring, pursuing his dream.
UT
P.5
If it hadn't been for the Hollenbeck Youth Center, Ruben Palomares, and
thousands of kids like him, wouldn't even be able to conceive of such a
dream, let alone be on the road to realizing it.
4)
Progress has been made and will continue to be made one person at a time.
All studies show that their is decreasing first time trial of drugs and
decreasing usage. America still has a drug problem, but we should be
encouraged that the fight against drugs can be won.
Today, young Americans, those 9-12 years old, express the strongest anti-drug
views of any age group in America. Two reasons for this are because more
parents are talking to their children about the dangers of illegal drugs and
more schools are providing in-school guidance on the subject. The result is
that young Americans, the future of our country, are developing anti-drug
attitudes that will help them resist pressure, enjoy happier, more productive
lives...and by their example, help free our country from the scourge of
illegal drugs
OT
TO
34565218
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VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
FAX NC. 2027853948
SENT BY:Merox Telecopier 7020 ; B-21-81 ; 20:48 i
P.03
70203203579
4
NOTE FROM : Larry Feinberg
SUBJECT
8 High Scorers - the SAT
DATE
I August 21, 1991
The number of high-scoring students on the Scholestic Aptitude
Test dropped precipitously during the 1970s, recovered during the
01d-1980 but has fallen back disturbingly ORGE again. The drop
was greatest and the recovery least pronounced on the verbal part
of the test, but for the past three years the number of high-
scorers in meth has also declined,
Those scoring above 600 on the verbal part of the SAT fell
from a peak of 116,585 for the class of 1972, the first year
separate figures were kept for gradusting seniors, to 4 low of just
56,292 in 1983. That's a decline of 50,293, or 43 percent, over
little more than 4 decade, while the total number taking the exam
dropped by 6 percent. As a share of all test-takers, these over
500 on the SAT-V fell from 11.3 percent to 6.9 percent in that
period.
By 1997, the number of high-scorers in verbal had climbed
again to 88,000 [That's the exact number College Board says it
was.], recouping about 40 percent of the loss. Since then,
however, the number has dropped gradually to 74,536, or 7.2 percent
of the class of '91 which took the exam.
In math, the decline in those scoring over 600 was from
182,602 in 1972 to 143,566 in 1981--a drop of 39,036, or 21
percent. The share of test-takers in that high-scoring category
fell from 17.9 to 14.8 percent. By 1988, the Humber of high-
scorers had reached an all-time high, 199,688. The proportion in
that category resched as high of 18.4 percent in 1990. In 1991 the
number over 500 in SAT-M was down for the third year in 8 TOW to
184,382, or 17.9 percent of the class.
The numbers in this high-scoring scoup really do matter. They
CIS the students sought by selective colleges; they are the ones
well-prepared to handle tough college work. When their ranks are
thinned, many colleges fill classes with less able students (rather
than contract).
on the verbel side, the clear drop in those over 600 shows
that average SAT scores have declined not just because of more
students at the bettem but because of a deterioration at the top of
the class as well. In math the situation 18 more equivocal, though
clearly the increase in high-scoring students has sputtered out
started down again.
just as average scores have plateaued and in 1991 appear to have
August 30, 1991
MEMORANDUM FOR DAN MCGROARTY
FROM:
CAROL BLYMIRE
SUBJECT:
CHILDREN/TV
I swear, this is the last one... Dr. Keith Milkie, the VP for
Research at CTW said that the line has to be pulled, because the
article spoke about a correlation, not a cause.
correlated not caused.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Dr. Keith Milky
CTW
TVIS not the mainfactor.
It is asso. w/ not caused by.
says, "cutit!"
studiesin Times were
of kids who watched
wore than 5 hrs/day.
more contacts: children tv
proban Anderson (h) 413-367-9523
(0) 413-545-2069
ukansas couple
John wright
Alotha Houston (o) 913-864-4646
co-directors CRITK
Mabel Rice-lang. devel.
(913)842-3832 (h)
(913)864-4570 (8)
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Ellen Wa tella UfIll
217-333-1549
Amice Donr
prof UCLA
(213)826-1838
Television studies
GWU
Prof. Sterling
9945 5250 old
ao 676-4254 new
7 hrs. aug. aday set is on
Dr. Kieth Mielke - UPresearch CTW
NY,NY
Dr. Jennings Bryant- isTuscaloosa Uof Alabama
a05
Midiculous
get examples
Aniversity
for 6 goals
Boynton
Susan Martin
Head Start - yes T same
Dare no when did they start
any as in thoyris. freshman class
were in the above programs
adult Ed
9300 involved in adult
ed.
2500 are GED/diplona
80 are literacy
rest B community
parenting class
Cake de costing
P.1/7
AUG 30 '91 12:12 212-713-8184 CB-NYO
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
THE COLLEGE BOARD
45 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
Telephone number: (212) 713-8000
Telecopier number: (212) 713-8184
FAX TRANSMITTAL FORM
SENT TO:
Carol Blymire
COMPANY:
The White House
TELECOPIER NUMBER:
202-456-6218
SENT BY:
Louise Dockery
SENT FOR:
Fred moreno
DATE SENT:
8-30-91
TOTAL NUMBER
NUMBER TO CALL
OF PAGES,
IF THERE ARE
INCLUDING
ANY PROBLEMS:
COVER SHEET:
7
(212) 713- 8180
AUG 30 '91 12:13 212-713-8184 CB-NYO the
2/7
Low Test Scores Renew Debate on TV
8/28/91
By KAREN DE WITT
Specialto The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 - Televi-
Reading vs. Television
sion has long been blamed for the
decline in students' reading ability.
From a survey of reading among American schoolchildren by the
Once again, those accusations were
National Assessment of Educational Progress, released last year.
made in the aftermath of the release
on Monday of the verbal scores of
1991 college-bound seniors on the
READING
TELEVISION
Scholastic Aptitude Test, which hit an
all-time low.
Percentage of students
Percentage of students
"There is a direct correlation" be-
who sald they read a given
who said they watch
tween television viewing and declines
number of pages each day
a given amount of
in reading skills "after two hours of
for school and homework.
television each day.
television watching," William M.
Honig, Superintendent of Public In-
4TH GRADERS
41.6
struction in California, said today.
31.1
23.3
23.6
27.3
"The more television you watch, the
22.1
lower your reading ability."
14.8
16.2
California has conducted several
studies of the relationship between
television viewing and reading skills.
Pages
5 or
6-10
11-15
16-20
20
or
0-2
3-5
6 or
And they came to the same conclu-
Hours
fewer
more
more
sions as a survey by the National
Assessment of Educational Progress,
released last year.
STH GRADERS
53.0
That report indicated that students
seemed to prefer television to books.
31.5
Sixty-nine percent of the fourth grad-
29.9
29.5
ers interviewed for the report said
16.6
17.5
they watched three hours or more of
10.3
11.7
television a day, while less than half,
46 percent, reported reading for
pleasure daily.
5 or
6-10
11-15
16-20
20
or
0-2
3-5
6 or
Hours
In Defense of Television
fewer
more
more
Michael Fitzmaurice of the Nation-
al Association of Broadcasters' re-
search and information group ac-
51.8
12TH GRADERS
knowledged that "too much TV is a
40.8
bad thing." But. he added, "To blame
31.0
these declines squarely on television
25.1
is silly."
16.8
12.1
14.9
He went on: "The one thing we
7.5
know is that the biggest predictor of
scholastic success is the time parents
spend reading to their children. Even
Pages
5
or
6-10
11-15
16-20
20
or
0-2
3-5
6 or
Hours
if you threw away television, the
fawer
more
more
scholastic abilities aren't going to im-
prove."
