While some teachers may remain isolated from the influence of current school improvement efforts, most probably find it difficult to avoid the issue. Reform is a major topic at state and national conferences, in professional and popular journals, in workshops and courses, and on national television news programs. Educational professionals and others with an interest in education are rethinking educational practice. Why is there such an emphasis on school reform at this time? Over the past 50 years, the push to dramatically change schooling has usually come in response to some perceived problem that is blamed on the failure of public schools to educate students.

The Launch of Sputnik

The launch of Sputnik by the Russians in 1957 was a wake-up call for Americans to question the quality of their schools, in particular, the ability of schools to produce scientists and engineers to meet the challenges of the space age and the cold war. In response, the U. S. Congress drastically increased funding to the National Science Foundation (NSF), which in turn funded science and mathematics curriculum projects and summer teacher-training institutes. An implied goal of the curriculum projects was to "identify talent and improve the education of elite students" (Ravitch, 1995, p. 48).

This reform was a top-down federally funded effort. To take the case of the NSF science curriculum projects, professional scientists and science educators developed the science curricula and schools and teachers had little input. The new materials were designed to be "teacher-proof" and were a significant departure from materials teachers had been using. While there was a sense of excitement and energy among a fairly elite group of scientists, science educators, selected science teachers, and talented science students, others felt overwhelmed, con- fused, or simply uninvolved. The legacy of the period is still with us in the form of the "stuff" of the projects —hands-on, inquirybased science activities for students. However, by 1975, much of the federal involvement in pre-college mathematics and science education was withdrawn, and the shift in education was "back to the basics" with a spread of "minimum competency testing in dozens of states" (Ravitch, 1995, p. 49).

A Nation at Risk

Most educators agree that the 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk by the National Commission on Excellence in Education was similar in many respects to the launch of Sputnik—a new call for school reform. This report questioned the ability of the U. S. to compete in the global economy due to the “rising tide of mediocrity in our schools” (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, p. 5). It described our curriculum as diffuse, our expectations for students as low, and our students’ test scores as declining. The report spurred a decade of activity as “proponents of reform began to make a close link between the financial security and economic competitiveness of the nation and our educational system” (Marzano & Kendall, 1996, p. 2).

The Excellence Movement, the first wave of reform following publication of A Nation at Risk, saw states increasing high school graduation requirements, adding more time to the school year, instituting new statewide testing programs, offering more Advanced Placement courses, promoting classroom use of technology, and establishing new teacher evaluation programs (Tirozzi & Uro, 1997). In other words, the initial response was to do more, not to do things differently (DuFour & Eaker, 1998). By the late 1980s, enrollment in advanced classes had increased and performance in math and science had shown modest gains. This wave of reform was seen as an encouraging effort by some (Finn & Ravitch, 1996), but others considered it a failure (DuFour & Eaker). Student performance in reading and other subjects remained low, the performance gap between white and minority students was unacceptably large, and employers and colleges reported that it was necessary to provide remedial courses or training for high school graduates (Finn & Ravitch; Tirozzi & Uro).

Large-scale national and international studies and assessments* provided empirical evidence that U. S. students were still not performing well compared to students in many other countries. Overall achievement scores by U. S. students were disappointingly average, a fact that caused concern since the U. S. economy was becoming more tied than ever to global competition.

* Examples of these studies include the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) given since 1970, the Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) conducted in 1982, and the International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP) conducted in 1991.