Marc Tucker

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Marc Tucker is President of the National Center on Education and the Economy. He is one of the original leaders of the movement for standards-based education reform in the United States.

Mr. Tucker has authored or participated in:

• 1986 Carnegie Report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century.
• created the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
• created the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce.
• co-authored America’s Choice: high skills or low wages!, which called for a new high school leaving certificate, the Certificate of Initial Mastery, since abandoned, based on standards.
• helped create the National Skill Standards Board and served as the chairman of its committee on standards and assessment policy, though these standards have not been widely adopted.
• with Lauren Resnick, created the New Standards consortium, which pioneered the development of performance standards in the United States and created a set of examinations matched to the standards, though not widely adopted in favor of state-developed tests.
• with Ray Marshall co-authored Thinking for a Living: Education and the Wealth of Nations.
• with Judy Codding, co-authored Standards for Our Schools: How to Set Them, Measure Them, and Reach Them, published in 1998.
• with Judy Codding, co-editored The Principal Challenge, published in 2002.

Other background:^[1]

• Age: 53 (in 1993)
• Born: Newton, Mass, a Boston suburb
• Education: Newton public schools.
• College: Bachelor´s degree in philosophy and American literature, Brown University, 1961; studied theater engineering and technical theater production at the Yale University School of Drama; Master of Special Studies with a concentration in Telecommunications Policy, George Washington University, 1982.
• Lighting director, cameraman and researcher for the president of PBS affiliate WGBH-TV in Boston, 1962-70
• Assistant executive director, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, and education research institute in Portland, OR, 1971*
• Associate director, National Institute of Education, U.S.Deartment of Education, 1972-81
• Researcher in Washington DC, exploring the use of computers and telecommunications in education, on a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, 1981-84
• Executive director, Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, Washington, 1985-87
• Professor of education at the University of Rochester, 1988-90

Marc Tucker has been criticized as being instrumental in codifying the principles of outcomes-based education into many state laws, and promoting controversial standards such as whole language, reform mathematics which have met with intense protest and have in many cases been replaced by more traditional curricula after being deemed unworkable.

His proposals have led to a heavy emphasis on standards-based assessment, with No Child Left Behind being the federal version of this vision. Critics claim standards-based testing has made the curriculum revolve around test scores, and greatly increased the number of students labeled as failures, especially the minorities Tucker claimed such tests would help. Many websites have published his letter to Hillary Clinton in which he proposed a radical restructuring of education around principles of outcome-based education.

Some of the standards proposed by Tucker's New Standards Project have been criticized as ludicrous. A pair of 4th graders work with a professional carpenter to produce detailed 3-view plans of a bicycle trailer with a parts list which includes cotter pins and a counter-sink drill bit, a task beyond the ability of most high school students. A high school example project involves a single student, with the assistance of a teacher to weld some suspension parts to create and engineer a complete hybrid electric vehicle using an electric motor donated by the local power company, a feat beyond most teams of college engineering students.

In 2007, national media such as Time Magazine promoted his latest proposal for high school reform. But it was essentially similar to the original Certificate of Initial Mastery, which has since been abandoned by name as unworkable by every state which signed contracts with Tucker's NCEE. He still calls for ending high school for most students at the 10th grade. This is the practice in some other nations which send non-college bound students into the workforce at a reduced training wage, unlike the US which encourages all students to stay in school until the age of 18.

[edit] External Links

• Marc Tucker at NCEE website
• [1] Who is Marc Tucker? CURE Washington biography

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York, March 14, 1993

Standards-based education reform

Theorists: John Dewey  • William Spady  • Jean Piaget  •Benjamin Bloom  • Robert Carkhuff • Marc Tucker Theories: Standards-based education reform  • Outcomes-based education  • Developmentally Appropriate Practice  • Holism  • Constructivism (learning theory)  • Block scheduling  • Holistic grading  • NCEE  • Active learning  • Discovery learning  • Inquiry-based science  • Inventive spelling  • Open-space school  • Small schools movement Values: Excellence and equity  • Meaningful high school diploma  • High standards  • High expectations  • Continual improvement  • Accountability  • Closing the achievement gap Standards: Whole language • National Science Education Standards  • Standards-based mathematics  • National History Standards Federal: No Child Left Behind  • Goals 2000  • School-to-work transition Assessment: Criterion-referenced test  • Norm-referenced test  • Standards-based assessment State Assessment: AIMS  • CLAS  • WASL  • MCAS Diploma: Certificate of Initial Mastery  • High school graduation examination Traditional Education: Traditional education  • Traditional mathematics  • Direct instruction  • Phonics  • Decodable text  • Rote learning  • Grade (education)  • Lecture  • Tracking (education)  • Standard Algorithms  • Correct answer