The New York Times
Some educators said that verbal
scores could be failing because of a
changing mix of elementary and sec-
four he .3 watching television and
sion viewing habits end up giving
ondary school students, with more
not doing well in school and doesn't
them videotapes and computers that
minority children, non-English speak-
find something wrong in that. But I
can just as easily undermine their
ers and children from lower socioeco-
wouldn't scream at television. I think
children's verbal skills.
nomic backgrounds.
people love to make television a
"Television is part of the problem,
scapegoa: and ignore what happens
"It isn't the medium that is at
certainly. but it's not all of the prob-
when our allocation of resources in
fault," said Dr. Arthur Pober, vice
lem," said Peggy Charren, president
this society IS misplaced."
president of the Children's Advertis-
of the Action for Children's Televi-
Other experts say the use of televi-
ing Review Unit for the Council of
sion, a group based in Cambridge,
sion, computers and videocassette re-
Better Business Bureaus. "Parents
Mass., that lobbies for quality pro-
corders should be monitored by par-
can't use television or videos as baby-
prams. "There isn't anybody who
ents. They add that many parents
sitters and then be surprised that the
looks at a kid who is spending three or
who check on their children's televi-
child do. n't read well."
AUG 30 91 12:14 212-713-8184 CB-NYO
P.3/7
Page 5
June 28, 1990 a Education Daily
Study Shows Eighth-Graders Glued To TV, Sanguine About College
They spend four times as long watching televi-
watching time, just as many parents said they
sion as doing homework, they plan to attend
enforced rules about television.
college but not take a college-track high school
program, and they don't see eye to eye with
"Even though parents have a rule, it's not clear
their parents on several school-related issues.
students are necessarily abiding by it," NCES
statistician Jerry West said.
They are the nation's 3 million eighth-graders,
as represented by 25,000 of their peers sur-
Family Communication Flawed
veyed in a massive new Education Department
That was not the only important issue on
investigation, the National Education Longi-
which perceptions diverged. Almost half the
tudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88).
children said they and their parents had dis-
cussed things studied in school no more than
"NELS:88 can be useful for illuminating
once or twice all year. But 79 percent of the
changes needed in our homes, our schools, our
parents said they "regularly" talked with their
policies," Christopher Cross, ED's assistant
children about their school experience.
secretary for educational research and im-
provement, said at a briefing yesterday. The
Parents with high education or income levels
study also will help ED track progress toward
reported themselves more involved in their
national education goals, he said.
children's education. Surprisingly, Asian
parents were least likely to say they discussed
Spots Potential Dropouts
school regularly with their children, who often
The survey is ED's third major longitudinal
excel academically.
study but the first to start with eighth-graders,
let alone question their parents as well. From
Quizzing the students, the researchers found
base-year data that eighth-graders supplied in
that 44 percent were bored at least half the
early 1988 and in biennial follow-ups, it will
time they were in school. Still, 80 percent said
afford a look at early dropouts, Cross said in
their teachers were good, and nearly as many
releasing the base-year report.
said the teachers were interested in students.
For example, the survey identified many al-
Nearly 90 percent felt safe in school, but
ready at risk of dropping out. One in five stu-
49 percent had had something stolen, 28 per-
dents surveyed reported at least two of the six
cent had been threatened, 23 percent had had
factors ED used to flag those at risk of school
a fight and 10 percent had been offered drugs.
5
failure: coming from a single-parent or low-
income family, spending more than three hours
In an ominous set of findings, 35 percent
a day home alone, having limited English
aspired to professional careers, and two-thirds
proficiency, a sibling who dropped out, or
planned to finish college, but only one-third
parents who did not complete high school.
planned to enroll in a college preparatory pro-
gram in high school. One in four had not
Students listing two or more risk factors were
chosen their high school program, although
twice as likely as those with no risk factor to be
most were to begin only a few months later.
in the lowest quartiles for grades or test scores.
Members of the higher-risk set also were more
Fewer than half the parents reported talking
expectant of dropping out.
to their eighth-graders about high school
plans, and only 40 percent said they had
Eighth-graders' TV viewing also was "a bit dis-
discussed long-range plans.
tressing," said Anne Hafner, a statistician with
OERI's National Center for Education Statis-
The survey report, "NELS:88. A Profile of he
tice and project director for the study. On
American Eighth Grade Student." will be avail-
average, each spent 21.4 hours a week on tele-
able soon from the U.S. Government Printing
vision, 5.6 hours on homework and 1.8 hours
Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, (202)783-3238.
on outside reading.
Specify order number NCES 90-458a. GPO
will set the price when the report is available.
While three of five students said their parents
For information on obtaining the raw data, call
rarely or never limited their television
OERI, (800)424-1616. --Maggie Hume
AUG 30 91 12:16 212-713-8184 CB-NYO
dan is a milestone of quirkiness. For Side 1, Nike
become the ad venue of choice for anyone trying
decided to keep the startle but to change the
to break into the teen market.
tone. Enter the agency of Weiden and Kennedy, a
The print-ad campaign, also by W&K, fea-
Nike favorite. Geoff McGann, the writer for the
tures the shoes and the slogan: "Shoes for Situa-
Teens and TV
ads, set the target buyer as "a woman with an
tions." Nike spread them out over a wide range
attitude
somebody who's confident enough
of publications that appeal to the teenage girls'
maybe to do something a little risqué, but by no
market, including Seventeen, Mademoiselle
Teenagers between
means sleazy." In less global terms, that means
and Elle. Of all the magazines, there is one essen-
the ages of 12 and 17
the sort of teen who is willing to take a chance on
tial buy: Sassy. Others, like Seventeen, might
watch TV an average of
a shoe that her friends haven't bought yet.
be bigger, but Sassy is hotter, growing by 100,000
22 hours a week. That
readers last year alone. Publisher Bobbie Hel-
means they spend
he agency came up with ads that were
fin attributes her magazine's success to the "can-
about 3 hours a day in
T
startling precisely because they weren't
did, frank, honest, personal, best-friend style."
front of the tube.
splashy. W&K chose director David
The magazine boasted a paid circulation of
Ads consume 3 to 4
Fincher, whose work includes Madonna
450,000 last year, yet received 451,944 letters-
hours-about 20%-of
videos. The 30-second commercials had
more than one per person.
TV watched per week.
lugubrious pacing, with rich colors and no
By fall 1989, shoes hit the stores, the ads
dialogue-"a kind of European, hip feel," says
went out over the airwaves and into the
The more TV teens
Side 1 art director Susan Hoffman. What words
magazines, and the Nike sales force awaited
watch, the lower their
there are in the commercials appear as text
the stampede. There's only one problem with
writing ability; in one
on the screen and are ambiguous and some-
this beautifully conceived campaign: it's not
study, 17-year-olds who
what titillating: a frame reads "Ben wasn't
working yet. Side 1 isn't selling. The label-
watched 6 or more
being gentlemanly," after an insulted young
conscious market was apparently unwilling to
hours of TV per week
lady turns on her fashionable heel and walks
take the fashion risk of a new brand. So Nike, a
scored about 10 per-
quickly away. Ben slumps against the wall with
company that has shown that it has the patience
cent lower on a
a stupefied, "Whaaat did I say?" expression on
to wait for success, has gone back to the drawing
writing test than did
his face. The audience can't help but wonder,
board with a narrower line of shoes and a new ad
those who watch only 2
either. "Everything's left up in the air a little,"
campaign that should begin airing this fall-
hours per week.
says Hoffman.
still a Nike secret. "We're real optimistic," says
SOURCES: NIELSEN MEDIA
Once the ads were made, there was one obvi-
RESEARCH: U.S. DEPT. OF EDUCATION
Side 1's Johnson. "We've got to get the formula
ous place to show them: MTV, the 24-hour tele-
right." For all the talk of formulas, the Side 1
vised mall. The forum for music videos created
story so far shows that for all the market
in part by media wunderkind Robert Pittman
experts do know, this is still not an exact science.
