The critics of education in the 70's are a new breed advocating changes with far-reaching implications for experiential education. This article examines five major reports.
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References
1.
Catholic Secondary Schools and the Educational Reform Movement in American Secondary Education. Washington, D.C.: National Catholic Educational Association, 1976. In this special bulletin issued by the Secondary School department of the NCEA, Brother Victor Hickey reviews and reacts to the five reports. He is especially critical of the definition of purpose and of the relatively superficial concern with values education, the curriculum, and the school climate.
2.
CaweltiGordon, Vitalizing the High School: A Curriculum Critique of Major Reform Proposals. Washington, D.C.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1974. This pamphlet is a thorough summary and critique of the reform reports. The final chapter contains provocative sections entitled “Present Curriculum Deficiencies” and “Toward a Purposeful Curriculum Organization.”
3.
GibbonsMaurice, The New Secondary Education. Bloomington, Indiana: Phi Delta Kappa, 1976. This Phi Delta Kappa Task Force Report moves from a consideration of compulsory education to the creation of an educational program which develops a “learning lifestyle.” By far the most imaginative and exciting of the reports provoked by the reformers, it takes the reformer's thinking to a logical and comprehensive conclusion.
4.
New Dimensions for Educating Youth. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1976. This report of a Bicentennial conference co-sponsored by the Office of Education and the National Association of Secondary School Principals covers a wide range of concerns. It includes adaptations of general session addresses, reports on 20 workshops on specific topics, and descriptive articles.
5.
PorterJohn W.. The Adolescent, Other Citizens, and Their High Schools. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975. This report is the work of Task Force '74, a National Task Force for High School Reform, assembled by the Kettering Foundation to follow up on the work of B. Frank Brown's National Commission on the Reform of Secondary Education. Task Force '74 focused on the issues of community involvement, collective bargaining, student responsibilities, and alternative programs as options.
6.
The Rise Report. Sacramento, Calif.: California State Department of Education, 1975. This Report of the California Commission for Reform of Intermediate and Secondary Education is “a framework for overhauling education” in California. It makes clear that, in California at least, the reformers have been heard.
7.
This We Believe, Reston, Virginia: National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1975. This report, prepared by the Task Force on Secondary Schools in a Changing Society, focuses in depth on the educational program of the secondary school. The Task Force confronts directly the need for flexible and diverse school programs.
8.
TimpaneMichael. Youth Policy in Transition. Santa Monica, California: The Rand Corporation, 1976. This report, commissioned by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HEW, analyzes the reform reports in the light of recent research in the social sciences and suggests their policy implications. By far, this report is the most rigorous analysis of the reform reports.
9.
The University of ChicagoSchool Review, 83:1, November, 1974. This issue, devoted to a symposium on Coleman's Youth: Transition to Adulthood, contains some good criticism and a spirited and articulate defense by Coleman.
10.
ZajchowskiRichard A.. The Expanding School Environment. Newton, Massachusetts: Commission on Educational Issues, 1978. An independent school response to the reform reports in which six school heads explore the need for and nature of the expanding school environment called for by the reformers.
