Weekend Trivia: Today Is the 25-Year Anniversary Of What?

ANSWER: Saturday marked the 25th anniversary of A Nation at Risk


Title Page of Report
An Open Letter to the American People

A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform

A Report to the Nation and the Secretary of Education, United States Department of Education
by The National Commission on Excellence in Education
April 26, 1983


Wall Street Journal Description
As the WSJ described, this was " the influential Reagan-era report by a blue-ribbon panel that alerted Americans to the weak performance of our education system. The report warned of a 'rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.' That dire forecast set off a quarter century of education reform that's yielded worthy changes – yet still not the achievement gains we need to turn back the tide of mediocrity."


Twenty-Five Years Later
The quality of our education system can be debated forever. Sure, there have been huge gains. But there have been huge setbacks as well. One can find numbers that support either side of the argument.

My belief is that education today is worse than it was 25 years ago.

Even if I accept the argument that it is the same, the WSJ reports "we're also spending tons more money. (In constant dollars, per pupil spending in 1983 was 56% of today's.)" We are spending almost twice as much money for the same results.

As the 1983 study predicted, the United States is being passed by countries all around the world. This cannot bode well for our future.

And just today, the cover story from The Sacramento Bee presented an in depth study which showed that school districts were changing the classifications of students so that they could meet the rules of No Child Left Behind: "Over the past two years, 80 California school got 'out of trouble' with No Child Left Behind after changing the way they classify their students, a Bee analysis has found. The change nudged their status from failing to passing under the federal law." In effect, school districts are spending valuable resources to "work" the system, rather than teaching our students.

This country talks about equality and ending racial tensions, yet our government only encourages differences by creating different standards for different groups. Just as my 02/28/08 posting on the Census Bureau discussed, this country goes out of its way to profile our people.

The title of the WSJ article sums it up best: "Twenty-Five Years Later, A Nation Still at Risk"