A Nation at Risk....Comments

I remember when this document came out. It scared all of us. It was a conversation that permeated all the way into the classroom. We had no idea what was going to happen next but we did know that we....schools in general were not doing well and things needed to change.

Many things have happened since. George Will and Chester Finn would say nothing has changed. I would argue that many things have changed. Families, inner cities, teachers, administrators, higher education and all sizes of school communities have all changed substantially since 1984.

I might argue that as a result sort of a "sky is falling " mentality after the issuance of A Nation at Risk we decided to try all kinds of things to make schools better. It was kind of like ringing a bell over a church. The clapper kept banging from side to side with one idea after another. The sounds got so loud that there was a period in the 90's when idea exhaustion caused all of us to just pause. We began to take stock of what had been many good and some not so good ideas and began to work through them. President Bush came along with No Child Left Behind and in the stroke of a pen we moved from looking at good ideas and having good conversations to having to focus on passing the test.

Chet Finn and George Will are not wrong that NCLB caused the most aggressive changes we have seen in education since a Nation at Risk. They are also correct in saying that NCLB got it wrong in so many ways that it will take years to straighten things out again. Good ideas are once again on the shelf. I wonder what their shelf life is?