which way for america educationn ? ernest l. boyer...

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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

SREBOARD, 6/21/8 5, mge 2

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.


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";


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.


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


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.


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


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


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


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


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.


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.


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.


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


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.


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.


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.


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.


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


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


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