From the October 9, 1996 Daily Report Card:
-> *6   IS THERE AN EDUCATIONAL CRISIS?:  TWO OPINIONS
->    INSIGHT Magazine asked two professors to answer the
-> question:  "Is the so-called educational crisis a myth created by
-> conservatives?"  David Berliner, professor of education at
-> Arizona State and Laurence Steinberg, professor of psychology at
-> Temple U offered opposing views.
->    Berliner believes that conservatives have blown out of
-> proportion the problems that ail public schools.  He claims that
-> critics of public education have complained for the past 50 years
-> about the same issues:  students cannot write essays or solve
-> math problems, and because of low achievement, the nation's
-> economy is on a downward spiral.  These are the same complaints
-> "trotted out every few years by an older generation unhappy with its
-> youth," he writes.
->    A quick check of the facts proves them wrong, according to
-> Berliner.  He point out that although the average SAT score has
-> declined, it still is a "triumph for American education," because
-> more students of disadvantaged backgrounds are taking the test. He
-> also writes that the SAT is not meant to be interpreted as an
-> achievement test, only as an indicator of success during the
-> first year of college.  Berliner charges that former U.S. Ed Sec
-> William Bennett is misinformed when he uses the SAT "as if it
-> measured school achievement ... "  Berliner:  "The change in the
-> types of people who took the SAT accounted for most of the
-> decline in scores that began in 1963."
->    A deterioration of social conditions is the culprit for any
-> bulging in the ranks of low-achieving students, claims Berliner. A
-> rise in single-parent homes, two-career families, neighborhoods
-> reeking with violence and drugs and distorted values presented by the
-> media have combined to make it difficult for students to get a good
-> education.  Yet, "in spite of these deteriorating social conditions
-> for youth, America's schools miraculously have
-> maintained or improved achievement during the last 25 years," he
-> writes.
->    Berliner concedes that American students would not "win
-> Olympic gold for ... academic performance."  International
-> comparisons leave our students somewhat, though not greatly,
-> behind, he writes.  Part of the problem is that American children
-> date earlier and  "with much greater intensity than is true in
-> most other nations," and parents do not "work their children as hard
-> as do parents in other nations," he notes.  Berliner also
-> reports that Asian-American students actually out-perform Asian
-> students in Asia, "suggesting that American schools work well for
-> some of their students."
->    Berliner concludes that America operates two sets of public
-> schools:  one providing a "world-class" education to the wealthy,
-> white, Asian and Midwestern students, the other an abysmal system for
-> our poor, Southern, rural and urban students.   The problem is not a
-> crisis in education, but a crisis in American culture, according to
-> Berliner.
->    Steinberg dismisses talk of a conservative conspiracy to
-> condemn public education.  He points to low NAEP scores and the high
-> percentages of students (30% to 40%) needing remedial help in
-> college.  Middle-class parents are told not to become
-> complacent, since NAEP scores have found that among 17-year-olds in
-> advantaged urban and suburban schools, writing proficiency
-> actually has declined over time.  And math, science and reading
-> scores, already low, have not changed for these students,
-> observes Steinberg.
->    Steinberg also holds up a National Adult Literacy Study that
-> found that fewer than half of all American college graduates were
-> able to write a coherent essay describing an argument presented in a
-> newspaper article they read or could contrast the opinions expressed
-> in two opposing editorials.
->    He concurs with Berliner that the "sorry state of student
-> achievement in America is due more to the conditions of students'
-> lives outside of school than it is to what takes place within
-> school walls."  Steinberg:  "There is a crisis in American
-> education, but the crisis is not entirely in America's schools."
-> Steinberg chastises schools for not setting high-enough
-> standards, but he also puts the onus on parents who are not
-> involved, peer groups who mock high-achieving students and "our
-> society, which celebrates anti-intellectualism and glorifies
-> stupidity."
->    Berliner is the author of "The Manufactured Crisis:  Myth,
-> Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools."  Steinberg
-> wrote "Beyond the Classroom:  Why School Reform Has Failed and
-> What Parents Need to Do."
--- PCBoard (R) v15.22/M 10
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