Word: math
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...guards (teachers) striving to control a mob of prisoners (students), some so preoccupied with the three Cs -- crack, crime and casual sex -- that they have no time for the three Rs. But the educational blight is not confined to underclass ghettos and barrios. Despite efforts to upgrade the math skills of U.S. students, a recent survey indicates that nearly half of American 17-year-olds cannot perform simple calculations that are normally learned in junior high school. Other surveys have documented equally dreary student performance in reading, writing and critical thinking. So ill equipped is the current crop of high...
...flunking performance of many U.S. students provokes a loud outcry for tougher standards, better instruction, classroom innovations. So far, all the noise has had shockingly limited impact on what actually goes on in the schools. Most high schools still do not require students to meet widely accepted standards for math and science. On the average, a student takes only 2.3 credits in math and 2 in science to graduate, instead of the 3 credits in each subject recommended by the National Commission on Excellence in Education...
...sparing his requests from the budgeteer's ax. There is ample precedent for treating education as a national-defense issue. In the panic that followed the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in 1957, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act, which vastly expanded federal support for science, math and foreign-language instruction in public schools...
...East Los Angeles into a worldwide symbol of educational hope. Its barrio-bound Hispanic students were inspired by Teacher Jaime Escalante to achieve startlingly high scores in that difficult subject calculus. But now the scores are falling. Only 46% of participating Garfield students passed a rigorous College Board math exam this year...
...measure of Reaganism's continued impact can be seen in Bush's evolution. A practical man who can read a balance sheet, Bush knew in 1980 that supply- side math could not add up for very long. He had the guts, as Reagan's rival for the nomination, to name it "voodoo economics." Today, like Dukakis, Bush knows there is a long list of public needs that cannot be met without some difficult choices, including a revenue increase (none dare call it taxes). But in the Balkanized G.O.P. of 1988, Bush had to get a large share of Reagan loyalists...