Our Nation Still at Risk
The 1983 report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk , used jarring language: “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.”
Despite the passage of 25 years this April, and despite the existence of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, too little has changed since the commission penned its indictment. Now comes a new report from the National Endowment for the Arts,
"To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence,"
chronicling the precipitous decline in reading in the United States. At home, TV, the computer, texting, video games, and the iPod steal time from books. And sadly, at school, the American classroom focuses on test-centered reading proficiency more than on shaping habits of mind anchored by the written word. The national endowment believes that the impact on civic life is...
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