A Nation at Risk
Reading & Literacy
Opinion
Our Nation Still at Risk
School director Bruce Shaw writes that too little has changed since "A Nation at Risk" was first published 25 years ago.
Federal
Letter to the Editor
Teachers Should Find a Voice Beyond Unions’
What other profession gets away with such long-term shoddy performance? Only in a monopoly that has a stranglehold on the way education is delivered is such a lack of accountability possible.
Federal
Explainer
A Nation at Risk
In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released a critical report on the state of education, called A Nation at Risk.
Federal
Reagan’s Legacy: A Nation at Risk, Boost for Choice
President Ronald W. Reagan left an education legacy of advocacy for vouchers and school prayer.
Standards & Accountability
Opinion
Back to the Future in Mathematics Education
Despite calls for reform, little has changed in mathematics instruction over the past 20 years, says Lynn Arthur Steen, citing two recent reports.
Federal
Opinion
Jencks Reassessed, One Career Later
Veteran educator Roger T. Sauer finds it hard to overcome sociologist Christopher Jencks's arguments on the correlation between school achievement and socioeconomic status.
Federal
Opinion
The Persistence of the 'Grammar of Schooling'
Former teacher Edgar H. Schuster deflates the importance of A Nation at Risk in initiating education reform nationwide, warning that continuing to view it as the guidebook for American education will distract reformers from the real problems in schools.
Federal
Nation at Risk: The Next Generation
Twenty years ago this week, the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued a rallying cry for raising expectations and improving performance in American schools—and part of its message was addressed directly to students. For the 20th Anniversary of A Nation at Risk, Education Week looks more closely at teenagers' views on what's wrong—and what's right—with the nation's public schools.
Federal
Skating By
Shiny blue banners are draped proudly above the gymnasium bleachers at South Burlington High School. They list the names of every valedictorian in the school's 42-year history, granting those stellar students an immortal status within the red-brick building. Across the gym hang smaller banners honoring the school's most successful boys' and girls' basketball teams.
Federal
Unchallenged
After spending my freshman year in Chicago, my family moved to suburban Atlanta in the summer of 1979, and I entered Avondale High School with a mixture of indifference and bitterness.
Federal
Commission Member Suggests Education in U.S. Still at Risk
An interview with Gerald Holton, professor emeritus of physics and of the history of science at Harvard University and a member of the National Commission on Excellence in Education.
An interview with Gerald Holton, professor emeritus of physics and of the history of science at Harvard University and a member of the National Commission on Excellence in Education.
Federal
Standing Out
From the outside, Incline High School looks pretty much as it did when I graduated in 1981. A rugged moat of pine trees still rings the three-story, red-brick building. And the snowy mountain peaks that kindled so many daydreams continue to loom in the background against an azure Sierra sky.
Education
A Nation at Risk Anniversary Focus Group Transcript
This is a transcript from a student focus group conducted by Education Week on March 6, 2003 with high school seniors in a large, diverse high school in a mid-Atlantic state in an approximately 11,000 student urban/suburban fringe school district.
Federal
Two Reports
A Nation at Risk, received by the public and politicians with surprised fascination in 1983, has provoked spirited comment from that day to this— justification enough for a celebration of its 20th birthday by Education Week. Its stark brevity, clear recommendations, particular focus on teenage youth, and, above all, its warlike rhetoric have lived well.