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Before the 'Either-Or' Era

Reviving Bipartisanship to Improve America's Schools

By Richard W. Riley & Terry K. Peterson

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley and his longtime adviser Terry K. Peterson started their involvement in education on the ground. Mr. Riley was a PTA co-president with his wife, Ann “Tunky” Riley, at their children’s school. Mr. Peterson started as a teacher in Wisconsin, Brazil, and South Carolina. Then, for 30 years, they worked together and separately to improve policies, programs, and partnerships at the local, state, national, and international levels. They share in the following essay their reflections on those experiences, as seen through the prism of A Nation at Risk, the influential 1983 critique of American education.

For the last 25 years, American education has been trying to reform itself. This effort has been noble but only partially successful, and too often it has been defined by an “either-or” dichotomy that has led to publicly defined “wars” over reading and math instruction, and even the very existence of the U.S. Department of Education.

There have been peaks and valleys in this effort, and all too often people have reached for the next new silver-bullet solution, from open classrooms to “new math” to a four-day school week, only to discover the reality that improving American education does not happen easily. All the while, our public schools have been caught in the middle of the larger cultural and values debate that continues...