(box) reaches, by its estimate, 20 million people
So the American teen can't be taken apart like a
each week-mostly 11- to 24-year-olds-and has
watch. Whew.
Are Teens TV Smart?
obert Pittman, one of
Even with the simplest of
the creators of MTV,
images, seeing is not discern-
thinks teens today are
ing. "I show kids [ade] in
an audience best spoken to in
class, and they can't com-
pictures. "TV babies seem
ment on them," says Ron
to perceive visual messages
Lembo, professor of human-
better" than previous gen-
ities at the University of
erations did, Pittman wrote
California, Berkeley
in a recent New York Times
"They're completely drawn
editorial. "They can 'read' a
in." And no wonder: with ads
picture or understand body
(like those for Side 1) verg-
language at a glance."
ing on mini-dramas and
But is visual literacy syn-
mainstream TV emulating
onymous with visual smarts?
MTV, viewing has become
Johns Hopkins University
more visceral than ever.
media professor Mare Miller
"The appeal is on a directly
doesn think so. "It's just
emotional level, Lembo
not the case that teenagers
says, "and the potential for
are growing up more visual-
being dominated by the im
ly sophisticated by virtue of
agery is frightening."
being immersed in video
Will it ever be otherwise?
images." he says. The
No one expects that teens
MTV creator Pittman argues kids are more visually literate
medium just isn't that
will watch less TV And by
demanding "It doesn't
its very nature, TV viewing,
says Miller, "is a program to
teach kids to read between
take a genius to [watch cam-
unlike reading, will always
help interpret what teens
the pictures, as they are
paign ads and associat
be a basically passive exer-
look at Teachers and par-
taught to read between
ing the Democrats with
cise-analytic skills not re
ents (if they re not couch po-
the lines.
Willie Horton.
quired. What might help,
tatoes themselves) should
MARY TALBOT
36 NEWSWEEK SPECIAL ISSUE
Summer (990
AUG 30 '91 12:20 212-713-8184 CB-NYO
1940
PP.5/7
-2-
Ethnic minority students, who have shown substantial score gains since
1976 when their averages were first reported--showed mixed results in 1990.
student tois SERVICE of all students taking the SAT, up
from 25 percent in 1989 and 10 percentage points higher than 1980.
"The verbal decline this year is disturbing but not particularly
surprising," said Mr. Stewart. "It is also the second recent signal that the
verbal skills of many American students are weak enough to seriously hamper
their future opportunities, in school and college and the world of work."
1990
Mr. Stewart noted that a report earlier this year from the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) confirmed that students at all grade
levels spend little time reading or writing, whether in or out of school, and
that few students can analyze or understand the full meaning of what they
read. The NAEP report reveals that more than half of all high school seniors
read 10 or fewer pages each day and that one-third are not required to write
even two paragraphs a week; but they spend at least three hours per day
watching television.
"Students must pay less attention to videogames and music videos and
begin to read more," advised Mr. Stewart. "Reading is in danger of becoming a
'lost art' among too many American students--and that would be a national
tragedy."
The College Board president added that "what we need is a firm
commitment from parents, educators, and public officials that the improvement
of our students' verbal skills is one of the nation's most important
educational goals."
Despite the continued slide in verbal scores, Mr. Stewart emphasized
that he was pleased with the evealed the SAT data. He
cited, for example, the improvement -math scores formany women and the
increasing percentage of minorities taking the SAT:
more
P.6/7
AUG 30 '91 12:21 212-713-8184 CB-NYO
Education week 6-13-90
Students Spend Little Time Reading
Or Writing in School, NAEP Finds
By Robert Rothman
The data make "a powerful statement
about literacy education in America today,"
W ASHINGTON-Reports released last
said Ina V.S. Mullis, NAEP'S deputy director.
week by the National Assessment of Educa-
According to the reading report, about
tional Progress indicate that students at all
half the students in all grades reported
grade levels spend little time reading or
reading 10 or fewer pages each day for
writing, whether in or out of school.
schoolwork. And students' interest in
But they also show that those who read
books, it says, appears to decline as they
and write more frequently perform best in
progress through school.
those subjects.
Most of the reading instruction that
The reports, based on a 1988 assessment
takes place, moreover, is at a relatively low
of 13,000 students in reading and 20,000
level, according to the report. Such instruc-
students in writing in grades 4, 8, and 12,
tion for most students is based on a single
also draw on data from surveys of teachers
basal reader, it says, and few students re-
and students. They provide, NAEP officials
ported discussing, analyzing, or writing
said, the first data linking classroom prac-
about what they read.
tices to performance in these subjects.
Continued on Page 9
AUG 30 '91 12:22 212-713-8184 CB-NYO
P.7/7.
Most Students Read or Write Little
Average Reading Proficiency, 1988
- In or Out of School, NAEP Reports
300
Continued from Page 1
Such results are particularly sur-
and understand text in a global way
prising, Ms. Mullis noted, aince stu-
and in more depth," Ms. Mullis said.
The report on writing reveals
dents in past NAEP assessments had
"But students aren't asked to do
200
that, despite the growing interest in
indicated that the primary mode of
those activities as frequently as they
teaching that subject across the cur-
instruction in most subjects was
are asked to work on workbooks."
riculum, only half of the 12th gred-
reading from textbooks.
Nearly all teachers said 4th grad-
are reported writing more than two
"Thay must read a page a day,"
ers were asked to complete work-
100
papers in the previous six weeks,
she observed.
book or akill-sheet exercises at least
and most said their writing consist-
weekly, and 96 percent of teachers
ed of a few paragraphs.
Reading 'At Risk?
said they relied on at least one basal
Overall performance in both sub-
The report also confirmed the view
textbook.
jects, particularly in writing, was
that the more often students read out-
Carl Braun, president of the Inter-
0
relatively poor, the report notes, and
side of class, the higher their reading
national Reading Association, called
Grade 4
Grade 8
Grade 12
the achievement gaps between stu-
proficiency is likely to be.
these findings "mindhoggling," but
dente from disadvantaged and ad-
"Although NAEP data cannot be
questioned whether they represent a
White
Black
Hispanic
raucauon week 6-13-40
vantaged areas was substantial. In
used to determine whether better
true picture of schools.
writing, black 12th graders barely
readers simply enjoy reading more
"I do not see these kinds of teachers
Source: National Assossment of Educational Progress
outperformed white 4th graders, the
and, therefore, read more for fun, or
at I.E.A. conferences," he said.
report notes
whether more frequent reading for
Perhaps as a result of such in-
Miles Myers, executive director of
enjoyment increases proficiency," the
structional practices, Ms. Mullia
the National Council of Teachers of
report states, "conventional wisdom
said, students tended to perform
Average Writing Achievement, 1988
English, said that the results "high-
suggests that it is probably a combi-
best on reading tasks that asked
light the need for a lot more atten-
nation of the two phenomena."
them to pick out facts from texts,
300
tion to staff development on how to
Those who read more fiction than
and least well on open-ended ques-
teach reading and writing."
nonfiction materials, it adds, also
tions that required them to write
He added that efforts to restruc-
outperformed those who read mostly
about what they had read.
ture schools should focus 03 ways to
nonfiction.
