To Pursure Excellence--American Fundamental Education Reform In The End Of 20^th Century

From the beginning of 1950s, the cycle of American fundamental education reform had been shortened again and again, and the Americans could always identify the problems and gaps in the development of fundamental education with other countries in each period. The reform that carried out in the 1950s was stimulated by Soviet Union, in the 1960s, the reform's theme was"To promote equal educational opportunities","back to the basis"in the 1970s. According to the new changes of American society and international situation, different times had different themes. In the 1980s, American society and economy changed a lot. American society began to transfer from industry society to information society, and the industrial production changed into knowledge-intensive too. Such kind of changes needed to promote the quality of education and people's literacy urgently. American fundamental education began to pursue excellence in the end of 20th century: federal government's participation in education reform; reform waves happened one by one; the Reform of Education Guided by Market which played an important in the reform of traditonal public schools.A prominent feature of the education reform in the end of 20th century is the federal government's participation in the reform. Reports and laws which directed against education problems published in the period from Regan to Clinton government played a leading role in the reform,Measures taken by every state and local government had the substantial impact on fundermental education reform.Under the influence of New Liberalism, market mechanism had the chance to be introducted into the education system. The Reform of Education Guided by Market supplied a new management mode for the fundamental education, promoted the school's development. However, the damage of the market-oriented to the fairness and commonweal also existed.This paper is divided into five parts. Introduction of this paper described the reasons for selecting this topic, research methods, and defined this paper's start time and end time. The second part analysised the economic and social background of education reform, the important theory that influenced the reform, American's fear and dissatisfaction of fundamental education. The third part analysised the reform at the federal level, represented the measures that taken from Reagon to Clinton government and their results in details. In some degree, measures at the federal level did not have a material impact on fundamental education, the biggest role is to provide assistance to the state and local education departments in some urgent circumstances. The fourth part described the reform at state and local level. The three reforms happened in 1980s let the administrative power transfer from federal to state, and made the school freed from the top-down management. In 1990s, the school restructuring plan strengthened the state control of local schools. The Reform of Education Guided by Market made huge impact on traditional education system. This reform began in the early of 1990s and developed fully in late of 1990s and early 2000s. It transferred public schools'education system and management system from"Political-Economy Model"to"Economic Administration model", introducted market mechanism into education system to make schools survival of the fittest, and enlarged children and their parents'rights of choice. The last part described the evaluation of the reform. Affirmed the achievements in education reform, meanwhile, explained the disadvantages taken by the Reform of Education Guided by Market can not be ignored either: damaged the fairness and commonweal of education, reform measures still can do nothing about drug, violence and poverty.