Reality Check 2000

Made possible by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, with additional support from the GE Fund.

By latest count, 49 states have launched large-scale initiatives to raise academic standards in public schools, a movement that has broad support among the public, elected officials, and education decisionmakers. Although strategies vary from state to state, they often include clarifying teaching and curriculum guidelines, tying promotion or graduation to specific skills, eliminating promotion based on age, and testing students periodically to ensure progress.

For the past three years, Public Agenda's Reality Check surveys have asked the nation's public school teachers, parents, and students, as well as employers and college professors, whether they are in fact seeing higher standards and improved student achievement in their own communities. The surveys do not cover every strategy that districts are using to raise standards, but they do gauge progress in areas that standards advocates themselves often identify as crucial.

Neither Better Nor Worse. Overall, this year's surveys show little change from the previous two years. Employers and college professors remain broadly dissatisfied with the skills of young people entering jobs and higher education. Answers from teachers and students suggest that many schools have not yet adopted the promotion, testing, and accountability policies often advocated by reformers. Parents are generally content with the academic side of their child's schooling, but many of their perceptions are starkly at odds with those of employers who hire and professors who teach young people coming out of high school. This special report summarizes these and other key findings...