\OCO Q&OD 3\2JO
WHICH WAY FOR AMERICAN EDUCATION?
Ernest L. Boyer President
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
1985 Annual Meeting Southern Regional Education Board
The Greenbrier Hotel White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia
June 21, 1985
SREBOARD, 6/21/85, mge
Remarks by Dr. Ernest L. Boyer
Annual Meeting of the Southern Regional Education Board
I am delighted to participate in this annual meeting of the
Southern Regional Education Board.
o SREB is one of the most distinguished educational
associations in the nation and
o for years I've admired the quality and integrity of your
wor k.
I'm also pleased to be with Governors who have led the push for
excellence in the nation.
o Some of the most courageous, clear-headed actions have
come from states assembled in this room and
o I'd like to thank you for your leadership and vision.
As everyone in this room surely knows
o it's been two years and two months
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o since the National Commission said "the nation was at
risk," and
o declared that, in academic matters, we had unilaterally
disarmed.
Since that hyperbole hit the headlines we've had one of the most
o energetic education chapters in the nation's history.
o We've had a rising tide of national reports,
o blue ribbon committees have been named in a dozen or more
states, and
o education reform bills have popped up from Maine to
California.
Since September 1983, I've traveled to almost every state and
I've been enormously encouraged by the
o sympathetic constructive attitude that I've
encountered.
o Americans j3o care deeply about the quality of the
nation's schools.
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o We are eager to think constructively about the issues.
Therefore, I propose two cheers for the current push for school
renewal and reform.
But it's also clear that
o the push for excellence has just begun.
o And, this evening, I'd like to focus on four priorities
that I believe are absolutely crucial.
The first priority is the centrality of language.
During our study of the American high school we read the
education laws in all 50 states.
o They ranged form ridiculously detailed
o to hopelessly obscure.
The state of California said that
o "all children should be taught kindness to domestic
pets";
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Maine,
o "all schools should teach morality for not less than 1/2
hour every week";
Wisconsin,
o "all children should learn about the vitamin content and
the nutritional value of dairy products."
I became convinced that we have a hopeless confusion over goals
o and educators have been unwilling to state precisely just
what it is the schools are trying to accomplish.
It's for that reason that the first goal of education is the
mastery of language.
o Language, we say, is nut just another subject, it's the
means by which all other subjects are pursued.
o We also say that, in the United States, English is the
first language to be taught.
o It's a cruel hoax to deny any child the skill he needs to
socially and educationally succeed.
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Language study should begin first day of school
o and every student should be regularly assessed to make
sure sufficient progress has been made.
Here I should pause to pay tribute to my first grade teacher.
o 100 years
o Learn to read
Miss Rice taught me something much more fundamental—
o language is the centerpiece of learning.
Speaking of Miss Rice I have one further point to make.
o Today the focus is on High School.
o But I'm convinced the early years are transcendentally
more important.
Lewis Thomas wrote on one occasion that "childhood is for
language."
o If we would give as much status to first grade teachers as we do to full professors
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o I'm convinced education in this nation would dramatically
improve.
In the Carnegie Report we also give top priority to writing
o which is the most important and most neglected language
skill.
During our school visits we discovered that students can go for
days and never be asked to put their thoughts on paper.
o We use "T"s and nF"s and check marks—
o which even a chimpanzee can be trained to do.
We stress the written word because it's through clear writing
that clear thinking can be taught.
How many times have you said I know exactly what I think, but
when you write it you discover that instead of brilliance there
is only mush.
We say in our report that every student should
o have a writing assessment test when he goes to high school.
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o And a writing course should be required of all
students.
o Class size should be limited so the students writing can
be carefully critiqued.
Many English teachers have 130 students in a single day,
o and if they give a writing assignment, they've just blown
another weekend.
I also suggest that every student before he or she graduates from
high school should be asked to write an essay on a consequential
issue.
o And, if after 12 years of formal education students
cannot express themselves with clarity and conviction, I
suggest we close the schools and start again.
This brings me to the second priority.
I'm convinced, to achieve excellence we need a core of common
learning for all students.
In addition to a common language, students also need some common knowledge
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o so we can communicate with one another
o and give cohesion to the culture.
About 12 years ago, while I was Chancellor in New York, one a
dreary Monday morning, I was shuffling, rather mindlessly,
through a pile of 3rd class mail that I kept conveniently on the
corner of my desk (illusion of being busy).
o Stanford Student Daily
o Faculty require a course in Western civilization
o Editorial: Requirement—Illiberal Act
How Dare they impose uniform standards on nonuniform
people
Frankly I was startled by that statement.
Startled that one of the nation's most gifted students,
o after 14 or 15 years of formal education,
had not learned that
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o while we are nonuniform we still have some things in
common.
He had not discovered that
while we live in our own separate worlds we still are
dependent on each other.
For years we've celebrated individualism in the nation's
schools.
We've expanded the electives
and in the process students have become shockingly ignorant
about our tradition of the larger world.
Some years ago, 40 percent of high school students thought Golda Meir,
not Anwar Sadat, was president of Egypt.
Last year only a small percent knew that the headquarters of
the Amalon were in Brazil.
And last year 40 percent of community college students in
California
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o could not locate either Iran or El Salvador on a map.
One hundred and fifty years ago the French philosopher,
Alexis de Touqueville, suggested that religion and politics
sustain our sense of community in America.
But de Touqueville also warned that "individualism"
could isolate us from each other.
In the Carnegie Report we suggest that two thirds of the high
school should be a core curriculum so students can
become civically literate and discover their connections.
This curriculum includes:
o the mastery of language
o a sense of our shared history o our civic institutions
o our connection to the natural world o humanities and the arts
These should be required of all students,
not to prepare them to go to college
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but to help them understand our world.
