百科全书里的关于美国全国统一教育与地方教育的ISSUE，根本不用自己动脑。爽！！
V Tension Between Localism and CentralizationPrint Preview of Section
Individual states—rather than the federal government—have primary authority over public education in the United States. In 1794 New York became the first state to establish a board of regents to oversee public education. Eventually, every state developed a department of education and enacted laws regulating finance, the hiring of school personnel, student attendance, and often curriculum. Until the 20th century the degree of regulation varied enormously from state to state.
A Traditions of Localism
In general, however, states have delegated control over public education matters to local districts, with the exception of licensing requirements and general rules concerning health and safety. Public schools have also relied heavily on local property taxes to meet the vast majority of school expenses. American schools have thus tended to reflect the educational values and financial capabilities of the communities in which they are located. When students move from one community to another, they often encounter entirely different curriculums even though they are in the same grade. Even within a given school district, different neighborhoods often contain very different public schools.
In contrast, countries like France, Germany, and Japan have school systems that are financed and regulated on the national level. This has allowed them to maintain a relatively uniform school environment throughout their respective countries, regardless of the values and economies of local communities. They have also accomplished this partly by mandating highly competitive standardized examinations. These exams usually have direct consequences for the students who take them, often by permitting or denying access to higher education or positions of employment.
B Centralizing Tendencies
As greater numbers of Americans enrolled in schools during the 20th century, education became a powerful social and economic force. Efforts to increase the size and efficiency of public schools led to the creation of more centralized school systems. To bring order and efficiency to school systems, American educators had already developed standardized mechanisms of school organization by the end of the 19th century. For example, class placement was determined by a student’s age, each class period was a specified length, and students graduated after a specified number of years in attendance.
Schools also became more centrally organized as education developed into a highly structured profession with a streamlined chain of administrative command. For example, in the late 19th century the position of the school superintendent increased in power and influence. The first public school superintendent began directing the Buffalo, New York, school system in 1837. By 1900 the superintendent had replaced the school principal as the most influential and highest paid figure in public elementary and secondary education.
Also by 1900 specialized teacher training institutions called normal schools were well established, and many had already become four-year degree-granting colleges. Institutions that provided training for teachers developed expertise that often led to standardized practices, ranging from notions about the ideal size of elementary classrooms to the ideal form of a lesson plan. As education became a bigger and more lucrative enterprise, mass-market textbook publishing companies and testing organizations made significant profits by producing materials used in schools throughout the country.
C Increased State Involvement
As the 20th century progressed most states assumed a more active regulatory role than in the past. States consolidated school districts into larger units with common procedures. In 1940 there were over 117,000 school districts in the United States, but by 2000 the number had decreased to fewer than 15,000. The states also became much more responsible for financing education. They helped fund the rapid expansion of state postsecondary institutions after World War II. They sometimes supported efforts to equalize local school district expenditures by using state funds and state laws to ensure more equitable per pupil expenditures regardless of the wealth or poverty of individual districts. In 1940 local property taxes financed 68 percent of elementary and secondary school expenses, while the states contributed 30 percent and the federal government contributed 2 percent. In 1999 state governments contributed 49 percent of elementary and secondary school revenues, local districts contributed 44 percent, and the federal government provided 7 percent.
Since the 1980s, virtually all states have given unprecedented attention to their role in raising education standards. Much of the initiative for greater state involvement in education stemmed from the publication of a report by a federal commission in 1983 that indicated low academic achievement in American schools. This report, entitled A Nation at Risk, presented statistics suggesting that American students were outperformed on international academic tests by students from other industrial societies. Statistics also suggested that American test scores were declining over time. Many parents, educators, and government officials believed that only a concerted, centralized reform effort could overcome these apparent shortcomings of American education. Because the perceived crisis in student performance was based largely on test-score results, most states have implemented reform strategies that emphasize more frequent testing conducted by states, more effective state testing, and more state-mandated curriculum requirements. Some educators have also proposed the introduction of “high-stakes” examinations, in which performance on the examination would have a significant impact on the individual taking the test. Results on a high stakes examination might either permit or restrict a student’s access to higher education or the job market. Despite widespread support for such examinations, few states have introduced them.
D Increased Federal Involvement
Although educational authority resides ultimately with the states, the federal government has long encouraged and assisted specific educational activities that it considers to be in the national interest. The federal government’s activities in the field of education have further centralized American schooling. The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, for example, helped create vocational programs in high schools, and the GI Bill of 1944 was the first important federal effort to provide financial aid for military veterans to attend college. In addition, federal civil rights laws require all schools and colleges to conform to national standards of educational equality.
The federal commitment to improve and finance public schools expanded enormously when Congress passed the National Defense Education Act of 1958 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. In these two landmark statutes, Congress addressed for the first time such broad problems as expanding educational opportunity for poor children and improving instruction in pivotal but usually neglected subjects, such as science, mathematics, and foreign languages. In addition, these laws strengthened many large universities by providing federal funds for research. They also supported students attending private colleges by providing federal support for financial aid. Because this assistance came from federal sources rather than from state or local governments, it increased centralized control of American education.
Federal involvement in schools during the 1980s and 1990s was expressed less by legislation providing money for new programs than by government reports and proclamations that schools were performing insufficiently. A Nation at Risk and many subsequent federal reports and studies on the condition of schooling sparked a vigorous school reform effort at local and state levels. But aside from espousing ambitious national education goals, the federal government was far less active in shaping education legislation during the 1980s and 1990s than it had been in the 1960s and 1970s.
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The role of the federal government in setting education policy increased significantly with the passage by Congress of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a sweeping education reform law that revised the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, the new law seeks to identify poorly performing public schools by requiring states to test students in grades three through eight annually in reading and math. Schools that fail to make “adequate yearly progress” toward state proficiency standards must allow students to transfer to better-performing public schools. If poor performance continues, schools must offer supplemental services such as private tutoring; persistently failing schools must take corrective actions, such as replacing certain teachers or changing the curriculum, or risk being restructured or taken over by the state. The law also requires all public school teachers to be “highly qualified” in their subject areas by the end of the 2006 school year.
Although the No Child Left Behind Act passed with broad support from both Democratic and Republican members of Congress, the law has stirred considerable controversy in the education community. Some critics argue that federal funding of education is insufficient to accomplish the goals of the law and that the law erodes local control over schools. Additionally, some education officials have warned that under the law’s strict provisions, many schools will be identified as failing even if they are making progress in most areas. However, other officials have praised the law for its goal of improving the academic performance of all students, including poor students, minorities, and students with disabilities. 请问你说的百科全书是什么
是MSN的ENCARTA吗？ 就是它。。呵 哦，谢谢
谁知道光碟版的怎么能弄到吗
我上外国的网站好慢
总是打不开 TO 鬼谷子
外边应该有盗版碟子卖的
2004版的我有一个~ 谢谢猫了
刚刚翻到一个帖子有下载
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