History of Education: Selected Moments

Selected Moments of the 20th Century

A work in progress edited by Daniel Schugurensky
Department of Adult Education, Community Development and Counselling Psychology,
The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT)

1985

Barriers to Excellence: Our Children at Risk

In 1985, as the degree of emotion surrounding the relationship between equality and excellence intensified, a report entitled Barriers to Excellence: Our Children at Risk (issued by the National Coalition of Advocates for Students) was widely publicized. The report strongly maintained that equality of educational opportunity should be the fundamental ideal of American schools, rejecting the implication that excellence could only be achieved by exclusion. Indeed, the document stated that "excellence without equity is both impractical and incompatible with the goals of a democratic society."

After a year-long study of schools in America, the Coalition called for:

Continued, rather than diminished, federal, state, and local attention to the rights of the disadvantaged and those discriminated against because of race, language, sex, or handicapping condition.
Greater willingness on the part of those in positions of responsibility to adjust schools to the diverse needs of all students who attend them.
More democratic governance of all schools which assures parents of a significant role in making decisions about the education of their children and teaches students, by example, principles of democratic participation and the exercise of constitutional rights.
Establishment of comprehensive early childhood education, day care programs, and in-school support services for children and youth as a means of preventing school failure.
Enactment of more equitable and adequate systems for financing schools, so that the quality of education available does not depend upon where a child lives.
More systematic attention to the problems of jobs for youth and dropouts by federal, state, and local education authorities.

Source:

Barriers to Excellence: Our Children at Risk (Boston: National Coalition of Advocates for Students, 1985), pp. viii-xiii. Reprinted in Marvin Lazerson (Ed.), American Education in the Twentieth Century: A Documentary History (New York: Teachers College Press, 1987).

LMS

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