A Nation At Risk: 28 Years and Counting

Classes are just getting started, and I'm still getting a handle on the idea of my new job as a student. I'm looking forward to sharing some of my experiences and the connection to my old classroom. In the meantime, I wanted to share this quote from the introduction to A Nation at Risk, a report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, published in 1983:

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.
I was struck by the bluntness of the language in the report. It's also disturbing to think that the challenge of education reform has been evident for three decades now and for all the urgency called for in this report, not much progress has been made. Looking forward to comparing this document with several others on the same topic.

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