Dr. Lewis Thomas, of the Sloan-Kettering Center, said on one occas ion:
o If this century does not slip forever through our fingers
it will be because learning will have directed us away
from our "splintered dumbness" and will have helped us
focus on our common goals.
I'm suggesting that educators from the nation's colleges and
schools should come together to focus—not on more units—but on
education that will prepare students to understand the world they
will inherit.
This brings me to priority number three. I'm convinced that to
achieve excellence we must more effectively evaluate the
students.
In America
we want local control
but we also want state and national results.
And we have never figured out a way to reconcile the two.
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Still we spend 135 billion dollars every year on public
education.
And, I'm convinced we must demonstrate that the system is
succeeding.
Today we use the SAT, and that's a terrible way to evaluate the
schools.
The SAT was first used in 1926 to measure the "aptitude" of
students
and to predict their success in college.
The test was to be "teacher proof"
and "school proof"
and student performance was to be unrelated to the quality of
education.
Sixty years have passed and
a funny thing happened on the way to the future.
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We've become much less confident about measuring the innate
ability of students
and we now use the SAT to measure schools.
Even though no one on earth knows how
o the curriculum and
o the SAT are connected.
Last fall, when the SAT rose
one point on the verbal section,
three points on the math,
there were front page headlines all across the country.
Education Secretary Bell said the rise reflected
"The movement toward excellence that was sweeping the
nation"
And a College Board official proclaimed that:
We seem to have turned the corner in American education.
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And there's another problem:
State by state comparisons are made even though the
percentage of students taking the SAT differs dramatically
from one state to another.
One year ago—the Department of Education put up wall charts
listing every state, even though the percentage of high school
graduates taking the test in New York is 61 percent, while in
Iowa it's only 3 percent.
What we need is a closer connection between
What we teach and
What we test
And this is one of
the most important
and most neglected issues in the schools
And if educators can't solve the problem, I'm convinced it will
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mandated from outside.
This brings me to priority number 4.
In the end quality of education means quality in teaching.
And the status of teachers in this nation is the most
important issue we confront.
The harsh truth is that
o while Americans have always had a love affair with
education at the same time
o we have been enormously ambivalent about the teachers.
Dan Lortie of the University of Chicago put it simply when he
wrote:
o Teaching in this country is at once both honored and
disdained, it's praised as dedicated service, it's lampooned as easy work.
o Our real regard for teachers, Lortie said, has never
matched professed regard.
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Today we expect teachers to do what our homes and churches and
communities have not been able to accomplish. They are called
upon not only to teach the basics,
o but also to monitor the playground,
o police for drugs,
o reduce teenage pregnancy,
o teach students how to drive
o and eliminate graffiti.
And, if teachers fall short anywhere along the line, we condemn
them for not meeting our idealized expectations.
0 0 0 0
The sobering truth is that teaching in the nation is imperiled.
o In just fifteen years, from 1969 to 1984, the number of
parents who said they would "like to have a child of theirs become a teacher" dropped from 75 to 48 percent.
o Last year less than four percent of the nation's college
freshmen said teaching was their vocational preference—
no higher than it was ten years ago.
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o And in 1981, over one-third of the teachers in public
schools said they would not become teachers if they could
start again—up from one-fifth in the mid-1970s.
Especially disturbing is the fact that good teachers are not
rewarded for their work.
o In 1982 the average minimum salary for a teacher was
$12,700—it's still less than $15,000 even after all the
talk about reform. And that's the "low" for ten major
occupations cited.
Even so, we discovered during our own study that the basic
problem is not salaries and not merit pay but the working
conditions of the teacher,
o too many students
o too much paper work
o too many mindless interruptions
And we concluded that the P.A. system is a symbol of all that's gone wrong with public education.
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When I was United States Commissioner of Education, I called
together 20 high school students from around the country.
o We spent the day talking about schools and how they
should improve.
o Near the end, I asked the students to grade the teachers
they had had—from A to F.
o When everyone had responded, we ended with an above
average grade—a solid "B" at least.
o All students said that they had at least one teacher who
was "absolutely tops."
Then I asked the crucial question:
a teacher?" Not one hand went up! just not the thing to do."
"How many of you ever thanked
As one student put it, "It's
o These high school students had been with teachers every
day for years and yet not once, even after an exciting
session, did a student stop by the teacher's desk or drop
a note to say "Thank you very much.
There are poor teachers to be sure. And the teaching profession
must begin to regulate itself. One poor teacher in the classroom
is one too many.
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o But it's also true that no profession is made healthy by
focusing only on what's bad.
The simple truth is that if we want "better schooling" in this
nation we don't need more rules and regulations. We need more
teacher recognition.
But thank you's are not enough.
In the Carnegie Report
we call for a five year teacher education program and
a statewide certification that breaks the cozy connection
between the college and the credited.
We call for a career ladder in which teachers
o move from associate teacher
o to full teacher
o to senior teacher
And we call for merit pay to match the recognition
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We call for an alternate certification program that would allow
outstanding adults to go into teaching without going back to a
school of education.
(New Jersey example)
And we also call for a program to recruit outstanding teachers.
We suggest that every state have a College Scholarship Program,
in which the top ten percent of high school students would get
full scholarships,
if they teach at least three years in the public schools.
We recruit students in the Peace Corps. Is it unthinkable that
we ask the brightest and the best to give service here at home.
In the end, teachers are the solution not the problem. And
building the profession must be priority number 1.
Here then is my conclusion:
This is a special time for American education
I'm convinced we have the best opportunity we will have in
this century to improve the nation's schools
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To achieve this goal I suggest that
o we clarify the goals and give top priority to language
o we focus on the early years
o Have a clearly defined curriculum for all students
o Link testing to what we teach
o and have less mandates and more recognition for the
teachers