"They may be used to skill sheets
200
enable teachers to spend more time
Not all such students, however,
that ask them to pick out facts from
developing students' reading and
remain "hooked on books," accord-
texts," she said. "They had more
writing abilities.
ing to the report, which notes that
difficulty picking out the overall
"A secondary teacher in the coun-
the frequency with which students
message from the text, and most dif-
try today faces 150 students e day,"
read outside of class declines as they
ficulty when asked to analyze Ipas-
100
he said. "How can you obtain higher
get older. In contrast, it adds, nearly
sages] or compare them to their per-
levels of literacy when you have
half the 12th graders said they
sonal experiences."
schools structured in this way?"
watched three or more hours of tele-
vision a day; almost a third of this
Short Writing Assignments
Reading Proficiency
group reported spending little or no
The writing assessment, like pre-
0
A Congressionally mandated pro-
time reading for pleasure.
vious NAEP tests in the subject,
Grade 4
Grade 8
Grade 12
ject currently operated by the Edu-
"There are those in the council
asked students to perform a variety
cational Testing Service under con-
who think reading may be at risk,"
of informative, persuasive, and nam-
White
Black
Hispanic
tract to the Education Department,
warned Mr. Myera of the N.C.T.E. "As
rative writing tasks, such as de-
NAEP has for 20 years measured the
students turn to television and other
scribing a favorite story, trying to
Source: National Assessment of Educational Progress
performance of national samples of
visual media for information, the
persuade a legislator to cut or in-
students in a variety of subject
whole habit of reading in not as cen-
crease funds for the space program,
areas.
tral in the population as it once
and writing a ghost story.
taaks on the writing assessment, the
tasks was too short to allow them to
In January, the department re-
was."
As with the reading test, students
report notes that more than three-
develop adequate responses.
leased reports, based on data from
The NAMP report notes that, while
performed better as they progressed
fourths of the students at all grade
The results indicate that doubling
the 1988 assessment, showing
two-thirds of the 4th graders reported
through school, but overall perform-
levels were able to write at the
the amount of time allowed ap-
trends in reading and writing
taking books out of the library on a
ance for all students hovered around
"minimal" level on informative
peared to benefit some students,
achievement since the early 1970'a.
weekly basis, only 12 percent of the
the "minimal" level.
tasks, and between 80 percent and
particularly the better writers.
These data compared the results of a
high-school students checked books
These results generally reflect the
95 percent could perform at that lev-
These findings suggest that the
relatively smaller sample of stu-
out that often. Although library us-
amount and quality of writing in-
el on the narrative assignments.
added time "raised the celling" for
dents with those from previous
age tended to be related to proficien-
struction in school, the report notes.
But the results on the persuasive
pupils who know how to write well,
years on identical test items. (See
cy, it says, those among the small per-
Although those who reported using
tasks were much poorer, suggesting,
said Ms. Mullia.
Education Week, Jan. 17, 1990)
centage of students who took books
the writing process-planning, re-
the report says, that "many students
"For students who don't know how
The new findings, based on re-
from the library each day tended to
vising, and editing, as well as draft-
do not possess well-developed persus-
to accomplish a task, giving them 15
sults from a elightly larger sample of
perform less well than those who used
ing--outperformed those who used
sive-writing abilities-skills that are
minutes or all day is not going to
test-takers on a test developed for
the library less frequently.
such mathods less frequently, few
likely to be important to students in
help," she said. "But if they do know,
the 1988 assessment, also include
"It may be the case," the report sug-
students appeared to employ these
their personal and work lives."
the extra time does permit them to
information from background ques-
gests, "that students who are less Buo-
methods while taking the NAEP test.
tionnaires and teacher surveys, to
cessful readers are encouraged to take
When asked which instructional
Time To Write
do a better job."
Copies of "Learning Tb Head in
gain an understanding of factors
books out of the library as part of spe-
approach they used in teaching the
The assessment also included a
Our Nation's Schools," and "Learn-
that might influence performance.
cial instructional efforts to improve
subject, teachers of 52 percent of the
special study that measured the ef-
Ing To Write in Our Nation's
The reading study found, as ex-
their reading ability."
8th graders said they emphasized the
fects of additional time for writing
Schools," are available for $14 each
pected, that students' proficiency in-
Traditional' Instruction
writing process. But while research-
assignments. Critics have suggested
from the National Assessment of
creases as they progress through
ern consider the process approach and
that the 16 minutes allotted for stu-
Educational Progress, P.O. Box
school, and that the gap between
In analyzing beginning-reading
skilla-based methods incompatible,
dents to complete the NAEP writing
6710, Princeton, NJ. 08541-6710.
whites' and minoritles' scores nar-
instruction, one of the most conten-
80 percent of the students said they
rows over time.
tious issues in education, the study
were in classes that placed at least
However, it also found that the in-
found that most 4th-grade teachers
some emphesis on both.
50 MINUTES WITH SUPERB TEACHERS!
craase in performance from 8th
report that their pupils spend about
The study also determined that
grade to 12th grade was smaller
an hour a day on reading.
students write relatively seldom in
$ PTAPTS Mestines
than that recorded in the middle-
But much of that instruction in
class, and that what they write
4 Staff Development
school years, and that minorities'
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di Teacher's Colleges & Schools at Education
performance lagged considerably
the report. The vast majority of
Only 45 percent of the 8th-grade
e Television Stations Committed to Education
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teachers said their students
students had teachers who said they
grade, the report notes, "the average
learned to read with phonics or
had assigned at least four para-
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The report also confirms the wide-
In addition, although teachers of
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half the 4th graders tested said they
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297 parents
26% parents-nover-ck CK homework
60% parents never/rardy/linit ant. oftwatded
ME Dept.oflabor
Allen Cox
(207)289-2271
1990
non farm
wage $ salampl. 38,910
leatler 1, 730
textile 1,110
7.3%
traditional leather
& texile industries
Leriston, Auburn, (area)
& surrounding towns
COC lewiston Windson
Laurie
(207) 2249
783
10% of industry is mill
pron. of mayor's name
Labor (ME) Digest 5/91
38,400 non farm, wage of
Salary employment
(footware) 1,800
(textiles)
Ho- wan-ick
Stats
2862 grad.vate
446 attendees 4.9% dropout
rate
morethan
60 will not walk in 4yrs.
lout of 7
To
Date
Time
WHILE YOU WERE OUT
M
of
Phone
Area Code
Number
Extension
TELEPHONED
PLEASE CALL
CALLED TO SEE YOU
WILL CALL AGAIN
WANTS TO SEE YOU
URGENT
RETURNED YOUR CALL
Message Farwell
BRtokids BR to kids
Elem. School
& teachers
(207) United 41 grade
795-4110
Q&A
Susan Martin
[email protected]
Operator
AMPAD
EFFICIENCY®
23-023 CARBONLESS
McGroarty/ (Dooley-Blymire)
August 29, 1991
2:30 pm
[MAINE.TS]
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: LEWISTON HIGH SCHOOL, MAINE
SEPTEMBER 3, 1991
1:00 P.M.??
Thanks, all of you, for this warm welcome. It's my pleasure
to welcome all of you back to school -- to help my good friend
Governor Jock McKernan kick off Maine 2000 -- and to meet with
the new Lewiston High Class of '95. //
[Introductory acknowledgements: Congresswoman Snowe, Sec.
Alexander, etc.] [[Let me say to Lamar Alexander: I'll keep up
with my. computer lessons, but I absolutely refuse to write a
report on "What I did on my summer vacation." //]]
Barbara and I remember our own kids going off to school many
years ago. Now our kids are grown -- and we watch our grandkids,
10 of them, start a new school year just like each of you. //
When you're growing up, the new year doesn't begin January
1st -- it starts today. [[I saw that this morning at Farwell
Elementary School. still, some of those kindergartners seemed
disappointed I didn't bring along Arnold Schwarzenegger. ]] It
works that way for parents, too. Each new year wipes the slate
as clean as the blackboard. Kids look forward to seeing each
other and becoming cool. Parents embrace the eternal hope that
this year their children will come home with straight A's.
