This paper examined the problems in the current school reform movement, and shows what the government has done over the past twenty years to improve our school system. With the research gathered from numerous academic articles, this paper shows the positive and negative to current reform methods such as testing and accountability. It examines as the nine bills that Bill Clinton passed in 1993 and 1994. The paper discusses what is being done in the presently and what President Bush plans to do for the future of the United States Educational System. School reform is a major issue in today's society, and this paper provides factual information that will create a better educational system in the future.
             School Reform: Are We a Nation Still at Risk?
             In 1983 the National Commission on Excellence in education released a document that changed school reform drastically from that year to the present. "A Nation at Risk" report shows how the learning skills of students in the United States have declined since the 1960s. Even so the government has made some progress towards raising the performance level of the students. For the first time "testing" and " accountability" have become familiar phrases to students all across the country, starting as early as 3rd grade in most schools. Before the new school reform movement was passed, accountability of teachers and schools were not even mentioned in most schools. Today the government is trying to calculate how much accountability should be placed on teachers and schools for poor test scores. Many programs were developed after 1983 to help establish a new foundation that would be the basis for the education reform movement. Reform of Urban Schools and special programs for at risk students are two of the numerous programs that were established soon after the new education reform movement began. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), whi...