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ABSTRACT: Is the U.S. education crisis
manufactured or real? I give 14 hot-linked
references, ranging from Berliner & Biddle (it's
manufactured) to Steadman (it's real.)
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Michael Paul Goldenberg (2007a) in his Math-Teach
post of 20 Mar 2007 titled "Re: A problem," wrote
[bracketed by lines "GGGGG. . . .; my inserts at
". . . .[insert]. . . ."; my CAPS; slightly
edited]:
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
. . . . . . In any event, on matters of
education, I'm not terribly sanguine about the
other major party. Indeed, I can't recall any
politician making sense about educational policy
in recent years, if ever.
Reading "The Manufactured Crisis" by Berliner and
Biddle . . . .[(1996)]. . .helps make much of
this clear.
For a great review and summary of the above, see
Lawrence Steadman's (1996) piece, "The
Achievement Crisis is Real: A Review of 'The
Manufactured Crisis' "
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Michael has highlighted a hot topic. A Google
search for ("Manufactured Crisis" education) -
with the quotes but not the parentheses -
yielded 41,600 hits as of 22 Mar 2007
16:35:00-0700.
Having sifted through them all ;-) and added a
few more, I should like to recommend [in addition
to Berliner & Biddle (1996) and Steadman (1996)]
the following collection of diverse viewpoints:
Ansary (2007), Bracy (2003), Bransford et al.
(2000), Brown & Brown (2007), COSEPUP (2005),
Donovan & Bransford (2005), EdWeek (2007), Hake
(2000), Holton (1986), NCOE (1983), Peterson
(2003), Schmidt et al. (2001), Valverde et al.
(2002), and Wittmann (2007).
REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]
Ansary, T. 2007. "Education at Risk," Edutopia, 7
March, online at
<http://www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=Art_1798&issue=mar_07>.
The heading reads: "Nearly a quarter century ago,
'A Nation at Risk'. . . .[ NCOE (1983)]. . . . .
hit our schools like a brick dropped from a
penthouse window. One problem: The landmark
document that still shapes our national debate on
education was misquoted, misinterpreted, and
often dead wrong."
COSEPUP. 2005. COmmittee on Science, Engineering,
and PUblic Policy, "Rising Above the Gathering
Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a
Brighter Future," National Academies Press;
online at
<http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11463.html >. The
description reads: "In a world where advanced
knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is
readily available, U.S. advantages in the
marketplace and in science and technology have
begun to erode. A comprehensive and coordinated
federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S.
competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas.
This congressionally requested report by a
pre-eminent committee makes four recommendations
along with 20 implementation actions that federal
policy-makers should take to create high-quality
jobs and focus new science and technology efforts
on meeting the nation's needs, especially in the
area of clean, affordable energy:
1) INCREASE AMERICA'S TALENT POOL BY VASTLY
IMPROVING K-12 MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION;
2) Sustain and strengthen the nation's commitment to long-term basic research;
3) Develop, recruit, and retain top students,
scientists, and engineers from both the U.S. and
abroad; and
4) Ensure that the United States is the premier
place in the world for innovation."
Donovan, S.M. & J.D. Bransford, eds. 2005. "How
Students Learn History, Mathematics, and Science
in the Classroom." Nat. Acad. Press; online at
<http://books.nap.edu/catalog/10126.html>. In
Chapter 5 "Mathematical Understanding: An
Introduction," Karen Fuson, Mindy Kalchman, and
John Bransford write: "If we look through the
lens of 'How People Learn' [. . . .Bransford et
al. (2000)]. . . we see a subject that is rarely
taught in a way that makes use of the three
principles that are the focus of this volume.
Instead of connecting with, building on, and
refining the mathematical understandings,
intuitions, and resourcefulness that students
bring to the classroom (Principle 1), mathematics
instruction often overrides students' reasoning
processes, replacing them with a set of rules and
procedures that disconnects problem solving from
meaning making. Instead of organizing the skills
and competences required to do mathematics
fluently around a set of core mathematical
concepts (Principle 2), those skills and
competencies are often themselves the center, and
sometimes the whole, of instruction. And
precisely because the acquisition of procedural
knowledge is often divorced from meaning making,
students do not use metacognitive strategies
(Principle 3) when they engage in solving
mathematics problems."
