We’re Still at Risk

This weekend marks the 25th anniversary of the landmark education report A Nation at Risk and education analysts are offering their own perspective on where America is in regards to education. I wrote about Secretary of Education Spellings yesterday and wanted to mention one other issue from her remarks today. 

She said:

Many of the actions that A Nation at Risk recommended in 1983 continue to be largely ignored: raising standards, making coursework more rigorous, and using classroom time more effectively. These proposals were not unreasonable then, and they’re not unreasonable now.

Our campaign has put together our own analysis of the last 25 years and we’ve concluded similar results with respect to common, rigorous standards, expanding time for learning, and teacher compensation.

The Christian Science Monitor and Seattle Times also agree.

Waiting another 25 years before we act to solve this crisis is unacceptable:

• We cannot afford to fail in our mission to provide students with a world-class education.
• We cannot afford to graduate millions of high school seniors who lack skills in reading and math that they should have learned in middle school.
• We especially cannot afford to continue slipping farther and farther behind the other nations of the world.

Our students deserve better, and our nation’s economic security is at greater risk now than ever before.

Comments

[Tami Ellison]

Kudos on all your efforts! Focusing a keen lens on education and setting it as a national priority is long overdue.

Sadly, what many fail to appreciate is that twenty-five years represents more than three generations of K-8 students who have been "passed" through a sorely inadequate educational system. A quarter century of excuses is inexcusable and should be unacceptable to all stakeholders.

Save for the well timed outrage that is all too conveniently linked to any given election cycle across the country (whether at the local, state or national level) there seems to be a lack of urgency and a consistent moral imperative necessary to drive critical reform.

It is difficult to know whether education would be in a different place if the recommendations put forth in "A Nation at Risk" had been implemented over the past twenty-five years. But if we are to look forward to effecting meaningful change today, and everyday, and be ready to invest in the future of our students, perhaps we should try to understand why we have not been able to reconcile these most critical issues to date.

While there are impressive pockets of excellence, models on which to build, and exemplars of best practices in various public, charter and private school enterprises, for the most part we continue to spin our wheels and reinvent those very wheels in school districts and states across the country, wasting time, money, and scarce resources. If we do not wish to find ourselves lamenting over the same problems twenty five years from now, perhaps we need to ask why we have failed and where we lack the capacity necessary to address these most critical issues.

How and where can we streamline our processes, improve our approaches and point to best practices on which to model content and concept standards? Can we define a set of high standards of achievement, of excellence, that can be applied to all students? Can we refuse to accept mediocrity, whether from students, parents, teachers, administrators or politicians?