EDUCATION REFORMS: AFFERIMATIVE ACTION AND HEAD START
...nt during the next five years, but by 1965 had slumped back to 4.9 percent. Only in the wake of affirmative action measures in the late 1960s and early 1970s did the percentage of black college students begin to climb steadily (in 1970, 7.8 percent of college students were black; in 1980, 9.1 percent; and in 1990, 11.3 percent). (National Center for Education Statistics). The 1978 Bakke case set the parameters of educational affirmative action. The University of California at Davis medical school had reserved 16 available places for qualified minorities. In a splintered decision, with Justice Powell casting the deciding vote, the Supreme Court essentially decided that setting aside a specific number of places in the absence of proof of past discrimination was illegal, but that minority status could be used as a factor in admissions. The desire to obtain a "diverse" student body was found to be a compelling goal in the educational context in Justice Powell's controlling opinion. (Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265(1978)). Increased educational opportunity has, in fact, revolutionized education, although some gaps persist. While the enrollment of women in higher education has risen steadily, with women now earning nearly fifty percent of all bachelor's and masters degrees, they earn only one third of doctorate and first professional degrees, and continue to lag in math, engineering, and the physical sciences at both the undergraduate and the doctoral levels. Through the availability of student aid programs and aggressive recruitment and retention programs, the college-going rate for blacks and whites who graduated from high school was about equal by 1977. Since 1977, however, the proportion of black 18-24 year old high school graduates enrolled in college has not kept pace with that of white students. While the percentage of black students who have graduated from high school has increased approximately 20 percent in the past 25 years, the portion of black high school student graduates attending college is now 25 percent less than that of white students. ( National Center for Education Statistics ). Since education is so fundamental to virtually all aspects of social and economic opportunity in America, the federal government's affirmative action programs in this area seek not only to deter and remedy discrimination, but also to promote inclusion of underrepresented groups. Therefore eliminating affirmative action is not just about re-segregating higher education but it's about re-segregating our society in general. Another form of education reform being used to correct our nations education crisis is head start. President Bush is pushing to modernize Head Start, which serves 900,000 children nationwide. A Health and Human Services report last month found that Head Start children "still enter kindergarten lagging far behind the typical American child in skills needed for school readiness." Research shows that while children in the program do show progress in cognitive development, "these low-income children continue to perform significantly below their more advantaged peers once they enter school in areas essential to school readiness, such as reading and mathematics." The needs of the disadvantaged have changed a lot in the past four decades. But Head Start, the government program devised in 1965 to prepare low-income toddlers for school, haven’t change much since 1965. (. Education Week) When Head Start started, most kids lived with both parents and few mothers worked outside the home. State programs have since emerged to provide child-care and pre-school education. Many of these services overlap with Head Start, which requires that its federal funds go directly to local organizations. Mr. Bush wants to let states control Head Start dollars, which could be integrated with state programs to prevent wasteful overlap. The President also wants more rigorous academic requirements for Head Start teachers. A White House-backed ...