Hake, R.R. 2000. "Is it Finally Time to Implement
Curriculum S?" AAPT Announcer 30(4), 103; online
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/CurrS-031501.pdf>
(1.2 MB) - 400 references & footnotes, 390
hot-linked URL's. This paper concerns improving
the education of undergraduate physics majors by
instituting a "Curriculum S" for "Synthesis." But
because that's a small part of a much larger
educational problem in the U.S. there's a lot of
material on the reform of P-16 education
generally (P = preschool).
Holton, G. 1986. "A Nation at Risk Revisited," in
"The Advancement of Science and its Burdens"
(Univ. of Cambridge Press, 1986): Holton wrote:
"If the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment are
interpreted narrowly, as is now the fashion, one
cannot be surprised by the movement to phase out
most or all of the federal responsibility for
education ...Š Thomas Jefferson, in asking
Congress for a remedy, said 'An amendment of our
Constitution must here come in aid of the public
education. The influence on government must be
shared by all the people.'........Without a
device that encourages cumulative improvement
over the long haul, without a built-in mandate to
identify and promote the national interest in
education as well as to 'help fund and support
efforts to protect and promote that interest'
...Š we shall go to sleep again between the
challenges of a Sputnik and a Honda." Holton, the
Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Professor
of the History of Science at Harvard, was a
member of the National Commission on Education
that produced "A Nation at Risk" - see
<http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/members.html>.
Peterson, P.E., "Our Schools & Our Future ... Are
We Still at Risk? 2003, Hoover Institution.
2003; online at
<http://www.hoover.org/publications/books/3002506.html>.
Peterson writes: "Twenty years ago, the National
Commission on Excellence in Education (Excellence
Commission) delivered a thunderbolt in the form
of a report called "A Nation at Risk." With the
hindsight that two decades can provide, it is
clear that this report awakened millions of
Americans to a national crisis in primary and
secondary education. "A Nation at Risk" bluntly
and forcefully pinpointed the problems facing our
public schools and insisted that their solution
would require a new commitment to education
quality, on the part of school administrators,
teachers, parents, and students.. . . . . . .
Today, twenty years after its release, nearly
everyone in the United States who attends to such
matters, save for a few Panglosses within the
education profession, recognizes that "A Nation
at Risk" accurately described our flagging
academic performance, underperforming schools,
and underachieving children and the insidious
threat they posed to our national welfare,
long-term economic strength, cultural vitality,
and civic competence.
Schmidt W.H., C.C. McKnight, R.T. Houang, H.C.
Wang, D. Wiley, L.S. Cogan, R.G. Wolfe. 2001.
"Why Schools Matter: A Cross-National Comparison
of Curriculum and Learning." Jossey-Bass.
Amazon.com information at
<http://tinyurl.com/7esac>, Michigan State
information at
<http://ed-web3.educ.msu.edu/international/bookExh/publication/schmidt1/schmidt1.htm>.
Physics Nobelist Leon Lederman stated: "It is my
belief that this is one of the most relevant
reports to the nation on the roots of our failed
educational reform efforts."
Steadman, L.C. 1996. "The Achievement Crisis is
Real: A Review of 'The Manufactured Crisis'," "
in Education Policy Analysis Archives 4(1), 23
January; online at
<http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v4n1.html>.
Wittmann, W. 2007. "The Case of the Program for
International Student Assessment (PISA) and How
the United States of America Deals With Its
Implications Compared to Other Countries,"
PowerPoint presentation, online at
<http://tinyurl.com/3yzapb>. A sampling of
Wittmann' slides (slightly edited):
"Disastrous [PISA] results for some countries; e.g. Germany and the U.S.
Not much discussion and excitement in the U.S.
Why ? Are the PISA results to be ignored?
There are some warning signs on the wall. Will
anyone understand the consequences and
implement corrective policies?!
What is wrong with U.S. K-12 (and maybe K-16) education?
It is a paradox that the odds of foreign borns
getting top-notch US educations and high
level positions in some major areas are
higher than the odds of those born in the U.S."