School daze: education meeting calls for more homework, tougher standards in U.S. schools - National Education Summit

Current Events, April 15, 1996

Education Meeting Calls For More Homework Toughter Standards in U.S. Schools

PALISADES, N.Y.-- Are you getting a good education? Are you learning skills you need to survive in today's world?

Of course you are. You know--we all know--that only the best schools get Current Events!

But--alas--not all U.S. students are getting as good an education as you are. Report after report shows that U.S. as well as schools in other industrial nations do. Americans, who like to think of themselves as number one, have learned that our school system is not number one in the world. In fact, it is not even number two or number three. That has people worried.

On March 26 and 27, governors from 41 of the 50 states met with 49 of the nation's top business leaders at the National Education Summit in Palisades, a town just north of New York City. The leaders called the meeting to find ways of dealing with facts such as these:

* In a math test given to students in 15 countries, U.S. students came in 14th. Students from Hong Kong topped the list, with Japanese students a close second.

* In 19 tests of reading, math, and other school subjects, U.S. high-school students came in last seven times. In none of the 19 tests did U.S. students come in first.

* Businesses say that an average of 38 percent of people applying for first-time jobs don't have the math or reading skills to handle entry-level technical jobs.

Business Leaders Worried

Why are business leaders worried about the state of U.S. education? Many people say the quality of U.S. schools is directly related to our nation's prosperity. If workers don't have good math and reading skills, U.S. businesses can't compete effectively with businesses in countries whose workers are more skilled. As a result, the U.S. economy suffers and the living standard of Americans goes down.

"There is a strong link between the quality of U.S. education and the fortunes of the U.S. economy," Lewis Gerstner, the head of IBM, told the conference. "The better the quality of our schools, the better life all Americans will have."

What's Wrong?

What's wrong with U.S. education today.

Most experts say that the main cause of U.S. educational problems isn't bad teachers or lazy students. They blame the lack of national standards--minimum requirements that all U.S. students would have to reach to complete courses or to graduate. In short, our schools simply do not require students to study as hard or learn as much as schools do in other countries.

"Very few American pupils are performing anywhere near where they could be performing" says Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Shanker and others call for

* Tougher Courses. U.S. schools should make students study more math and science. And the requirements to pass those courses should be tougher.

* More Homework. Students in other industrial nations have much more homework than U.S. students do. U.S. schools should require teachers to increase the amount of homework they give.

Although just about everyone in education agrees that U.S. schools should get tougher, making them so is easier said than done. A major part of the problem is that the United States--in sharp contrast to other industrial nations--has more than 15,000 local school systems. Each system sets its own standards for education. In other countries education standards are set for the entire nation.

At the conclusion of the summit, the 41 governors pledged to impose tougher standards on their state school systems by 1998. The way they will do this is through standardized testing in three important stages of a student's education.

* All students would have to pass a test to graduate from elementary to middle school.

* All students would have to pass a test to graduate from middle school to high school.

* All students would have to pass a test to gaduate from high school.

"There is nothing more important for the future of our nation than giving our students a superior education," said Virginia Governor George Allen at the Education Summit--a statement that summed up everyone's feelings at the top-level meeting.