The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto

The Paideia Proposal is addressed to those Americans most Concerned with the future of our public schools: To Parents who believe that the decline in the quality of public schooling is damaging the futures of their children; To Teachers troubles that the increasing time spent in keeping basic order in the classroom undermines the real business of schooling: to teach and learn; To School Boards frightened by the flight of middle-class children and youth to private and parochial schools; To College Educators burdened by the increasing need to provide remedial education which detracts from their ability to offer a meaningful higher education; To Elected Officials searching for ways to improve the quality of education without increasing the cost to taxpayers;To Employers concerned about the effects on productivity of a work force lacking skills in reading, writing, speaking, listening, observing, measuring, and computing; To Minority Groups angered by widening gulfs between the better educated and the poorly educated, and between the employed and the unemployed; To Labor Leaders attempting to deal with workers who lack the skills to find jobs in the new high-technology industries; To Military Leaders needing brainpower among the troops capable of coping with sophisticated weaponry; To American Citizens alarmed by the prospects of a democracy in which a declining proportion of the people vote or endeavor to understand the great issues of our time. Such legitimate concerns are addressed by our proposal for the reform of public schooling in America.