Education and expectation: the two go hand in hand. Your
world -- the whole world -- trembles with possibility. One day,
we scratch out our thoughts with paper and pen; the next, it
2
seems, we use computers and laser printers. One day, the Soviet
Union, bellicose and threatening, stares at us from across the
sea. But just last month, we saw 70 years of history swept away
in a single week. This is our world -- and if we are to thrive
in it, we must understand history, geography, math, science.
When challenges confront us, we must have what it takes to act.
That's the world waiting for the Class of 1995 -- the world
you will shape. Students, you feel the opening day jitters that
come with each school year. But we adults must make sure that we
also feel that sense of expectation -- that feeling that the
school doors open a new world of possibility, for us all.
The battle for the future begins right here. The ringing
school bell sounds an alarm -- a warning to all of us who care
about the state of American education: If we don't educate our
sons and daughters well, they will no longer enjoy the blessings
we take for granted.
Every day brings new evidence of crisis. The national
average for SAT math scores has fallen for four consecutive
years. Scores on the Verbal SAT have tumbled to the lowest level
ever. These sad statistics tell us what we already know: Our
schools don't work.
But how many of us demand better of our children, ourselves,
our schools? Not enough. Polls suggest too many parents and
students remain unconcerned -- unconvinced that the state of our
schools should worry them. Sure, they know something is wrong:
Ask them to grade the nation's schools, and not even one-fourth
3
will give our nation's schools an A or B. But ask them to grade
their own schools, and you get a different answer: three-fourths
grade their school as good -- even excellent.
We seem to think the crisis in American education plagues
some other city or state, or some other school across town --
anywhere but our school. Some of us just don't want to ask tough
questions and risk angering teachers and administrators. And
some of us seem to believe that while everything else in the
world changes, our schools shouldn't -- that what was good enough
for us should be good enough for our kids. //
We share responsibility for the state of every school and
each individual student -- here in Lewiston, and in a hundred
thousand schools in cities and towns all across America. If our
schools fail us, we can't blame Washington or Augusta: We must
blame ourselves for betraying our own children.
Almost two years ago, this nation's Governors and I
established six ambitious National Education Goals -- goals
posted today right here on the walls of this gym. In April, at
the White House I announced America 2000: a national education
strategy to move us forward toward those goals. //
We don't get a second chance to change the future. Today
it's time to seize the moment, and do great things. //
By the year 2000, we pledged to raise the national
graduation rate to at least 90 percent. In 1990, Lewiston High
graduated 95 percent of its class -- well above the national
average. Lewiston has cut its drop-out rate in half in four
4
short years. You've earned the right to be proud. But before
you get too comfortable, keep in mind that even at 95 percent
more than 20 of the freshmen seated behind me won't be walking
across that stage to get their diploma 4 years from now at the
Civic Center.
We've challenged ourselves to become first in the world in
math and science by the year 2000. Right now, we stand 13th.
Ranking first means more than engaging in some sort of
intellectual Olympics. Where we rank in the world matters here -
- and it should matter to you. Look at Lewiston. For most of
its history, Lewiston was a mill town, producing textiles and
shoes. Times change. Today, Lewiston's traditional industries
account for only 10 percent of the local economy -- and even the
so-called traditional industries have changed enormously. {Mayor
Howaniec tells me L.L. Bean has located its new telemarketing
center in Lewiston.}
Increasingly, the mothers and fathers of this freshman class
work in new companies employing new technologies. Some have even
started small businesses of their own. Still, we can't be
content to educate our children with today's businesses in mind.
By the time our kids graduate from high school or college or
graduate school, new industries will have sprouted up; our
economy will demand new skills.
This country was built by generations of Americans with
strong backs, and the will to work from sun up to sundown. As
citizens of the next century, today's 9th Graders will have to
5
use their minds -- to push forward the technological revolution
transforming the world. The pioneers of the next American
century must blaze new sorts of trails; they must explore the far
corners of a future governed as much by microwaves and lasers as
by coal or steel. The greatest resource for our future lies deep
in the recesses of our minds, and the key to our nation's success
lies with that old-fashioned treasure -- Yankee ingenuity. //
But let's face it: We won't make progress if we can't
measure success. By the year 2000, we must call on students at
grades 4, 8 and 12 to demonstrate their competence in five core
subjects. We'll have the first of these American Achievement
Tests in place for the 1993-94 school year. Each state must
develop its own means of measuring progress -- its own report
card -- and share the results.
That's crucial. We can't hide our heads in the sand. We
can't afford to treat our children's success or failure as if it
were a state secret. Each student and every parent deserves to
know whether they and their schools measure up to world-class
standards.
One of the key reasons for the poor performance we see today
comes from having asked too much of teachers -- expecting them to
act as social workers, part-time psychologists and family
counselors. At the same time, we've asked too little of our
students, of ourselves and our society.
We've shied away from asking our students to excel -- and
from holding them accountable when they don't. We figure, if
6
they get A's, they must be doing okay, even if an A no longer
means what it used to mean. As a nation, we sometimes seem more
worried about how our students feel than what they learn. That's
got to change. When students graduate, they deserve more than a
diploma. They deserve an education. //
But success by the year 2000 demands even more of us. Every
American child should start school ready to learn. Every
American adult should be literate -- and every American school
must be drug-free.
Here in Lewiston, some of today's new freshmen participated
in Head Start -- a proven program I want to open up to thousands
more pre-school children. In the battle against illegal drugs,
Lewiston schools have taken the lead through D.A.R.E. and other
drug prevention programs, beginning in elementary school. And
tonight, right here at Lewiston High, a new school year begins
for adults learning how to read, studying for their GED -- living
proof it is never too late to learn. //
Every community and every school must make those goals their
own -- as this state does today with Maine 2000. Let the start
of this new school year spark a revolution in American education.
So far, I've spoken about our schools -- about the
revolution in American education that must take place within
these walls. But the revolution can neither begin nor end here.
Not even the best school can ever be good enough.
Let me use a "word problem" to show you why. Assume a child
goes to school from Kindergarten to 12th grade, and never misses
7
a day. Subtract summers and weekends -- all the hours before and
after school. How much time do our children spend in classrooms?
The answer may surprise you. It's nine-percent; one-
eleventh of their time. They spend the rest of their lives
elsewhere -- at home, playing with friends, in the shopping mall.
[[Now, maybe parents won't find the fact our kids spend 91
percent of their time outside the classroom too hard to believe -
- especially when it seems like we spend 50 percent of our time
nagging our kids to clean their rooms.]]
But what happens in that 91 percent makes all the difference
in the world. We can't blame the schools alone for that dismal
drop in SAT verbal scores. The drop means that we haven't taken
the time to read to our kids -- to talk with them -- to teach
them the arts of communication -- how to think, how to write and
speak clearly.
Mom and Dad: Don't make the mistake of thinking your kids
only learn from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. You are -- and always
will be -- your sons' and daughters' first teachers. //
Here's another shocking number: The average parent spends
15 minutes a day -- 15 minutes -- in conversation with their
child. Most people spend that much time on coffee break.
