Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 23, 1990 TAG: 9003232920
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
"The problems of society and the problems of education have gotten bad enough that people are actually thinking in terms of changing the entire picture," the Old Dominion University professor of education said Thursday.
Allen outlines his proposed reforms in a soon-to-be-published book, "Schools for a New Century: National Goals with Local Controls."
Allen wants the United States draw up a national curriculum. The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world without a national curriculum, he said.
Such a curriculum would make education more cost effective, more responsive to local needs, easier to reform, and ultimately more successful.
"What people don't understand is that the right kind of regulation actually produces more freedom," he said. As an example, he said people in this country all drive on the right side of the road. While that inhibits our freedom to drive where we want on the road, it increases our ability to get where we want."
Allen proposes a national school board - "something like the Supreme Court" - to mediate a curriculum. That curriculum would cover two-thirds of what would be taught, with the remaining third coming from the state, region, local district and teachers.
"There is no way to reform the system now, because there is no one to talk to. There are 16,000 districts each making what they think are individual decisions," he said.
Allen also sees the need to upgrade technology in the classroom.
"For $5 billion a year we could put televisions and VCRs in every classroom in the country and provide quality educational programs - not those ridiculous talking heads - for every subject.
"For another $5 billion we could have computer labs in every school and five hours of computer time a week for every student.
Compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars forecast for the savings and loan bailout, Allen said the cost is cheap.
Not everyone agrees with the idea. The National Education Association, which represents 1,600,800 teachers, said it would support reforms that go in the opposite direction to decentralize school decisions further.
"Curriculum is a state and local function. They are best suited to make decisions about what's best for individual students," said Marilyn Rogers, an NEA spokeswoman. "I don't think it (a national curriculum) will ever happen."
"I've got no problems with a national curriculum, in theory," said Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents about 680,000 teachers nationwide.
"We have one now, in a sense. Everybody uses the same textbooks and everybody uses the same national tests. Neither the tests nor the textbooks are any good," Shanker said.
"What is going to guarantee that once we have this new curriculum that we don't end up with the same type of garbage?" he said.
by CNB