Ed Reforms: 60s & 70s
1963-1964
 Support for academic rigor (Sputnik) died
 Civil Rights Movement
 Federal troops to the south to enforce Brown vs. Board and
desegregation
 Anti-War Movement
 Demonstrations, draft-card burning
 Anti-Institutional Mood
 Baby boom + Affluence
Schools, 1960s
 Faced with violence, discipline problems, lawsuits
 Accommodated the anti-authoritarian counter-culture
 Weaker academic standards to reduce conflict
 Summerhill (A.S. Neill)
 No imposition of authority on kids
 Extreme child-centeredness
 Radical egalitarianism & sexual freedom
60’s & 70’s
 Same themes as throughout 20th century
 Academic curriculum is pointless and repressive
 Kids should be free to do whatever moves them
 Schools should provide menu of artistic, expressive, creative,
intellectual activities
 Unfettered freedom will produce a better society
 “Open Education” (opposed by most parents)
 aka the “therapeutic school”
Results
 A decade of declining SAT scores
 Non-academic “reasons”
 “Racial diversification”
 Assumed the scores brought down as more minorities took the test
 Social & political upheaval
 Television
 Changes in family (divorces, women working outside home)
Results (cont’d)
 Academic Reasons
 Increase in electives, decrease in enrollments in academic
courses
 Grade inflation
 Greater tolerance for absenteeism
 Social promotion
 Increased enrollments in “general track” curriculum (neither
academic nor vocational)
 driver education, typing, consumer education, home economics