Why Our Nation Is "At Risk"

A quarter of a century ago this month, America was informed that our economy was "at risk" because of "a rising tide of mediocrity" in our schools.

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre performance that exists today, we might well have considered it an act of war," said the famous report, commissioned by the Reagan administration.

At the time, the United States was much less exam-oriented than other countries. We had state tests, but they didn't dominate the school experience. An excellent education, we knew, can't be reduced to a standardized test score.

And we proved it. Since the report, those supposedly "mediocre" American students have led the creative burst of innovation that gave us the computer revolution and continues to transform the world.

Our kids do have the right stuff.

But somehow, America's educators get no credit, at least not at home. Instead of building on our strengths to solve our problems, we've adopted the foreign focus on tests, amplified it, and made it our own.

Is that going to cost us our edge? Will the next fantastic technical upheaval erupt from somewhere else?

You know, if an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the stifling test-score obsession that exists today, we might well have considered it an act of war.

--Alain Jehlen