The freshman here today may think they're a bit old to have
their homework checked. And maybe as parents -- certainly this
President will admit -- we can't keep up with the latest in
computer technology. But that doesn't mean we can't help. The
Class of '95 is old enough to sit down, read a newspaper, and
8
talk with their parents about what's going on in the world, to
take interests, opinions, and ideas seriously. In exchange, they
can use those speaking and thinking skills to teach mom and dad
how to use the computer. //
What happens at home matters. When our kids come home from
school, do they pick up a book -- or do they sit glued to the
tube watching music videos? Recent studies prove something we
all know: that television doesn't stimulate our brains; it
sedates us, soothes us -- and does not challenge us.
Still, the future of American education depends on more than
what happens in the classroom or around the kitchen table. Our
communities and businesses must support educational values, too.
So ask yourselves: In our communities, do we value
education and intellect? In the working world, do we reward
employees who want to improve themselves -- do employers
encourage workers to go back to school, to learn new skills?
Every member of the community can play a role in this
revolution. No: every member of the community must play a role.
So parents: Don't be a stranger in your child's school.
Visit the classroom. Talk to the principal. Make it your
business to find out whether your child's school is drug-free.
Talk to your school board about school choice -- about the
curriculum -- about ways to put your schools and their resources
to use year round. And don't ever take no for an answer when you
want to visit and ask questions. //
9
You don't have to have kids in school to have a stake in
what happens in the classroom. For the older folks among us,
don't complain about "kids today" -- or that the neighborhood
"isn't what it used to be." Get involved. Go into your schools
-- get active in the community -- see what you can do to help.
The same goes for local business leaders. Get involved --
not just in word, but in deed. You can think of it as community
service -- giving something back to the community your company
calls home. or, think of it in terms of self-interest and sound
business -- improving the schools to cultivate the kind of future
employees your company needs to keep ahead. //
But above all, get moving. Get involved. That's the idea
behind what I call America 2000 Communities -- places that demand
that schools play a central role in community life.
We need that kind of revolutionary attitude to reform our
schools -- here in Lewiston and across the country. We must
ignite a renaissance in American education. We must make this
Nation every bit the leader in the Century ahead that it has been
since 1776.
All revolutions require principles, ideals and hopes. Start
with the sense of possibility you feel today, and build on it.
And by all means: Do not rest until we win this revolution. ///
Once again, my thanks to you for this warm welcome -- and
may God bless the United States of America.
# # #
Fred Marino, Dir. of PA. CollegeBoards
1990 — NAEP put out report on reading
and writing
confirmed students at all gr. levels
NYT two 8/28 days ago Bus-Sxn
Lowtestsores N
NAEP
Teens &TV Newsweek lastyr.
summer/fall isone
message should be startreading
good triwatching requires
workplace doesn't require
good writing reading skills
Scott Hamilton - (esleys office John from Burkett
95% is incorrect
grad.rate
cut the line 7 misleading
they mis calculated
lew. High has made great progress
cut do rate in/2in4 yrs.
don't mention grad. rate.
WASHINGTON TIMES, Aug. 27, 1991
p.-1
"Too much TV' blamed as
By Carol Innerst
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Scores for public schools were
down to 892, four points below the
More bad news about the aca-
demic abilities of American stu-
national average. Religious schools
SATs drop
dents came yesterday from the
held steady at 909, 13 points above
Scholastic Aptitude Test results.
average. Independent private
The English language skills of
schools showed a two-point rise to
high school seniors sank to an all-
bal and 496 math this year. The aver-
994, almost 100 points above the na-
time low and math scores took their
age for women was 418 verbal and
tional average.
first dip since 1980, College Board
453 math. Over 15 years, men
officials said in releasing the 1991
Private schools have consistently
dropped seven points, women 12 in
SAT scores.
outperformed public ones since
verbal abilities. In math for that pe-
"We have a national problem of too
1987, when the College Board began
riod, women gained seven points and
much TV and too many videos that
reporting scores by type of school.
men stayed the same.
have decreased the amount of time
The gap between pupils who do
Scores in Maryland and Virginia
spent reading," said College Board
well on the test - above 600 points
dropped four and five points, respec-
President Donald M. Stewart.
on each section — and those who do
tively. Maryland was above the na-
He was especially disturbed by
poorly - below 400- is widening, a
tional average and Virginia below.
the poor verbal showing, down two
trend Mr. Stewart called "disturb-
Combined scores for the District's
ing."
points this year to an all-time low of
public and private schools dipped 10
422 out of a possible 800. He put
Typically just 7 percent of test
points and were well below the na-
some of the blame on widespread
takers score above 600 on the verbal
tional average. Public schools pulled
use of television and videos in class-
section of the test, and 17 percent
the scores down, registering 334 in
rooms, which he said detracts from
score that high on the math portion.
verbal and 368 in math.
the ability of students to read and
"Not enough students are meet-
College Board officials called at-
analyze.
jing high standards," he said. "I fear
tention to an oddity: Grades are go-
"Schools are demanding much
twe could evolve into a nation with
ing up while SAT scores are declin-
less reading homework," he said.
a small, 20 percent educational elite
ing.
But the news about math skills
and the rest far less prepared for the
"Usually the more students study
wasn't good either, and caught the
world of college or the world of
and the better the grades, scores go
College Board by surprise.
work."
up," said researcher Bob Cameron.
Math scores dipped two points, to
Board officials noted that a "less
Pupils who took the SAT had a B
lelite" group of students is taking the
average.
474 out of 800.
SAT than in the past, including more
Eight percent of the test takers
Test takers had a combined aver-
"lower-class whites" whose parents
said their first language was not
age of 896 out of 1,600, the lowest
did not attend college.
English, and 8 percent said they
score since 1983, when the "Nation
The College Board rejects crit-
learned English and another lan-
at Risk" report ushered in a new era
icism that the SAT has a sex or cul-
guage at the same time. Board of-
of school reform.
tural bias and maintains that aca-
ficials speculated that could have
"I was somewhat taken aback,"
demic preparation, especially in
caused the lower verbal scores.
Mr. Stewart said. We thought we
high-level mathematics courses, ac-
Commenting on the declining
had stablized math."
counts for the differences in test
scores, Education Secretary Lamar
Teachers, too, came in for a share
scores between the sexes and among
Alexander said in a prepared state-
of the blame.
ethnic minorities. Asian-Americans
ment: "The simple fact is that even
The SATs of prospective teachers
and males take the most math and
our best students generally don't
(406 verbal and 441 math) remain
'score highest.
know enough and can't do enough to
among the lowest of any career
Asian-Americans, with a com-
assure success in tomorrow's world."
group and significantly below na-
bined score of 941, including 530 in
"It's not a fluke," said Chester E.
tional averages, he said.
math, led all ethnic groups, followed
Finn Jr., a professor of education and
"We know we have a terrible prob-
by whites at 930. Since 1976, Asian-
public policy at Vanderbilt Univer-
Americans gained 12 points on the
sity and a member of the National
lem of [not] having teachers qual-
màth section and lost three in the
Assessment Governing Board. "It's
ified in the courses they teach," he
verbal area. In those 15 years, whites
further evidence of what we already
said. "They are underprepared in
'lost 10 points in verbal and four in
know."
content areas."
math.
With new National Assessment of
This year, 1.3 million high school
There was some good news: the
students took the SAT. A record 28
gains by minorities. Over 15 years,
Educational Progress results com-
percent were minorities. Eighty-two
test scores by blacks were up 50
ing out next month, Mr. Finn said
percent of them were enrolled in
points, Mexican-Americans 23 and
that "the few who want to take happy
public schools, 13 percent in reli-
American Indians 22. But those mi-
pills had better look elsewhere."
gious schools and 5 percent in in-
norities remain far below the na-
dependent private schools.
tional average. Despite a 19-point
verbal gain since 1976, the verbal
College Board
average for blacks is' only 351 and
their math average is 385 - lowest
Pres. Donald Stewart
of any of the ethnic groups.
