A Delphi study of American schools\u27 performance in preparation of students for the twenty-first century

Politicians, technologists, business persons, parents, and educators of the 1990s continue to express concern and call for changes in the American public schools. One of the issues facing educational leaders is to determine how many of the calls for change should receive attention and how the changes should be implemented to enable the public schools to prepare students for life in the twenty-first century. A review of the calls for change show perspectives that stand alone, expressing the needs of the special interest the writer represents. Seldom are the recommendations supported by the perspectives of a second or third special interest group. This study fills that gap as a consensus opinion from business, family, government, technology, and educational representatives was generated. The blend of the visionary viewpoints provides an opportunity to describe the needs of American public schools to prepare students for the future and development of a plan that educators can act on or implement to create the restructuring necessary to meet the needs. The research design used for this study was a Delphi technique. The Delphi technique is a method to solicit, collect, evaluate, and tabulate independent expert opinions systematically without group discussion. The effort to develop a picture of educational needs for the future through subjective input placed this study in the qualitative paradigm of research. A total of 22 experts representing business, family, government, technology and education were selected to participate. This research project resulted in defining the collective vision for education in the future as perceived by business, family, government, technology, and educational representatives. The needs and suggested steps to meet these needs provide education with a plan for preparing American public school students for the twenty-first century