Introduction

Beginning with the transformation of the United States from a rural, agricultural country to an urban, industrialized nation, American society has always viewed education as the vehicle to success, and believed that education will lead to a better job, higher wages, and the achievement of the American dream. The American workplace of today is rapidly changing; it is no longer a factory-based manufacturing economy that employs workers with minimal skills in an assembly line organizational model; rather, it is a high tech service economy that employs workers with advanced skills in a workgroup model.

A second characteristic of America in the 21st century is the widening technological and economic gap between the wealthier and poorer students of our society, what Jesse Jackson refers to as the "digital divide." The attempts made by schools in our wealthier districts to begin to teach their students the skills and knowledge needed to meet the high tech demands of American business, meager as they may be in some districts, far outweigh what is happening in the schools in our poorer communities. If this trend is allowed to continue, the future of our society is bleak indeed, for we will quickly become not one nation but two, one rich and one poor, one have and one have not.

The challenge facing the American education system is two-fold: First, to change its curriculum, instruction, and organization so that it will produce graduates who have the knowledge and skills the American workplace of the 21st century demands; Second, to ensure that all children, regardless of where they live, how rich or poor they are, what language they speak at home, or what the color of their skin may be, will have, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, " equal privileges in the race of life with all its desirable human aspirations."