This month marks the 25th anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," a report by The National Commission on Excellence in Education, commissioned by then-education secretary T.H. Bell. It was a clarion call to the nation during a time of uncertainty at home and abroad; a powerful argument for the need to reform public education. But this is how it began:
"Our nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world." Then it adds this, " ...the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people."
The report was filled with urgency. You could almost hear commission members screaming, "Do something now or the nation will collapse!"
In the 25 years that followed, that urgency was shouted down by unparalleled prosperity, fueled in large measure by a computer and information revolution started by innovative youngsters in a garage in Seattle. Today, despite what almost surely is a recession, unemployment is less than in 1983 and per capita wealth is up. In addition, the nation's main enemy of 25 years ago, the Soviet Union, no longer exists. The United States is the world's sole superpower, and its military and economic might, despite the current situation, remain on top of the world.
The problems outlined in the report, however, continue to smolder like embers within the walls of a home, waiting to burst forth.
Today, an estimated 30 percent of students nationwide fail to graduate from high school, and that figure roughly doubles for Hispanic and black students. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert put it a little differently in a column last week: "An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds."
Faced with this, the current education secretary, Margaret Spellings, is proposing changes to the federal No Child Left Behind law, making it harder for states to fudge when reporting their dropout rates. But "No Child" is comfort food for the education system. It makes people think they feel better while making them only fatter and lazier.
Chester Finn, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a former assistant secretary of education during the Reagan years, thinks the law is designed backward. It allows states to set their own standards, then micromanages how they achieve them. It doesn't take a degree in behavioral science to understand that states will lower their standards to make it appear they are doing well.
This explains, for instance, how Wisconsin could report its tests show 81 percent of fourth-graders are proficient in reading, while the national assessment test put it at 35 percent.
Finn met with the Deseret News editorial board this week. He was in town to deliver a message that included an indictment of Utah's education system, which he said, "scores low on any rating system."
Finn thinks a federal law could bring results if it set standards and then let states find their own ways to achieve them. He believes local control of education "has kept schools solidly in the 1950s, even though the economy has changed."
He believes the constant emphasis on Utah's dead-last ranking in per pupil spending is "ridiculous." No one can draw a connection between per pupil spending and educational excellence.
Whether the nation begins to feel any real sense of urgency soon is doubtful. America remains strong and vibrant for many reasons, including a political and social system that encourages hard work, creativity and innovation. Writing in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria said American education works well but only for the wealthy. The issue is one of access.
That's a dire problem, all right. It's just not one the average middle-class American is likely to see as urgent.
Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com