The average for men was 426 ver-
212-713-8000
Dr. Keith Milky (212) 496 5300
VP Research at CTW
Dr. Jennings Bryant
(205)348-000
8654
NATAT
Dr-call for topic
(207) 795-4110
Susan Martin
/
Head Start
2
3
4
Boston Museum ofSci. kits
nature sanct. env. pro.
math summerpro. (staff)
bought mash & sci. materials
at the
5
High School learning programs for adults
6
DARE
self-esteem program
conflict resolution program
Farwell Phantoms
FireAlarm goes off randomly
beginning conf-res, program
building renovations (new roof)
Lewiston Chamber of Commerce (207) 783-2249
Laurie Windsor
backgrounds of students
both parents work?
make-up of town
industry, business
any community learning centers
Lewiston,
community it rich Franco-American tradition
mill industry (shoe/textile)
1970's- dramatic transformation
strong family values
recommitting to the value of educ.
community pulled together for the
So.
Lewiston-Auburn - collede of U f ME
5 higher ed. colleges in Lewiston area
strong committent to seeing
ed. as important
trying to lower dropout rate
get more cids to school
active Jr. Ach. program
business people mentor
w/ redding programs
WorkAdvantage bus/students help control #of
hours stud-work after school. Bus.
Stud. school work together
Veractive adult education programs
nit-pick
McGroarty/ (Dooley-Blymire)
August 29, 1991
8:30 am
[MAINE. ED]
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: LEWISTON HIGH SCHOOL
LEWISTON, MAINE
SEPTEMBER 3, 1991
1:00 P.M. ??
Thanks, all of you, for this warm welcome. It's my pleasure
to welcome all of you back to school -- to help my good friend
Governor Jock McKernan kick off Maine 2000 __ and to meet with
School
the new Lewiston High Class of '95. //
[Introductory acknowledgements: Congresswoman Snow, Sec.
Alexander, etc.] [[Let me say to Lamar Alexander: I'll keep up
with my computer lessons, but I will not write a report on "What
I did on my summer vacation." //]]
Barbara and I remember our own kids going off to school many
years ago. Now our kids are grown -- it's the grandkids, {x} of
them, starting a new school year just like each of you. //
When you're growing up, the new year doesn't begin January
1st -- it starts today. [[I saw that this morning at Farwell
Elementary School. Still, some of those kindergarteners seemed
disappointed I didn't bring along Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Freshmen are more sophisticated -- but look closely, and you'll
see the telltale signs of excitement. ]] Each new year wipes the
slate as clean as the blackboard. Every kid has a shot at
straight A's -- all you have to do is keep them.
As adults, we've got to capture that same sense of
expectation -- that feeling that the school doors open onto a new
2
world of possibility. Because the fact is, we face a challenge
that shapes our future. The ringing of the school bell sounds an
alarm -- a warning to all of us who care about the state of
American education.
Every day brings new evidence of the crisis we confront.
Take the latest SAT scores -- the ones that show the national
average for math falling for the fourth straight year. Scores on
the Verbal SAT dropped again -- to the lowest level ever. These
sad statistics tell us what we already know: our schools don't
work. //
And yet, in the face of this crisis, I see poll evidence
that suggests too many parents and students remain unconcerned -
- unconvinced that the state of our schools should worry them.
Sure, they're aware something is wrong: Ask them to grade the
nation's schools, and not even 1/4 will give them an A or B. But
ask them to grade their own school, and you get a different
answer: 3/4 grade their school as good -- even excellent.
We seem to think the crisis in American education plagues
some other city or state, or some other school across town --
anywhere but our school. It's time we get our heads out of the
sand -- shake off our complacency. Our schools are failing us -
- not just our students or parents, but society as a whole. //
What's at stake goes beyond some abstract notion of the
state of American education. This crisis threatens the state of
every school and each individual student -- here in Lewiston, and
in a hundred thousand schools in cities and towns all across
3
America. What's at stake is what kind of country this will be -
- not tomorrow, but ten years from now. Not next week, but for
the next generation. //
Almost two years ago, this nation's Governors and I
established six ambitious National Education Goals -- goals
posted today right here on the walls of this gym. In April, at
the White House I announced America 2000: a national education
strategy to move us forward toward those goals. //
Today, those goals -- and the target date for reaching them
-- may seem remote. But the nine years between now and the new
century ahead are a world of opportunity. You don't get a second
chance to change the future. //
By the year 2000, we pledged to raise the national
graduation rate to at least 90%. In 1990, Lewiston High
graduated 95% of its class -- well above the national average.
Lewiston has cut its drop-out rate in half in four short years.
You've earned the right to be proud. But before you get too
comfortable, keep in mind that even at 95% {more than 20} of the
freshmen seated behind me won't be walking across that stage to
get their diploma 4 years from now at the Civic Center. //
By the year 2000, we've challenged ourselves to become first
in the world in math and science. Right now, we stand 13th --
behind {country}. Maine ranks {xx} among the 50 states.
Ranking first means more than engaging in some sort of
intellectual Olympics. Where we rank in the. world matters here -
- and it should matter to you. Think of the world we live in:
4
The daily discoveries in science. The political upheavals that
change the face of nations. Think of the Soviet Union -- the way
we saw 70 years of history swept away in seven days of whirlwind
change.
Just as surely, the world changes Lewiston. For most of its
history, Lewiston was a mill town, producing textiles and shoes.
Times change -- today, Lewiston's traditional industries account
for only 10% of the local economy. Increasingly, the mothers and
fathers of this freshman class work in new companies employing
new technologies. Some have even started small businesses of
their own.
This country was built by generations of Americans with
strong backs, and the will to work from sun up to sundown. As
citizens of the next century, today's 9th Graders will be called
on to work with their minds -- to push forward the technological
revolution transforming the world. The pioneers of the next
American century must be trail-blazers of a different sort,
equipped to explore the far corners of the future -- and the
deepest recesses of the human mind. //
Sometimes we think of education reform as a return to the
schools of an earlier era. But the best schools of the 1950's
wouldn't pass the test in 1991. And the very best schools right
now won't be good enough for the year 2000 -- for the new century
and new world beyond.
But we won't make progress if we can't measure success. By
the year 2000, we must call on students at grades 4, 8 and 12 to
5
demonstrate their competence in five core subjects. We'll have
the first of these American Achievement Tests in place for the
1993-94 school year. Each state has to develop its own means of
measuring progress -- its own report card -- and share the
results. Our students' success or failure shouldn't be a state
secret. Each student and every parent deserves to know whether
they and their schools measure up to world-class standards.
One of the key reasons for the poor performance we see today
comes from having asked too much of teachers --- expecting them to
act as social workers, part-time psychologists and family
counselors. At the same time, we've asked too little of our
students, of ourselves and our society. We've shied away from
asking our students to excel -- and holding them accountable when
they don't. We've allowed grades to inflate and standards to
crumble. We've worried more about how our students feel than
what they learn. That's got to change. When a student
graduates, he deserves to leave school with more than self-
esteem. He deserves an education. //
But success by the year 2000 demands even more of us. Every
American child should start school ready to learn. Every
American adult should be literate -- and every American school
must be drug-free.
Here in Lewiston, some of today's new freshmen got their
start in school in Head Start -- a proven program I want to open
up to thousands more pre-school children. In the battle against
illegal drugs, Lewiston schools have taken the lead through
6
D.A.R.E. and other drug prevention programs, beginning in
elementary school. And right here at Lewiston High, after the
high schoolers go home, adults come into your classrooms to learn
to read, and to study for their GED -- living proof it is never
too late to learn. //
Every community and every school must make those goals their
own -- as this state does today with Maine 2000. Let the start
of this new school year spark a revolution in American education.
