Faculty Publications

Educational Quagmire: The High Cost Of Ignoring Biophysical And Ecological Factors

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Educational reforms, Mainstreaming/inclusion, No child left behind, Political correctness, Racial achievement gap

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies

Volume

33

Issue

3

First Page

295

Last Page

327

Abstract

Recognizing that academic competencies are fundamental to a productive society, American policymakers and educators have, since the landmark Brown (1954-55) school desegregation ruling, placed high priority on closing the racial achievement gap (RAG). At all government levels - federal, state, and local - successive waves of school reforms have funneled resources into within-school reforms. In so doing, the impact of broad ecological and biophysical influences on human development and learning have been virtually if not totally ignored. Therefore and similar to programming reforms since the 1950s, the most recent federal initiative, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), is constructed on failed theoretical templates. The paper reviews schooling reforms upon which NCLB is based, in the context of the program's continued political popularity which contrasts with failure to narrow the RAG. Future projections of American educational productivity, and the subsequent need for dramatic school reforms, are examined in the context of rapidly changing American demographics.

Department

Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations

Original Publication Date

9-1-2008

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