Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Executive Summary
The landscape of education in the United States is characterized by diversity. This
includes diversity in the socioeconomic backgrounds of students, curricula, types
of programs, size of classes, and resources available to the schools. This diversity
is generated, in part, by a tradition of local control of schools by boards of edu-
cation, which are composed of members chosen through local elections, and it
is these boards of education that bear the responsibility for overseeing the funding
of schools. The resources available to schools depend on the size of the local tax
base and the willingness of local residents to approve increases in funding for
schools.
Diversity was evident in the actual practices and resources among the schools in
the three locations. One elementary school was experimenting with nonage-
graded classrooms. Another was using portfolios instead of grades to evaluate stu-
dents. Whole class instruction was observed, as well as the use of cooperative
learning groups. In terms of resources, some schools had the latest model comput-
ers, for example, while the computers available in other schools were more than
a decade old.
We try in this volume not to concentrate on these types of diversity but to focus
on typical public schools in the United States at three levels: elementary, junior
high, and senior high. The challenge has been to provide a composite profile of
typical schools. The findings that emerged from the interviews and observations
allow us to attempt to draw such profiles.
Standards
We found that the typical school has adopted curriculum standards or guidelines
proposed by state departments of education, rather than by a national body. One
exception is the influential set of national guidelines developed by the National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Many schools have used these guide-
lines to upgrade their mathematics curriculum and have enthusiastically embraced
the NCTM guidelines. These guidelines describe the accomplishments that would
be expected of students at various grade levels. In addition, a set of national edu-
cation goals, known as Goals 2000, has served to provide goals to be attained by
the nation in the next several years. By indicating, for example, that the nation
should be number one in math and science by the year 2000, the goals function
as additional guidelines for schools. It seems unlikely, on the basis of comments

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by teachers and parents, that the interest in improving standards for education
will result in explicit sets of national guidelines or goals, but rather that such ef-
forts will result in the adoption of voluntary standards prepared by nongovern-
mental organizations.
Most of the teachers, administrators, parents, and even students recognized the
need for increasing academic standards and were supportive of adopting higher
such standards for all students. At the same time, many expressed concerns about
the standardized tests and examinations used to measure attainment of standards.
Some teachers and administrators criticized standardized tests as being adminis-
tered too frequently and without a clear purpose.
Teachers and administrators were also concerned about having the results from
standardized tests evaluated in comparison with those from schools in other, more
advantaged neighborhoods with fewer social problems. Others expressed concern
that cultural biases were inherent in standardized testing. At the same time, the
greatest fear among many of the teachers was that higher standards could lead
to the need to ‘‘teach to the test’’ rather than to nurturing the unique qualities
and abilities of each child. Standardized test scores of students, in addition to
informing the teachers and administrators at a school, often were interpreted by
parents as an index of the quality of the school and became an important influ-
ence in such matters as parents’ decisions about where to live or to purchase
housing.
Despite the general interest in improving standards, both parents and teachers,
especially teachers at the primary research site, expressed reservations about the
need to adhere to state standards. However, in the typical school, teachers were
not expected to organize their lessons in a manner that would be considered
‘‘teaching to the test.’’ Rather, teachers were given a great deal of autonomy in
presenting the curriculum and in developing their own unit tests for in-class use.
A limited amount of test preparation, often including in-class review of questions
from old examinations, did take place in some schools several weeks before the
administration of the state’s standardized tests.