Good News about American Education.

Abstract

Around the U.S., headlines pro claim the lack of achievement of American schools and students. Ad vocates of a back to basics cur riculum and minimum competencies introduce legislation and regulations to restore the old-time standards. Taxpayers write angry letters decry ing the lack of achievement and, more ominously, pass laws reducing funding for education. Parents sue their school boards because their children have failed to learn. Re searchers feed the inflammatory media with dire statistics about declining test scores and the large number of functional illiterates. What has hap pened to American education? The answer to that question is probably that American education is better than it ever has been. Also, it is among the best in the world. Unfor tunately, educators are often at a loss to respond to the barrage of negative statistics which seem to be fired from all sides. Probably those educators interested in reading should be the most concerned, since the lack of reading skill in today's population is the one most often publicized. Despite these alarming reports, however, there do exist more positive statistics about the state of American education in general and reading in particular. It is crucial that educators can and do disseminate some of these more positive findings.

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