Several state legislatures have acted on recommendations to improve U.S. public schools, resulting in a swift and broad education reform movement. States have expanded school improvement programs, increased high school graduation and college admission requirements, deepened course offerings, and strengthened the teaching profession. Indicators of progress include longer school attendance, tougher academic courses, better counseling, higher achievement test scores, and increased teacher pay. This swift and broad movement gives reason for optimism about its success.

Rising national demands for better public K-12 education are not resulting in overall increases in education funding, according to an analysis of changes in education funding across all 50 states during the 1980s. While recent funding increases have halted the drop in the real level of resources per pupil that occurred in the early 1980s, only South Carolina and Tennessee have increased real revenues per child by close to 20%. Demands for education improvement exceed the level of fiscal resources needed to make those improvements.