One of the most pressing concerns in education today is the need for education reform. As Phillip C. Schlechty (2001, p. 2) states in his book Inventing Better Schools, "the performance of America's schools is inadequate to meet the needs of modern society." In fact, Schlechty (2001, p. 2) contends that "Something is fundamentally wrong with America's system of education;" he notes that "Too few children develop the academic skills they need to develop, and too many children leave school without having developed the skills, attitudes, and habits of mind that will equip them for life in the twenty-first century." This paper will examine what the field of education was like prior to the implementation of academic standards and will reflect on the effectiveness of standards as a vehicle for education reform.
Before the implementation of academic standards, the field of education was surprisingly effective. It is fairly common knowledge that some of the nations great thinkers, such as Abraham Lincoln, were even self-taught, and up through the early part of the 20th century in many school districts people that only got as far as the eighth grade in school had an equivalent or better education than those that graduated from high school in recent years. This suggests that the introduction of standards has actually lowered rather than increased the actual standard of education being administered to young people, although the real reason is most likely not due to standards but to a change in our culture and a decline in the importance of education to many Americans. However, the quality of education in any particular classroom depended upon the individual teacher and her training and aptitude for teaching; without standards, consistency could not be expected or achieved, even though in most cases teachers did very well at upholding high academic standards and teaching effectively.
Nevertheless, in schools loca...