EDUCATION: IMPORTANT EVENTS OF THE 1980s

1980

Gallup poll shows parents believe that the top three problems in the nation's schools are 1) discipline; 2) drug use; and 3) poor curriculum and low standards.
Poll results show blacks from the Northeast give public schools a "D."
Seventy-nine percent of respondents favor instruction dealing with morals and moral behavior.
A federal judge strikes down a Texas law excluding most illegal alien children from public schools, saying "the rights of man are not a function of immigration status."
Dade County, Florida, School District decides not to provide special programs for the new wave of twenty thousand refugees inundating the Miami area.
New Reagan administration rules regarding the school-lunch program sharply downgrades the nutritional requirements of lunches and defines ketchup and pickle relish as vegetables.
Rand-McNally Corporation, publishers of junior-high chemistry textbooks, is ordered to pay $155,000 to two eighth graders injured while conducting an experiment outlined in their text.

4 July: The National Education Association (NEA) votes to endorse Jimmy Carter for president.
17 July: A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a decision ordering New York school districts to provide sign interpreters for deaf children.
Aug.: The Republican presidential platform in New York supports an end to busing and abolition of the Department of Education.
Sept.: One million fewer children begin kindergarten than in 1979.
2 Sept.: Franklin Military School, authorized by the Richmond, Virginia, Board of Education, opens as one of few public military academies. Known as a "miniature West Point," the school is hailed as a balance to the "open" schools elsewhere in Richmond.
1 Oct.: Science teachers publish the Mount St. Helens Curriculum Materials Project, materials that convert the explosive event into lessons.
Nov.: A Rand Corporation study claims that schools that desegregate voluntarily offer a better quality of education than those that desegregate under court order.

1981

Jan.: A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the First Amendment "does not require—or even allow" public school officials to permit student prayer meetings in classrooms before school.
13 Jan.: A federal judge orders Texas school district to provide catheterization for a five-year-old girl at school under the provisions of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act.
19 Jan.: On the last day of the Carter administration, the Department of Education publishes a new, stricter interpretation of Title I regulations.
20 Jan.: The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, publishes "Agenda for Progress," recommending "the eventual goal of complete elimination of federal funding" for schools.
Mar.: New York City schools, having identified an extra twenty thousand handicapped students to comply with court order, find themselves with seven thousand identified handicapped students with no teachers. The schools hope to hire one thousand special-education teachers.
5 Mar.: Parents of six public-school students sue the Philadelphia Board of Education for more than $20 million, claiming the students had been exposed to harmful levels of asbestos, a cancer-causing agent.
1 Apr.: Jesse Helms, senator from North Carolina, introduces a bill that would leave to state courts challenges to state laws relating to "voluntary prayers in public schools and public buildings." The bill is defeated.
5 Apr.: The District of Columbia announces that more than six thousand children in grades one through three will not be promoted under the schools' new competency-based curriculum.

1982

10 Aug.: A federal judge throws out a Louisiana creationism suit saying it had no place in federal court; the 1981 Louisiana law required balanced treatment to creation science and evolution science.
Sept.: The National Assessment of Educational Progress announces that in five years Hispanic nine-year-olds have made improvements in their reading skills, twice as much as the average for children that age.
Nov.: Teacher unions in fourteen states declare Democratic gubernatorial victories to be "victories for education."
1 Nov.: The College Board reports that the SAT for college-bound seniors in 1982 rose for the first time in nineteen years. The average verbal score was 425, average math score 467; when the decline began, in 1963, the average verbal score was 478, average math score, 502.

1983

Chicago school officials announce they are investigating charges that schoolbus drivers smoke marijuana and drink alcohol on the job.
An Education Department survey of fifteen thousand kids reveals that children of working mothers scored lower on reading and math tests than those students with mothers who stay home.
The U.S. Supreme Court upholds a lower court approval of New York's state aid to education despite the disparity it leaves between wealthy and poor districts. The reasoning is that "no substantial federal question" is involved in the lawsuit.