So far, I've spoken about our schools -- about the
revolution in American education that must take place within
these walls. But the fact is, the revolution can't stop here.
Even the best school can never be good enough.
Let me use a "word problem" to show you why. Assume a child
goes to school from Kindergarten to 12th grade, and never misses
a day. Subtract summers and weekends -- all the hours before and
after school. What you're left with is 9%: that's the small
fraction of their lives our children spend in school.
[ [Now, maybe parents won't find the fact our kids spend 91%
of their time outside the classroom too hard to believe --
especially when it seems like we spend 50% of our time nagging
our kids to clean their rooms. ]]
But what happens in that 91% makes all the difference in the
world. When we see that dismal drop in SAT verbal scores, it
points beyond a failure in the school. It means we're not taking
the time to read to our kids -- to talk with them -- to teach
them the arts of communication, how to think in words.
7
The first lesson of the 91% must be learned by parents. Mom
and Dad: Don't make the mistake of thinking your kids only learn
from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. You are -- and always will be --
your sons' and daughters' first teachers. //
The average parent spends 15 minutes a day -- 15 minutes --
in conversation with their child. Most people spend that much
time on coffee break. The freshman here today may think they're
a bit old to have their homework checked. And maybe as parents -
- certainly this President will admit -- our calculus and
computer skills may not be state-of-the-art. Then again, the
Class of '95 is old enough to sit down and watch the evening news
with their parents -- to talk about what's going on in the world,
to take interests, opinions, and ideas seriously. //
What happens at home matters. When our kids come home from
school, do they ever pick up a book -- or do they sit glued to
the tube watching music videos? But the future of American
education depends on more than what happens in the classroom or
around the kitchen table. In our communities, do we value
education and intellect? In the working world, do we reward
employees who want to improve themselves -- do employers
encourage workers to go back to school, to learn new skills?
Every member of the community can play a role in this
revolution. First, let me say to parents: Don't be a stranger
in your child's school. Visit the classroom. Talk to the
principal. Make it your business to find out whether your
child's school is drug-free. Talk to your school board about
8
school choice -- about the curriculum -- about ways to put your
schools and their resources to use year round.
For the older folks among us, don't complain about "kids
today" -- or that the neighborhood "isn't what it used to be."
Get involved. Go into your schools -- get active in the
community -- see what you can do to help.
The same goes for local business leaders. Think of it as
community service -- giving something back to the community your
company calls home. Or, think of it in terms of self-interest
and sound business -- improving the schools to cultivate the kind
of future employees your company needs to keep ahead. //
But above all, get involved. That's the idea behind what I
call America 2000 Communities -- places that put the school at
the center of community life. That's the revolutionary new
attitude that will reform our schools -- here in Lewiston and
across the country. That's the idea that will spark an American
renaissance in education -- a transformation that will make this
Nation every bit the leader in the Century ahead that it has been
since 1776.
Start with the sense of possibility you feel today -- and do
not rest until this revolution is won. ///
Once again, my thanks to you for this warm welcome -- and
may God bless the United States of America.
# # #
AUG 27 '91 15:26 LRVC
LEWISTON HIGH SCHOOL
RICHARD M. SYKES
Principal
156 East Avenue
JOHN G. BOUCHLES
Lewiston, Maine 04240
Assistant Principal
DR. EDWARD DWYER. JR.
207-784-2371
Assistant Principal
207/795-4190
KENNETH C. JORDAN lind
ROGER LACHAPELLE
Assistant Principal
Vocational Director
TO:
Peggy Dooley, White House
FROM: Richard M. Sykes, Principal
goals
RE:
High School & Regional Technical Center Profile
DATE: August 27, 1991
COMMUNITY
Heats to right
Lewiston is one of Maine's largest cities with a population of 45,000 people. Our twin
city is Auburn with a population of 25,000. Lewiston and Auburn have traditionally been
associated with the shoe and textile industries, but our economy has diversified to a point
that it is estimated that less than 10% of the work force is currently employed by these
traditional industries. The workforce has been quick to adapt to new industrial processes
based upon small businesses and entrepreneurs. The median family income is comparatively
low.
Lewiston has one private high school and is also home to Bates College, a highly regarded
liberal arts college. The following post-secondary schools are also close by: Central
Maine Medical Center School of Nursing; Mid-State Business School; University of Maine at
Aguusta, Lewiston-Auburm Division; University of Maine-Lewiston; and Central Maine
Technical College.
SCHOOL CHARACTERISTICS
Lewiston High School& Regional Technical Center is one of the largest high schools in the
state with a student population of 1,465. Grades 9 through 12 are maintained in a two-
semester school year. The professional staff numbers 133. The curriculum offerings are
diversified and comprehensive in nature. The Lewiston Regional Technical Center is housed
in the high school complex and accepts students from the following high schools: Edward
Little High School, Auburn; Leavitt Area High School, Turner; Lewiston High School,
Lewiston; Lisbon High School, Lisbon; Oak Hill High School, Sabattus; and Monmouth
Academy, Monmouth. The Vocational school offers 23 programs with most courses following a
two-year sequence.
PROFILE
Lewiston High School is approved and accredited by the New England Association of Colleges
nd Secondary Schools and by the Maine State Department of Education.
GRADING SYSTEM
, 100 B=85 to 92 C=76 to 84 D=70-75 F-Below 70
CLASS is computed after 6 semesters and updated after the 7th semester.
LASS is not weighted.
"The Lewiston School Department insures equal emoioyment/educational
opportunities: affirmative action regardless of rece. sex color. national
origin. markal status. religion. age. or handicab.
Lewiston High School Profile
Page2 August 27, 1991
GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS
4 credits in English, 1 credit in U.S. History, 1 credit in
American Government, 2 Credits in Mathematics, 2 credits in Science, 1 credit in Physical
Education, 1/2 credit in Health, Proficiency in Maine Studies and Computers. A total of 18
credits is required to graduate.
GRADUATING CLASS STATISTICS
Class of 1991
Students Attending
Students Attending
4-Year College
2-Year College
37.4%
9.7%
Total going on to school 47.1%
DROP OUT RATE AS REPORTED BY THE MAINE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
1986-87
11.3%
87-88
9.9%
88-89
7.4%
89-90
4.93%
90-91
not available
The staff at Lewiston High School has worked hard to reduce the dropout rate by providing a
variety of educational programs and services. Recent initiatives include:
RECENT EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES
1. An Air Force JROTC program was started in 1989/90.
2. An infant care program provides baby sitting services for teenage parents wishing
to complete their diploma.
3. Alternative education programs have begun both in the academic and vocational
curriculum.
4. A cooperative agreement with local businesses (entitled WorkAdvantage) which
seeks to increase communication and understanding between employees and their
student employees. The WorkAdvantage program has been adopted by the Maine
Chamber of Commerce and the Maine Secondary School Principals' Association.
5. The addition of a Law Occupations program at Lewiston Regional Technical Center.
6. An Outreach Program to assist handicapped students to be successful in the
mainstream physical education classrooms.
7. The addition of a Living Skills program to service trainably handicapped
students.
8. Expanded athletic and extra curricular activities for all students.
9. Seven Advanced Placement offerings at the high school. An agreement with Bates
College to have high school students take a Bates College course tuition free.
Extended Page
1.1
Lewiston High School Profile
Page3 August 27, 1991
10. Regional Gifted and Talented programs in writing, math, and science.
11. A career centered established as part of the Guidance curriculum.
Please advise if additional information is necessary.