Epilogue from The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890-1995
by David L. Angus and Jeffery Mirel
March 1999

Implications for Policy and Practice

WE BEGAN [THE FAILED PROMISE OF THE AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL] with two main objectives. First, we wanted to present a new and different interpretation of the modern history of the American high school. Unlike previous historians who have explored that topic, we wanted to base this new interpretation not only on an analysis of the rhetoric of school reform but also on an examination of data on curriculum offerings and student coursetaking. Second, we hoped that the historical approach would contribute to current political and policy discussions about the future of high schools. In this final chapter, we bring these two objectives together, demonstrating where our key findings shed light on some current issues of policy and practice in secondary education.

Our historical analysis has demonstrated that, for the most part, two ideas have guided the professional educators who shaped the development of the public high school in the twentieth century: (1) that equalizing educational opportunity meant offering different courses to different students based on their probable futures, which in turn would equalize the amount of time students spent in public schools; and (2) that most of the steadily increasing number of high school students were incapable of and had no need for serious academic study. Rather than furthering equality, however, these ideas spurred the creation of high schools in which students followed increasingly separate and substantially unequal educational programs.

Indeed, few ideas have been more destructive to equal educational opportunity or to democratic education itself than the two cited above. Despite claims by educators that they were building "democracy's high school," the institutions they created were deeply undemocratic, providing only a small percentage of students with the opportunity to master the knowledge and skills that might lead to power and success in American society. Moreover, because educators increasingly sorted students along class, racial, and gender lines, the differentiated curriculum served to exacerbate rather than ameliorate the deepest divisions in American society. The introduction of intelligence testing compounded these problems by providing a supposedly scientific rationale for differentiation (and the social stratification it encouraged) and by strengthening the belief that only a small number of students could master and profit from a rigorous, academic program.

These ideas also inspired an educational version of Gresham's law in which bad curriculum ultimately drove out good. Our analysis of American secondary education has uncovered numerous examples of reforms introduced to accommodate students of supposedly low ability (e.g., the life-adjustment movement, the reduction of graduation requirements, the increasing use of electives) that gradually became features of high school programs for all students. By the middle of the twentieth century, education aimed at the lowest common denominator had become the norm in America's high schools. In short, the differentiated high school curriculum fulfilled few if any of the grand goals that its advocates claimed, and the problems it has created far outweigh its alleged benefits.

Even if one were to grant that the structure of the American economy and the requirements for political and civic participation in the first half of the twentieth century made differentiated secondary education a rational choice, in the latter half of the century, the emergence of the United States as a world power, the globalization of the economy, and the dawn of the information age all signaled the need for a fundamental rethinking of this philosophy. Yet such rethinking is precisely what educational leaders failed to do as they defended their vision in the face of the Great Depression, World War II, the cold war, Sputnik, and the upheavals of the 1960s. Only in the late 1970s did challenges to differentiation begin to have an impact. Arising from a broad spectrum of opinion, new critics of the educational status quo began a quiet revolution that by the 1980s had contributed to substantial changes in educational policy, curriculum, and coursetaking. In the past 2 decades, we have seen historically unprecedented changes in patterns of student coursetaking that have moved us closer to equality of educational opportunity and toward greater democracy in education than ever before.

That said, we still have a long way to go. The goal of providing all young people access to the same kinds of rigorous, challenging, and empowering educational programs remains elusive. In order to realize the kind of democratic education we envision, a number of steps still need to be taken. Some of these steps relate to policy questions that are outside the scope of this book, including greater equalization of funding of schools in impoverished urban and rural areas, the expansion and improvement of preschool programs, and the introduction of summer learning and tutoring programs for low-achieving youngsters. But as necessary as we believe these structural changes to be, they are not sufficient for ensuring the kinds of educational change that will provide truly equal education for all American students.

Our research leads us to several specific reform proposals that we believe can contribute substantially to the improvement of American education. First, if we are to seriously address the problems that differentiation has produced, we need to move steadily toward even more rigorous and demanding high school graduation requirements. While many states have raised their graduation requirements, few have adopted what the authors of A Nation at Risk termed the New Basics, namely, 4 years of English; 3 years each of mathematics, science, and social studies; 2 years of a foreign language; and a half-year of computer training.1 This is clearly a necessary first step but one that will require a real display of will from political and educational leaders in every state. Since few states may be able to muster that political will alone, we believe that continued pressure from national leaders is vital to move us in that direction.2

Second, as we have seen, raising graduation requirements does little good if schools are permitted to respond with the educational version of "bait and switch" in which courses with academic titles simply mask watered-down content. For this reason, national content standards such as those that have been developed in civics, history, music, and to some extent mathematics, and detailed curriculum frameworks like those adopted in some states, are a necessary concomitant to higher graduation requirements.

