Ernest L. Boyer

Toward the end of the Carter Administration, Dr. Boyer followed Alan Pifer as president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He expanded his position to go beyond the study of higher education bringing more attention to education at every level with concentration on the earliest years of a child’s education. He served the Foundation from 1979 to his death in 1995. Dr. Boyer died on December 8, 1995. During his three-year struggle with cancer, he never stopped working. He took telephone calls the day before he died.

In 1995 the Carnegie Foundation published, The Basic School: A Community for Learning. This report talked about the importance of the first years of formal learning. The main point of the report was to help the public understand that the school is a community with a vision, "teachers as leaders and parents as partners." He also wanted a "powerful voice for the arts in education." This report led to the Basic School Network. The trial program was made up of sixteen schools, public and private. Boyer worked with school administrators and staff on the beliefs of the Basic School. This included new ways to create a curriculum, the importance of language and the arts, and the involvement of parents. The Basic School Network now has centers and affiliates around the country and is successful in improving elementary education.

In Ready to Learn: A Mandate for the Nation (1991), Boyer makes a strong point about the importance of preparing young children for school. Education of the parents of preschoolers was essential so that they might know "all of the forces that have such a profound impact on the children's lives and shape their readiness to learn." This study led to landmark legislation such as the Ready to Learn Act of 1994.

Boyer's next report stated how many faculty members of undergraduate institutions put more emphasis on research than on actual teaching. His report College: The Undergraduate Experience in America, was published in 1987. Boyer declared that the students were not getting the full attention of their instructors, stressing the importance of directing more resources into undergraduate education programs, expanding orientation and faculty mentoring for new students, and creating community service programs for students. Boyer connects teachers with students and professors in both high school and college on a more personal basis. Community service programs with high schools and college benefit all who are involved.

After working on a fifteen-month study of the nation’s high schools, Boyer wrote High School: A Report on Secondary Education in America (1983). Boyer recommended adopting a "core curriculum" for all students and tougher foreign language and English requirements. He stressed the need for community service before graduation and excellence for all students and teachers.

Dr. Boyer served on commissions to advise President Richard M. Nixon and President Gerald R. Ford. In 1977, he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to lead the United States as Commissioner of Education.

In 1965, he moved east to join the State University of New York system as its first executive dean. He became Chancellor of the institution five years later.

Ernest LeRoy Boyer (September 13, 1928 – December 8, 1995) was an American educator who most notably served as Chancellor of the State University of New York, United States Commissioner of Education, and President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Boyer was recipient of numerous awards, including over 140 honorary doctorates.

Boyer was born on September 13, 1928 in Dayton, Ohio, to Clarence and Ethel Boyer. He was one of three males in his family. His father worked in the basement of their home managing a wholesale book store and running a mail-order greeting-card and office-supply. William Boyer, Ernest’s paternal grandfather, was said to be the most influential figure in his younger years. William Boyer was head of the Dayton Mission of the Brethren in Christ Church and directed Ernest toward "a people-centered life." He taught Ernest, primarily through his own life, that service to others was a high calling and obligation. Boyer believed deeply in the connectedness of all things. That was a primary reason why he would later propose the connection of teaching, service, and research in Scholarship Reconsidered. He worried the research had trumped the roles of teaching and service in the university, and faculty roles were lesser for it. This concern was shared by Abraham Flexner, who worked for Carnegie nearly a hundred years earlier.