Jan.: A federal appeals court strikes down sweeping sex bias rules of the Department of Education, ruling that the department can regulate only those school programs that receive direct federal funds.
24 Jan.: A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules in a Peoría, Illinois, case that handicapped students have to pass minimum competency tests for a diploma if their state mandates passing the test for all students.
7 Feb.: A U.S. district judge in Philadelphia rules that once racial integration of faculty has been achieved, districts do not have to maintain racial balance on each faculty by constantly reshuffling teachers' assignments.
21 Feb.: School finance experts tell school officials that little attention to equalizing funding will be given in the next decade because of high unemployment and revenue shortfalls.
5 Mar.: The director of curriculum in New York announces that all students will be assigned a minimum amount of homework each night.
7 Mar.: Two psychologists in TV Guide claim video games are good for kids: playing games siphons off money that could be spent for drugs and encourages problem solving, they report.
21 Mar.: The U.S. Supreme Court hears a case of an unmarried teacher fired when she gave birth; she insists a married teacher would have been treated differently. The district counters that she was fired for failure to give notice, not merely for immorality.
4 Apr.: An American Association of School Administrators' survey finds that Chapter II block grant funds are being spent on equipment, not staff.
18 Apr.: School security directors say most districts' computer files are vulnerable to hackers; so far students' favorite target is to change grades in data banks.
16 May: A federal judge in Florida upholds denial of diplomas to seniors failing that state's minimum competency exam. That blacks make up 57 percent of the failures but only 20 percent of the student body is not considered evidence that the test is racially biased.
30 May: Only 50 percent of pupils in Coalinga, California, return to their elementary schools a week and a half after the town was hit by an earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale.
11 July: The U.S. Supreme Court upholds a ban on sweep searches of students by dogs.
26 Sept.: School district officials from five areas sue the U.S. Department of Agriculture in hopes of suspending the USDA's required verification procedure for free or reduced-price lunches. The suit charges that each verification costs the district $18.
10 Oct.: A long-range study finds that low pay given to teachers in Catholic schools (top pay of $18,000) compared to pay in the public schools (top of about $30,000) contributes to the 20 percent turnover in Catholic schools.
21 Nov.: In the first Wisconsin case of a teacher taking a student to court for battery, a Wisconsin teacher is awarded $23,000 in punitive damages from a student who hit him three times in the face.
19 Dec.: A Vatican research group urges parochial schools to augment children's sexual education.

1984

A new congressional bill authorizes $425 million in fiscal 1984 for new programs in math, science, and foreign languages over the next five years.

2 Jan.: A University of Texas study shows that undocumented aliens paid $157 million in state taxes, while using $97 million in services, including education.
16 Jan.: The Pasadena, Maryland, school board rejects a request from a fundamentalist Christian parent who wants teachers to tell the "truth" about Santa to first graders.
27 Feb.: In Alabama a state superintendent-appointed committee finds that teacher time is too valuable to sell class rings, caps, gowns, yearbooks, and the other paraphernalia desired by high-school seniors.
28 Feb.: The Cincinnati, Ohio, school district becomes the latest to end many years of struggles over desegregation by designing a voluntary choice system involving extensive use of magnet schools.
26 Mar.: Dr. Robert Graham, a member of Reagan's Task Force on Food Assistance, suggests a universal school-lunch program that taxes parents for the value of kids' meals as income.
7 May: Texas repeals its textbook restriction, passed in 1974, requiring evolution to be presented as "only one of several explanations" of how the universe began.
4 June: A Hicksville, New York, school district approves a referendum reinstating a period of silent meditation at the beginning of the school day. A parent vows to sue with the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union if the period exists when her daughter begins school in September.
9 July: Arlington, Virginia, high schools see a 45 percent reduction in cutting class, because of the installation of a computer system capable of phoning parents of everyone absent without permission (and speaking in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese).
11 Sept.: Los Angeles officials report that students are now required to maintain a C average with no failures in order to participate in extracurricular activities.
Oct.: A judge in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, upholds Catholic school officials who kicked a sixteen-year-old football player off the team for getting another student pregnant. The parents had sued, claiming that suspension for the season would cause irreparable harm.
8 Oct.: The Supreme Court agrees to hear an Oklahoma City rule that affirms firing homosexual teachers if they openly espouse homosexuality. Gay teachers say that espousal is a constitutionally protected activity.
17 Dec.: Ten Arkansas teachers sue to block the state from requiring them to take a literacy test and a competency exam in their subject areas.
18 Dec.: The National Council for Better Education, a conservative group, announces plans for a recruitment drive for teachers who want an alternative to the National Education Association.

