The Myth of America's Failing Schools

By Roberta.

Part 3 Ignored News and Conclusion

Ignored News

There are many positive news stories about American schools and students which the press simply ignores. I will just quote from Berliner and Biddle: "In 1992 the IEA released a report of findings from a comparative study of reading achievement involving two hundred thousand students in thirty-one nations. In this study, American nine-year-olds placed second in the world-while our fourteen-year-olds finished ninth, which was well above average and only a few points off the top...the IEA put out a major press release concerning the study and its results. Americans learned about it only after European newspapers reported it..." The press ignored this good news about our schools, students, and teachers.

And I haven't even talked about the Sandia Report yet. In "The Near-Myth of Our Failing Schools,"
Peter Schrag tells the story of how Sandia National Laboratories compiled a lengthy, well researched report with numbers and graphs and charts on the state of American schools. The report showed that our schools were actually doing a good job of educating our children and that our children knew more than many gave them credit for.

What happened to the Sandia Report?

In a few words, this report was deep-sixed by President George Herbert Walker Bush when the research did not agree with his political education agenda. Berliner and Biddle also spend some time talking about Sandia and bemoan the politicization of this well researched report.

From Schrag's article: "Among the Sandia findings, many of them corroborated by other studies, are the following: High school completion rates- now roughly 90 percent- and college graduation rates are the highest in history. One in four adult Americans has at least a bachelor's degree-the highest percentage in the world (and the percentage keeps getting higher). A larger percentage of twenty-two-year-olds receive degrees in math, science, or engineering in the United States than in any of the nation's major economic competitors. Although SAT verbal scores declined over the years 1975 to 1990, the decline occurred chiefly because a larger percentage of lower-ranking students (those from the bottom half of their school classes) began taking the test. If the same population that took the SATs in 1975 had taken them this year, the average score would be significantly higher than it was then-and higher than it was in 1990.

"Because of reforms instituted in the 1980s, more American high school students than ever before are taking four years of English and at least three years of math and science. Far more are taking and passing Advanced Placement examinations (98,000 in 1978 and 535,000 in 1996). More teachers, for all the flaws in our teacher training-and-reward system, are subject to tough standards for certification and promotion."

In conclusion, it is a myth that students, teachers, and schools in America are failing. This does not mean that there are not problems. This does not mean that all schools do well. This does not mean the system does not have shortcomings.

But all of the discussion and time wasted with wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth about test scores often leads to poor ideas for education reform and actually keeps us from looking at and solving the very real problems in American schools.

I will deal with this topic in my next post.