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A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform is the 1983 report of American President Ronald Reagan's National Commission on Excellence in Education. Its publication is considered a landmark event in modern American educational history. Among other things, the report contributed to the ever-growing assertion that American schools were failing, and it touched off a wave of local, state, and federal reform efforts.
Formation and motivation
The
commission consisted of 18 members, drawn from the private sector,
government, and education. The chair of the commission was David Pierpont Gardner. Secretary of Education T. H. Bell
sought to have the commission be presidentially appointed. Reagan did
not concur, and Bell used his own authority as Secretary to establish
the commission and appoint its members.
As implied by the title of the report, the commission's charter responds to Terrel Bell's
observation that the United States' educational system was failing to
meet the national need for a competitive workforce. Among other things,
the charter required the commission to assess the "quality of teaching
and learning" at the primary, secondary, and postsecondary levels, in
both the public and private spheres and to compare "American schools and
colleges with those of other advanced nations." The report was
primarily authored by James J. Harvey, who synthesized the feedback from
the commission members and the memorable language in the opening pages:
"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" and "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."
Presidential commissions on education have been relatively common since The Truman Report in 1947. Other notable groups include Dwight Eisenhower's "Committee on Education Beyond the High School" (1956), John F. Kennedy's Task Force on Education (1960), and George W. Bush's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, also known as the Spellings Commission, which produced "A Test of Leadership" (2006).
The published report
The
report surveys various studies which point to academic underachievement
on national and international scales. For example, the report notes
that average SAT
scores dropped "over 50 points" in the verbal section and "nearly 40
points" in the mathematics section during the period 1963-1980. Nearly
forty percent of 17-year-olds tested could not successfully "draw
inferences from written material," and "only one-fifth can write a
persuasive essay; and only one-third can solve a mathematics problem
requiring several steps." Referencing tests conducted in the 1970s, the
study points to unfavorable comparisons with students outside the
United States: on "19 academic tests American students were never first
or second and, in comparison with other industrialized nations, were
last seven times".
In response to these and similar problems, the commission made 38
recommendations, divided across 5 major categories: Content, Standards
and Expectations, Time, Teaching, Leadership and Fiscal Support:
- Content: "4 years of English; (b) 3 years of mathematics; (c) 3 years of science; (d) 3 years of social studies; and (e) one-half year of computer science" for high school students." The commission also recommends that students work toward proficiency in a foreign language starting in the elementary grades.
- Standards and Expectations: the commission cautioned against grade inflation and recommends that four-year colleges raise admissions standards and standardized tests of achievement at "major transition points from one level of schooling to another and particularly from high school to college or work."
- Time: the commission recommended that "school districts and State legislatures should strongly consider 7-hour school days, as well as a 200- to 220-day school year."
- Teaching: the commission recommended that salaries for teachers be "professionally competitive, market-sensitive, and performance-based," and that teachers demonstrate "competence in an academic discipline."
- Leadership and Fiscal Support: the commission noted that the
Federal government plays an essential role in helping "meet the needs of
key groups of students such as the gifted and talented,
the socioeconomically disadvantaged, minority and language minority
students, and the handicapped." The commission also noted that the
Federal government also must help ensure compliance with "constitutional
and civil rights," and "provide student financial assistance and
research and graduate training."
Critique
In 1990, Admiral James Watkins, the Secretary of Energy, commissioned the Sandia Laboratories in New Mexico to document the decline in the Nation at Risk report with actual data.
When the systems scientists broke down the SAT test scores into
subgroups they discovered contradictory data. While the overall average
scores declined, the subgroups of students increased. In statistics this
is known as Simpson's paradox. The three authors presented their report. David Kearns, Deputy Secretary of Education allegedly told the authors of the report, "You bury this or I'll bury you" but Diane Ravitch disputes this quote. Education Week published an article on the Sandia report in 1991. Unlike the Nation at Risk report, the Sandia Report critique received almost no attention.
On the 25th anniversary of the release of A Nation at Risk, the organization Strong American Schools released a report card showing progress since the initial report. The organization's analysis said:
While the national conversation about education would never be the same, stunningly few of the Commission’s recommendations actually have been enacted. Now is not the time for more educational research or reports or commissions. We have enough commonsense ideas, backed by decades of research, to significantly improve American schools. The missing ingredient isn’t even educational at all. It’s political. Too often, state and local leaders have tried to enact reforms of the kind recommended in A Nation at Risk only to be stymied by organized special interests and political inertia. Without vigorous national leadership to improve education, states and local school systems simply cannot overcome the obstacles to making the big changes necessary to significantly improve our nation’s K-12 schools.
Salvatore Babones has criticized the composition and competences of the committee:
The commission included 12 administrators, 1 businessperson, 1 chemist, 1 physicist, 1 politician, 1 conservative activist, and 1 teacher. ... Just one practicing teacher and not a single academic expert on education. It should come as no surprise that a commission dominated by administrators found that the problems of U.S. schools were mainly caused by lazy students and unaccountable teachers. Administrative incompetence was not on the agenda. Nor were poverty, inequality, and racial discrimination.
A Nation Deceived
A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students is The Templeton National Report on Acceleration, a report which was published in 2004 and edited by Nicholas Colangelo, Susan G. Assouline, and Miraca Gross. This report argues for the academic acceleration of qualified gifted and talented students, based on the results of studies on outcomes of accelerating and not accelerating high-achieving students.
Despite the evidence that acceleration is a beneficial practice when
implemented correctly, many teachers and parents are reluctant to
accelerate students. The report presents the research on acceleration
in an effort to increase the number of students who have access to
acceleration.
The report is divided into two parts: Volume I, which summarizes the
research and provides an introduction to acceleration as an academic
intervention for gifted students; and Volume II, an edited volume that
provides a more detailed overview of relevant research studies.
The success of A Nation Deceived led to the creation of the Acceleration Institute (formerly the Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration), which is dedicated to the study and support of educational acceleration for academically talented students.
A Nation Empowered, a follow-up to A Nation Deceived, was published in 2015. It expands upon findings of the original report and incorporates research that has emerged since publication of A Nation Deceived.
The success of A Nation Deceived led to the creation of the Acceleration Institute (formerly the Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration), which is dedicated to the study and support of educational acceleration for academically talented students.
A Nation Empowered, a follow-up to A Nation Deceived, was published in 2015. It expands upon findings of the original report and incorporates research that has emerged since publication of A Nation Deceived.
Contents
The first three of its "20 Most Important Points from Volume II" are:
- Acceleration is the most effective curriculum intervention for gifted children.
- For bright students, acceleration has long-term beneficial effects, both academically and socially.
- Acceleration, especially in the form of grade skipping, is a virtually cost-free intervention.
Among other points, the report also indicates that:
- Gifted students are frequently better matched with their cognitive peers (older peers) rather than age peers.
- Above-level testing is useful in identifying candidates for acceleration. Above-level testing is defined as testing that is two or more grade levels above a student’s current placement. For example, a fourth grader might take a test intended for sixth graders. Above-level testing helps eliminate the ceiling effect that often makes it difficult to determine appropriate placement for high-ability students.
- Early entry to kindergarten benefits some gifted children both academically and socially.
- Skipping two or more years of school is academically and socially beneficial for highly gifted students.
- Although significant evidence for the validity of acceleration exists, many educators remain negative about the practice.
