Ed Reforms: 60s

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Ed Reforms 60s 70s
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1963-1964

• Support for academic rigor (Sputnik) died
• Civil Rights Movement
• Federal troops to the south to enforce Brown vs.
  Board and desegregation
• Anti-War Movement
• Demonstrations, draft-card burning
• Anti-Institutional Mood
• Baby boom Affluence

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Schools, 1960s

• Faced with violence, discipline problems,
  lawsuits
• Accommodated the anti-authoritarian
  counter-culture
• Weaker academic standards to reduce conflict
• Summerhill (A.S. Neill)
• No imposition of authority on kids
• Extreme child-centeredness
• Radical egalitarianism sexual freedom

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60s 70s

• Same themes as throughout 20th century
• Academic curriculum is pointless and repressive
• Kids should be free to do whatever moves them
• Schools should provide menu of artistic,
  expressive, creative, intellectual activities
• Unfettered freedom will produce a better society
• Open Education (opposed by most parents)
• aka the therapeutic school

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Results

• A decade of declining SAT scores
• Non-academic reasons
• Racial diversification
• Assumed the scores brought down as more
  minorities took the test
• Social political upheaval
• Television
• Changes in family (divorces, women working
  outside home)

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Results (contd)

• Academic Reasons
• Increase in electives, decrease in enrollments in
  academic courses
• Grade inflation
• Greater tolerance for absenteeism
• Social promotion
• Increased enrollments in general track
  curriculum (neither academic nor vocational)
• driver education, typing, consumer education,
  home economics