1985

A study reveals that one-third of the nation's teachers report they are un-comfortable using computers; nearly all want more training, however.
U.S. Gypsum is forced to pay $675,000 to School District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties in South Carolina for asbestos removal from Irmo High School after the jury learns that the company's safety director knew of dangers as early as 1955.
The nation's 2.1 million teachers receive an average 7.3 percent pay boost this academic year, for a 1984-1985 salary of $23,546.
The annual Gallup poll on education shows a split among teachers, principals, and the public on the number one problem facing education: Principals claim lack of money, teachers claim too much paperwork; the public claims discipline.
The Senate confirms William Bennett as education secretary by a vote of 93-0 after Reagan assures Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that he would not demand that Bennett dismantle the department.

3 Jan.: Survey released by Secretary of Education Terrei H. Bell shows that none of the states with top-achieving SAT students—Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Minnesota—were top-spending states.
7 Jan.: The Chicago school board reaches an agreement with twenty thousand striking teachers out for two weeks by offering a 4.5 percent salary increase.
Feb.: A random sampling of student achievement before and after five Colorado school districts went to a four-day week shows student achievement unaffected.
4 Feb.: The Supreme Court affirms "reasonable" searches of students—upholding a New Jersey vice principal who searched the purse of a fourteen-year-old drug dealer.
5 Feb.: Montgomery County, Maryland, announces plans to send school information such as report cards and newsletters to both divorced parents, not just custodial parent.
May: Johns Hopkins researchers are giving students at Pimlico Middle School in Baltimore tokens worth thirty-five cents for attending classes; the tokens may be used at the school store or cafeteria.
7 May: Science magazine publishes the result of two researchers' study of more than one thousand scientific and technical journals during a three-year period to determine if evidence of creationism was being suppressed. Of the more than 135,000 articles submitted, only eighteen concerned creationism, and none was written by an author skilled in the scientific method. "It is inappropriate to invoke censorship," said the researchers.
June: The ACT announces that trade and technology jobs have replaced social-services occupations as the most popular career choices among eighth and eleventh graders.
10 June: The Agriculture Department scraps its rule barring the sale of junk food at public schools. Junk-food sales are still not allowed in the cafeteria or at lunchtimes.
July: A study by the Southern Regional Education Board finds that education majors take less-demanding courses than most students.
8 July: Research by the Youth Suicide Center says the last person a teen contemplating suicide would confide in is a school counselor—and that 11 percent of the nation's high-school seniors have made a suicide attempt sometime in their lives.
5 Aug.: Sixty years after John Scopes went to trial in Tennessee for teaching the theory of evolution in high-school biology, a federal appeals court strikes down a four-year-old Louisiana law mandating the teaching of creationism.
Sept.: Ohio University professor Myron Lieberman's 1959 article calling for an independent national board to certify superior teachers modeled on similar bodies that exist for lawyers and doctors is reprinted in the journal Phi Delta Kappan.
23 Sept.: A Metropolitan Life Insurance poll claims that by 1990 one of every four teachers will have left the job because of low pay and poor work conditions. Only 36 percent of teachers rate merit pay and teacher bonuses as a good thing for education.
7 Oct.: A new Georgia state law mandates that all newly elected or appointed school-board members must undergo training in Georgia's new reform bill as well as in school finance.
8 Oct.: The National Center for Education Statistics announces that high-school students in 1982 did less homework than peers in 1972, but more than students in 1980.
15 Oct.: Fitness expert Bonnie Prudden tells a Senate subcommittee that today's sixteen-year-olds did worse on fitness tests than students did thirty years previously. Fifty-eight percent of American students (but only 8 percent of Europeans) failed a standard fitness test.
13 Dec.: The American Medical Association journal publishes a research study showing that students and teachers run unusually high risks of contracting hepatitis B virus from mentally retarded children mainstreamed into classrooms. (Hepatitis B strikes Down's Syndrome children at extremely high rates.) The researchers urge immunization programs.

1986

In the first federal study of the nation's teachers in fifteen years, the Department of Education announces that most put in long workweeks, are quite likely to have advanced degrees, and earn $22,701. One-third of male teachers have a supplementary job; one-fifth of females do.
Parents, in the annual Gallup poll of education, say for the first time that drugs are the number one problem in schools, replacing the perennial favorite, discipline.

