By J.D. LaRock
April 28, 2003

When the report A Nation at Risk was issued in 1983, it set off shockwaves among policymakers and school officials charged with improving America's schools. The report — written by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, which was created by then-U.S. Secretary of Education T. H. Bell — warned that public schools were drowning in a "rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people," and asserted that America's educational institutions "seem to have lost sight of the basic purposes of schooling."

Among a litany of criticisms, the report found that:

• many high schools did not offer challenging classes;
• the amount of homework students were assigned was steadily declining;
• SAT scores had stagnated; and
• large numbers of teachers were being drawn from the bottom of their college classes.

Calling for a new "back-to-basics" movement in schools, it urged four major recommendations:

• the strengthening of high school graduation requirements;
• the adoption of measurable standards for academic performance;
• increasing the amount of time students devote to learning; and
• tightening standards for entry into the teaching profession.

To mark the twentieth anniversary of A Nation at Risk, the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. convened a panel of education scholars and advocates on April 1 to consider what progress has been made since the publication of the report, as well as what problems remain. The panel — moderated by AEI Resident Scholar Fredrick Hess — featured Michael Cohen, president of the group Achieve; AEI Senior Fellow Lynne Cheney; Thomas B. Fordham Foundation president Chester Finn, Jr., and Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy.

All four panelists acknowledged that A Nation at Risk gave rise to a flurry of education reforms at the federal, state, and local levels, such as the standards and accountability movement in schools, the establishment of bodies like the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act. However, they differed sharply as to how effective these reforms have been. Most of them, said Mr. Cohen, have done little to increase individual schools' capacity to improve instruction for students. While praising the efforts that have been made, he said school systems should do more to align their curricula with the standardized tests they give, offer more professional development to teachers, and promote efforts to develop leadership at the school level. Cohen also remarked that while A Nation at Risk concentrated largely on high schools, most of the reforms school systems have undertaken over the past two decades have focused on the early grades.

Mrs. Cheney began her presentation by noting that reading scores on the NAEP — a nationally administered standardized test — have remained essentially flat over the last generation, and that the United States ranked 19th out of 20 industrialized nations on the TIMMS, an international math and science exam. She asserted that many of the reforms pursued since A Nation at Risk was published "were not reforms at all," because they were promoted by groups of educators "interested in maintaining the status quo." Cheney took particular aim at three professional groups in the English, mathematics, and social studies fields that are influential in the development of curricula and textbooks in those subjects. Criticizing them for adopting what she characterized as faddish teaching techniques, she called on school systems to "clearly lay out what students need to know and do."

While agreeing with A Nation at Risk's diagnosis of the problems in American education, and its prescription for change, Mr. Finn said it was "na•ve for the authors to believe that the education system would change its ways," because of the vested interests of different groups within school systems. "The basic power relationships in these systems must change," he said, in order for widespread improvement to occur in America's schools. Finn discussed the results of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, a separate group of scholars that has revisited the impact of A Nation at Risk. The group recently issued a report that calls for future education reforms to be based on three core principles: accountability, choice, and transparency. Among other things, the Koret Task Force is calling for consequences for schools that fail to meet standards; the expansion of charter school and voucher efforts, and nationwide reporting of educational progress.

Mr. Tucker offered the strongest disagreement with A Nation at Risk, challenging its characterization that America's schools were in decline in the decades preceding its publication. He criticized the report for ignoring the impact of globalization on the skills American students need to acquire in an information-based economy, noting, "the world around us has changed, but schools, in many ways, have not." At the same time, Tucker named several countries with high-performing school systems that appear to have adopted many of the reforms the report advocated. Schools in those countries — such as Japan, Singapore, Belgium, and Sweden — have several things in common, he said, including clear instructional frameworks, required topics of study, few elective courses, and teachers that teach a standard curriculum.

While the panelists differed as to how effective America's efforts to reform its public schools have been over the last twenty years, they agreed that the steadfast focus on the issue has been a welcome change. In particular, all agreed that the expanding federal role in education — as evidenced by the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act — is an especially critical development. At the same time, however, the panelists underscored the importance of teaching and learning at the school level, urging policymakers to better align standardized tests with state and local standards, and align high school graduation requirements with the skills needed to enter college or the workplace. Finally, they concluded, as far as America's schools have come since A Nation at Risk was published, there is still a long way to go.