Bell Praises Educational Reforms, Warns Some States to ‘Shape Up’

Former Education Secretary Terrel H. Bell said Thursday that the public school reform movement has “a great amount of steam” three years after he issued a report on a landmark educational study, but many states are doing little to educate America’s youth better.

Bell praised some states for legislating reforms, and he admonished others to “shape up” or “slip in their standing.”

“Where governors have been aggressive leaders, we have witnessed the most dramatic moves,” he said in a speech at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education.

Overall, however, states have done “very well--better than I expected,” he said.

Bell said that, although 41 states have followed the study’s key recommendation to enact tougher graduation requirements, the nation’s graduation rate has risen by 1.2% over the three-year period.

In 1983, 35 of the 50 states required only one year of math and science. Forty-one of them now require three years of math, science, social studies and English.