The American School Dilemma: On the Upside of the Third Wave.

ike a bear awakening from a long hibernation, stretching and examining its body parts, western society is rising from the throes of the longest economic slump since World War II. The apparent reasons for the protracted recession are rising oil prices, the emergence of Japanese industrial power, and antiquated western industrial plants, among other things. The real roots of the problem may be much deeper and pervasive; they may be planted in the fundamental and painful upheaval of the very foundations of society. And the schools, as usual, are right in the middle. Many educators have vivid recollections of the curricular backflips that have occurred in American schools in the last 35 years. The 1960s produced the Vietnam War and serious social unrest that manifested itself in the hasty redesign of school curricula to produce "relevance" and "choices" for students with newfound power. It was an era when all authority was open to question and was forced to justify its existence. During this period, concern for the individual and minority groups raised an awareness that segments of society were not benefitting as they should from their public school experiences, and under fire, the school reacted to these societal forces by producing more responsive curricula. The excesses of the liberal 1960s, however, created a conservative groundswell which began to nourish the long latent "back-to-basics" movement. The conservative 1970s witnessed the near demise of such existentialist creatures as the open classroom, open curriculum, and radical alternatives to subject-matter education. By 1980 the double flip was complete. The basics, usually defined in terms of minimally acceptable levels of competencies in mathematics and reading, were firmly ensconsed in the schools of most of the 50 states. Th re existed, at that time, an overriding concern that all members of society, regardless of race and ethnic origin, be equipped, at least at a minimal level, to face life with abilities to communicate with written words and numbers. The educational system spent an entire ecade and much of its resources building a floor of minimal standards, only to discover recently that these standards are not enough, and that, indeed, they may be in ppropriate to the future needs of our society. With each passing year, it becomes apparent that Toffler's vision of a technologically based society is substantially correct. Labor-intensive industries related to steel and auto manufacturing are giving way to hightech robotics, electronic communications, and computer industries. The mad scramble of cities and states to attract their own versions of Southern California's "silicon valley" is on. The competition is fierce. First fueled by tax and economic incentives offered by many states in the sunbelt region, it has now spread to the economically depressed northern states. And, again, the schools have become a most important piece in this game of economic chess, perhaps the kingpiece itself. Minimal literacy standards, while a worthy goal of a nation with a labor-intensive economic base, is out of step with the requirements of the rising wave of hightechnology industry. At the turn of the century, 90 percent of the American work force was involved in manufacturing industries, and the establishment of a universal compulsory educational system which would provide the populace with minimal levels of literacy was appropriate and desirable. By the beginning of the next century, as few as 8 percent of the work force in the Dr. Esler is professor and chairman, Educational Foundations Department, College of Education, University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida.