Guided Response: one paragraph each if can

1. The Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (1981)- Consolidated 33 elementary schools and secondary categorical programs into one single block grant.

2. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform (1983)- Used strong and stirring language to describe a “rising tide of mediocrity in education” and an educational system that was failing America’s youth.

3. Reform: The First Wave (1982-1985)- States enacted higher graduation requirements, standardized curriculum mandates, raised certification requirements for teachers, and increased the testing of both teachers and students.

4. Reform: The Second Wave (1986-1989)- Shifted the focus of reform from state-level mandates to local-level school structures and processes.

5. Reform: The Third Wave (1988)- Focused on children and looked beyond the school to seek a comprehensive system for delivering services to them. Third wave reformers spoke in terms of children’s policies rather than school policies.

Reform: The First Wave

School districts increased their emphasis on computer literacy, homework, and basic skills.

Were both used to enhance the schooling program.

Took root after the Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform

Reform: The Third Wave

Spoke in terms of children’s policies rather than school policies

Envisioned major redesign of programs, with both family and school at the center of the service wheel

Questions:

1. These events are still significant today because without those reforms our educational system would still be in the same place it was forty years ago. The Reforms helped to build better teachers ensuing better students.

2. I wouldn’t change the outcome of any of the events I chose because if they wouldn’t have gone the way they did, our educational system wouldn’t be what it is today.

3. The most important result of these events is that they helped to build a stronger educational community of teachers and students.