A Probe Into The Developmental Crisis Of Comprehensive High School In The U.S.

Throughout the world's history of the secondary education, the comprehensive high school is a creative initiative, which alternates the long-standing double-track pattern of the secondary education, and provides a new choice for the world's secondary education. The comprehensive high school is the special creation of the U.S. and is regarded as the school system with greatest American characteristics. In 1918, the publication of《the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education》is the landmark of the establishment of the comprehensive high school system, then the comprehensive high school began to develop. During the 1950s, because of the Russian Sputnik affair and a decline in the international competitiveness, Americans had ever objected to the comprehensive high school system and it was almost in trouble. Luckily, at the back of Conant, the comprehensive high school not only changed unfavorable situation, but also gained rapid development and afterwards it becomes the dominant school system of the secondary education. However, during 1980s especially after the report of《A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform》,facing the low quality of secondary education, the comprehensive high school system suffers criticizing and questioning greatly, and many people call for reforming and even replacing the comprehensive high school. As we can see, the comprehensive high school system falls into the unprecedented developmental crisis. Does the comprehensive high school really fall into developmental crisis? Which factors and forces cause to the developmental crisis of the comprehensive high school? Does the comprehensive high school still have the possibilities of development? Based on such problem awareness, this paper mainly could divides into several parts as follows:The first part, namely the chapter one, is centered on the historical process of the developmental crisis of the comprehensive high school. This part discussed how the comprehensive high school was established and developed in the U.S.; 1950s' the controversy situation of the comprehensive high school and Conant's idea of the comprehensive high school; and 1980s' developmental crisis of the comprehensive high school. As for the 1980s' developmental crisis of the comprehensive high school, this paper concentrates on Conant's three hypotheses about the comprehensive high school, that is the comprehensiveness (equity),curriculum differentiation and the school size, which can be used as the criterions to consider whether the comprehensive high school is in crisis. And during the operation process, these three hypotheses cause many problems and are encountering great challenge and criticism. Under such situation, the core features of the comprehensive high school are dying out. Therefore, the comprehensive high school is undoubtedly being in the developmental crisis.The second part is from the chapter two to chapter five. This part is mainly based on from perspective of structural functionalism, and tries to probe into the causes of the developmental crisis of the comprehensive high school system. The chapter two concentrates on the level of the education goals, and discusses the relevance of the transformation of the education goals to the comprehensive high school crisis, and concludes that with the individualization of the education goals, the public basis of the comprehensive high school is weakening and this would impair the comprehensive high school radically. The chapter three to the chapter five is based on the Conant's three hypotheses about the comprehensive high school, which are concentrated on the level of organizational structure. The chapter three discusses the equity of education and the developmental crisis of the comprehensive high school, especially the effects of the comprehensive high school on the ideal of equality of educational opportunity, as we all know the ideal of equality of educational opportunity is the most important idea of the comprehensive high school, and indeed in practice it has promoted the expansion of educational opportunity, but at the same time it aggravates the educational inequity to some degree. This situation partly leads to the comprehensive high school in crisis; The chapter four is concerned with the relationship between economic changes and the lag of the comprehensive high school's structural reform, since 1980s the structural transformation of the economy has been changing the secondary vocational education and the relationship between general education and vocational education, and it makes the bases of the curriculum differentiation are disappearing; the chapter five discusses the relevance of the counter youth culture to the developmental crisis of the comprehensive high school, with school consolidation the school size of the secondary education becoming larger and uniformed, the comprehensive high school becomes the dominant institution of the socialization of youth, it is also the main arena of the counter youth culture and this kind of culture destroys the internal environment and the efficacy of the comprehensive high school. All the factors discussed from the chapter three to chapter five leads to the developmental crisis of the comprehensive high school to some degree.Part three, namely the chapter six, mainly discusses as the mass college preparatory education institution, the social mission of the comprehensive high school. As the mass terminal education institution, the purpose and function of the comprehensive high school in the industrial age are nearly achieved; with the coming of post-industrial age or the knowledge economy era, based on the new needs of the society, the comprehensive high school has to transform to the mass college preparatory education institution, and the relevant educational reforms of the comprehensive high school are ongoing at present. We believe after this transformation, the comprehensive high school can break through the crisis, adapt to the needs of society and students and gain new future.