Jan.: For the first time since records began to be kept twelve years previously, a principal's salary tops the $70,000 mark; the principal, unnamed, leads a senior-high school with a population between 2,500 and 9,999, according to the American Association of School Administrators.
Feb.: For the fifth time in five years, President Reagan requests a reduction in the amount of federal spending for education. This year, for fiscal year 1987, the total is $15.2 billion, down $3.2 billion from fiscal year 1986.
24 Feb.: The Council for Basic Education publishes a study claiming that minimum competency tests for students are at best a "waste of time, at worst, a form of consumer fraud."
10 Mar.: The American Association of School Administrators releases a study of the nation's 154 best high schools. The factors they have in common are "the hardest to pin down": a positive climate, strong administrative leadership, and excellent teachers. "It's the people who run the school who make the difference," researchers conclude.
24 Mar.: A study shows that women are steadily increasing their representation on the nation's school boards: from 12 percent in 1972 to 38 percent in 1985.
Apr.: Broughton High School in Raleigh, North Carolina, is the first public school in the nation to establish a privately funded endowment. This endowment, of $100,000, provides for two $5,000 awards for the school's two best teachers in 1986.
5 May: The National Council on Year-Round Education estimates that more than two hundred students in some three hundred schools now are involved in year-round schooling. Most common is the 45/15 plan, in which students spend forty-five days in class, then fifteen days on vacation.
16 June: A test given in March to two hundred thousand Texas teachers is formally challenged by teachers' union charging racial bias. One percent of white teachers failed the test; 18 percent of black teachers and 6 percent of Hispanic teachers failed.
28 Aug.: Nobel laureates speak out at a news conference against creationism, claiming that to "teach that the statements of Genesis are scientific truths is to deny all the evidence."
9 Sept.: The National Education Association says that social ills of kids are schools' biggest problems; that suicide, teen pregnancy, and teen drug use are problems teachers simply cannot solve.
14 Sept.: The Department of Education announces that the perpupil expenditure for this school year has reached a high of $4,263.
22 Sept.: A University of Minnesota study finds that 80 percent of latchkey children like being home alone, and that nearly 30 percent of children in K-3 go home to a situation with no adult custodian.
6 Oct.: A National Assessment of Educational Progress survey shows that of 3,600 adults ages 21-25, only 40 percent could understand a newspaper editorial; only 20 percent could use a bus schedule to plan a trip; and only 10 percent could interpret a four-line poem by Emily Dickinson.
20 Oct.: The Education Department's budget for fiscal year 1987 is set at $19.2 billion by a House-Senate committee, more than 25 percent above Reagan's proposed $15.2 billion budget.
30 Oct.: William Bennett and Caspar Weinberger, defense secretary, hold a press conference to promote military retirees as excellent candidates for teaching positions. They present a new brochure, "A Second Career for You," published by the Department of Education to military retirees.
3 Nov.: U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop calls on nation's schools to launch programs at the "lowest grade possible" alerting children to the dangers of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
17 Nov.: In the first case of its kind, a student athlete at the University of Colorado challenges a school-run drug testing program as a violation of the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable search and seizure.
1 Dec.: In a completed study of teacher evaluations nationwide, the Rand Corporation concludes that most schools do not put the necessary resources into the program, and that "even fewer put the results into action."

1987

Feb.: William Bennett's fourth annual "wall chart" of state education statistics shows no improvement on SAT scores. Also, graduation rates have dropped in thirty-three states.
9 Feb.: The U.S. Supreme Court announces it will consider legality of a New Jersey law allowing one minute of "silent contemplation" at the start of the school day, the case is Karcher v. May.
23 Feb.: A Kent State University researcher creates an interactive video simulation of violence in schools for teacher training purposes.
23 Mar.: New Jersey officials promise to find ten thousand new jobs for ten thousand high-school graduates by 1992.
4 May: The New Jersey Supreme Court, in a 7-0 decision, requires schools to admit students with AIDS.
15 June: A survey shows that graduates of vocational education programs in Ohio earn 21 percent more than comparable students with no vocational training.
17 Aug.: Setting what could be a mandate for textbook publishing nationwide, the California Board of Education unanimously passes a measure requiring more facts on religion in history textbooks.
1 Sept.: The Department of Education notifies nearly a million student-loan defaulters that they must pay by 1 October or be held responsible for collection costs and repayment loans, adding up to 45 percent to their bills.
28 Sept.: U.S. secondary-school students know less about science than their predecessors did in 1970; they lag behind students in England and Japan, a Teachers College study finds.
9 Nov.: A group of twelve conservative historians and education writers attacks American history text publishers, accusing them of filling student texts with "cowardice, commercialism, condescension, and crassness" and serving as "cheerleaders for minorities at the expense of central stories that mark the nation's development."
7 Dec.: A coalition of urban school superintendents releases a plan to curb the nation's dropout rate; it includes early intervention, a positive school climate, high expectations for students, and strong teachers.

