‘A Nation at Risk’: What we’ve learned

Twenty-five years ago this month, Americans awoke to a 65-page bombshell, said Greg Toppo in USA Today. “A Nation at Risk,” a groundbreaking education study conducted by a blue-ribbon commission, famously warned of “a rising tide of mediocrity” in public schools so serious that it “threatens our very future as a nation.” On its 25th anniversary, the legacy of this “forceful little report” is decidedly mixed. “A Nation at Risk” did “kick-start decades of tough talk” about education reform, spurring improved teacher training, additional billions in federal aid to schools, and the formation of charter schools. It’s also largely responsible for the standardized testing imposed by the No Child Left Behind program. Nonetheless, the U.S. continues to lag behind many other advanced nations in literacy, numeracy, and key scholastic skills. Thirty percent of our children still don’t graduate from high school. “Depending on your point of view, the report either ruined public education or saved it.”

Certainly it hasn’t held up well, said Jay Evensen in the Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News. Written when education-obsessed Japan seemed poised to overtake the U.S. as an economic superpower, the report seems absurdly apocalyptic in hindsight. “You could almost hear commission members screaming, ‘Do something now or the nation will collapse!’” Yet Japan’s economy proceeded to go into a prolonged slump, while the U.S. has enjoyed decades of incredible prosperity. No mystery there, said Edward Fiske in The New York Times. Japanese students study longer and learn more, but their culture stresses “rote learning and memorization.” American schools, by contrast, emphasize problem-solving skills that are “critical to prospering in the global economy.” In retrospect, “the link between educational excellence and economic security is not as simple as ‘A Nation at Risk’ made it seem.”

The link between educational excellence and schools is also overstated, said George Will in The Washington Post. In the past 25 years, we’ve poured billions into “open classrooms,” multicultural canons, and similar pedagogical “fads.” Yet Johnny still can’t read. Why? Check out the so-called Coleman Report, released 17 years before “A Nation at Risk.” This groundbreaking study found that if children grow up in “fractured families” that value TV over books, and sloth over industry, no amount of school spending is likely to help them. Of course, no one wants to talk about the breakdown of the family. So instead we embrace feel-good measures, such as No Child Left Behind, which only encourage states to “dumb down” standards to give the appearance of improved academic performance. “A nation at risk? Now more than ever.”

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