Of course, setting high academic standards for high school courses demands that equally high standards and expectations become the norm in the elementary and middle schools. Many features of education in the pre-high school grades sustain a system of low expectations - social promotion, ability grouping, how teachers allocate time during the school day, and the use of criterion-referenced tests in statewide testing programs designed to measure minimum competencies. As a consequence of such policies and practices, many students enter high school lacking not only the skills and knowledge necessary for success but also with the belief that there is little need to put forth effort to master challenging material. National standards in reading and mathematics and a national examination system, such as those advocated by President Clinton, would be a step in the right direction.

In addition, these changes can succeed only if the educators who are responsible for teaching academic material are well prepared themselves in the content areas. Standards-based curriculum reform depends on the depth of knowledge that educators have of subject matter. Unfortunately, recent surveys have found that 39.5% of science teachers, 34% of math teachers, and 25% of English teachers are not well prepared, having neither a major or a minor in the subjects they are teaching (Ravitch, 1998; U.S. Department of Education, 1997). Frankly, we cannot imagine any major improvements in student achievement if this situation persists. On the surface, correcting this problem by tightening certification standards and hiring practices appears to be relatively simple. However, during a period in which teacher shortages loom (as they do particularly in urban school systems), taking such action demands concerted efforts by both political and educational leaders.

Third, educational policy makers must demand that our schools, particularly our high schools, focus on their academic mission above all other considerations. The idea that key academic subjects have higher priority than other subjects and activities must prevail. This does not mean that students should not have some electives, that activities such as school newspapers or drama clubs should be eliminated, or that vocational courses should be immediately scrapped. Rather, a New Basics high school in which students take all the graduation requirements listed above during a 6-period day would still leave almost 25% of instructional time for courses and activities in non-Basics classes.3

Such a focus on academic subjects will not, as supporters of vocational education contend, leave large numbers of noncollege-bound students poorly prepared for the working world. Such arguments falsely assume that a solid core of academically rigorous courses could not also be part of a career-oriented high school program. Other industrialized countries have been able to balance these objectives; we can as well. Moreover, this argument misses the most fundamental aspect of modern economic life, namely, that in a high-tech information-rich world, the best vocational preparation is academic.

Fourth, professional educators, professors in schools and colleges of education, and classroom teachers must begin working diligently on methods and materials that will enable all students to master challenging coursework. One of the most widely repeated educational clichés today is that all children can learn. The question we pose to our colleagues is whether they believe that all children can learn the same challenging material. As we have seen, for most of the twentieth century, education professors generally have replied to that question with an emphatic no. We are convinced that that assumption is wrong. Nevertheless, we recognize that simply offering rigorous and challenging courses without addressing the question of how to make such coursework accessible to a diverse body of students is both foolish and naïve.

Children come to school with diverse abilities, backgrounds, talents, and problems. They learn different things at different rates and at different times in their development. Given that, schools emphasizing high academic standards will succeed only if educational professionals create developmentally appropriate, challenging course materials and methods for all students on every grade level. Much of the failure of modern American education lies in our avoiding the formidable task of discovering how to teach difficult subjects in ways that are both accessible to young people and yet true to the complexity and richness of the material. Such efforts are central to ending the culture of low expectations that differentiation has created in American schools.

Differentiation has survived so long in part because it made the process of teaching and learning so simple for teachers and students alike. Teachers put forth little effort developing methods and materials for the vast majority of students because educators assumed these students didn't need and wouldn't master much of the material anyway. These students responded with equally little effort because so little was expected of them. Everyone drifted on an easy sea of blissful ignorance. That drifting must end.

It is long past time for educational professionals to stop selling students short and to begin using their skills and talent to give all American children an equal and equally good education. Over 30 years ago, Jerome Bruner declared that "any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development" (Bruner, 1960, p. 33). Bruner's vision remains a goal for which all educators should strive, perhaps the most important and worthiest goal the profession has before it.

NOTES

1. As rigorous as this program of studies might be for American students, it is still a few notches short of the "world-class standards" in place in the educational systems of Asia and parts of Europe.

2. Certainly, numerous critics will challenge this recommendation by arguing that any strengthening of graduation requirements will have an adverse effect on children of low ability. This is, of course, the same argument that professional educators have been using for most of the twentieth century. It is no more true now than it was in 1920 (see Mirel & Angus, 1994).

3. We believe that courses such as physical education and keyboarding should not necessarily meet 5 days per week nor should these classes and such activities as working on the school newspaper receive academic credit.

Posted by permission of the publisher from Angus, D., and Mirel, J., The Failed Promise of the American High School 1890-1995, (New York: Teachers College Press, © 1999 by Teachers College, Columbia University. All rights reserved.), pp. 198-202. To order copies, please contact www.teacherscollegepress.com.