1988

The Department of Education announces that this year will be marked by more students, more teachers, and more spending compared to last year.

18 Jan.: The Education Commission of the States releases a survey on illiteracy that claims that the majority of illiterates in America are white.
1 Feb.: A U.S. Supreme Court ruling gives school administrators wide latitude over student newspapers in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. In the 5-3 decision, the majority writes, "A school need not tolerate student speech that is inconsistent with its mission, even though government could not censor similar speech outside school."
12 Feb.: Public-school administrators, mostly male, white, and well paid, have higher opinions of schools than the public, says a survey by the National Center for Educational Information.
14 Mar.: The fifth annual Department of Education "wall chart" comparing state educational statistics shows SAT scores unchanged. "Substantial and ever-increasing dollars have not given us the results our children deserve," claims William Bennett.
16 May: William Bennett announces he will resign as secretary of the Department of Education in the fall to speak and write.
23 May: The National Endowment for the Arts reports that American education produces "artistic and cultural illiterates."
28 June: Most states will need a tax hike to carry out educational reforms, a new report of the National Council of State Legislatures warns.
10 July: A catastrophic-health-care bill signed by President Reagan provides Medicaid for some special-education services, such as speech pathology and audiology, psychological services, and physical and occupational therapy.
Sept.: New Education Department secretary Lauro Cavazos takes over from William Bennett.
12 Sept.: A Rand Corporation report recommends recruiting homemakers and career switchers to fill the gap of qualified math and science teachers.
26 Sept.: An Education Department study finds that special education costs less in the mainstream—the cost to educate a student in specialed classes is $8,649 per year; mainstreamed into regular classes, $3,847.
Nov.: During the month seven thousand schools receive a series often videos designed to sway children from drug use funded by the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act.
7 Nov.: A Lehigh University professor who has studied the role of the courts in public education announces that "It seems the pendulum is shifting in favor of school authorities."
19 Dec.: Principals from several districts report that use of student uniforms has improved their school climates and have been welcomed by 97 percent of parents.

1989

The Texas Supreme Court rules 9-0 that the state's school-finance system is unconstitutional because it offers poor children a poor education. Texas must devise a new funding formula by May 1990.

Jan.: A NAACP Defense Fund survey says chronically poor blacks are increasingly relying on education to catapult their children from poverty.
27 Feb.: Three of four American students do not master enough math to cope in college or on the job, reports the National Research Council.
13 Mar.: Principals' salaries outpace inflation, with the average principal earning $52,987, according to a report from the American Association of School Administrators (AASA).
10 Apr.: The flood of innovations emerging from 1983's "A Nation at Risk" has left middle schools largely unscathed, researchers claim at AASA conference.
24 Apr.: A quarter of the nation's eighty-eight thousand school buildings are threats to children's safety, says a study by the Education Writers Association.
8 May: The EPA finds radon levels high in schools in sixteen states. Twenty-two percent of the three thousand classrooms tested exceeded safety standards for radon gas.
17 July: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that states are immune from parents' suits for tuition reimbursement for private-school special education. Local school districts must continue bearing the burden alone.
11 Sept.: A research study shows that children from small families far outstrip their class-mates from large families in educational attainment.
25 Sept.: The Women's Sports Foundation analyzed data on thirteen thousand students and found that female high-school athletes are more likely to enter college than nonathletes.
23 Oct.: An annual survey reveals that fewer students are drinking alcohol and using drugs than two years ago, but more are smoking cigarettes.
Dec.: The American Institute for Research announces that forty-four states are now requiring teachers to pass competency tests, up from just ten in 1980.
4 Dec.: The Virginia State Board of Education declares that parents need not tell school official if their child has AIDS.
18 Dec.: The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review a ruling that no child is too handicapped to receive services from school districts.