Introduction
See the Note
on Primary and Secondary Education Data
Since 1980, when the Rockefeller Commission on the Humanities declared K–12 education
the highest priority in the humanities and called upon scholars and policymakers
to turn their attention to the schools, the content and quality of primary and secondary
education have been the subject of spirited public debate. The impetus for improvement
intensified in 1983 after the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued
an even more strongly worded report entitled A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for
Educational Reform.1 Since then, state and local school authorities have experimented
with a range of strategies for increasing student achievement, particularly among
minority and low-income students. The most significant recent policy development
at the national level is the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act (Public Law 107-110),
which emphasized regular standardized assessment of student performance in key subject
areas.
The selection of indicators of the condition of primary and secondary humanities
education presented here reflects the structure of current research on the quality
of education. Such research tends to focus on the character of and relationships
among three elements: student achievement, curriculum and instruction, and teacher
preparation.
Note
1 National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk: The
Imperative for Educational Reform (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1983);
available online at http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/index.html.
Note on Primary and Secondary Education Data
Since the high school curriculum usually includes requirements for the study of
English, history, and foreign languages, information on teachers and students in
these areas is fairly accessible. Regrettably, in other, less frequently studied
fields (such as philosophy or art history), data are rarely available.
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