Twenty years ago...
APRIL 13, 1983
- Interest in Advanced Placement courses continues to rise. When the College Board launched the program in 1955, 1,229 students from 104 schools took AP examinations. Next month, more than 140,000 high school students from 5,525 of the nation’s 23,000 secondary schools are expected to take the exams.
- After losing a five-year federal grant to conduct the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the Education Commission of the States expects to scale back its operations. By fall 1983, the Denver-based organization projects an annual budget of $3.5 million and a staff of 55—down from $6.5 million and 117 employees as of the beginning of the year.
- U.S. District Judge Dale E. Saffels rules that the Shawnee Mission school district in Kansas must grant religious groups the same rights to use school facilities that it accords nonreligious groups.
10 years ago...
April 14, 1993
- Eighteen of the 37 states that took part in the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ first two state-level assessments of student achievement showed significant gains in 8th graders’ mathematics performance between 1990 and 1992, and no state declined significantly over that period, a report on NAEP finds.
- In a wholesale indictment of elementary and secondary education in Alabama, a state judge has declared the state school system unconstitutional because it fails to provide children with “equitable and adequate” education opportunities.
- After three years of debate, the Council for Exceptional Children, issues a statement saying that “inclusion” in regular classes is part of a continuum of special education services to which all children with disabilities are entitled. The group goes further to say that inclusion is a “meaningful goal to be pursued by schools and communities.”
