The first trend to note is that the systems of public education are broken, and that the disintegration is getting rapidly worse. The inner cities are leading the trend, but even in rural America, where the metal detectors have yet to appear at school doors, there is a growing awareness among educators that a crisis is drawing nearer. They are only noises of course, but striking nonetheless for what they imply about the situation, given that they are coming from the National Education Association and the U.S. Department of Education. But the educrats can't hide the results of their pretenses forever. According to a 1993 U.S. Department of Education study, even after many of the least successful students have dropped out, fewer than 40 percent of high school seniors are reading at or above grade level.
Indications are that the situation is much worse today.
A con job by any other name smells just as bad. This refusal to embrace any serious change, combined with the failures of the alleged reforms to make any real improvements are changing the nature of education in America. Consider the Goals 2000 program, which current reports indicate will not have helped a single state to achieve its educational goals by the year 2000. Many states will not even achieve one quarter of their goals. Meanwhile, many parents are realizing that the program further federalizes education and leaves parents with even less control over what their children are taught.