McElroy reflects on A Nation at Risk
From Inside AFT:
Twenty-five years ago, the landmark A Nation at Risk report put school reform on the front burner and summoned a nation to action. On this important anniversary, AFT president Edward J. McElroy urges Americans to finish what we started. “Twenty-five years ago, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released A Nation at Risk, an honest but bleak assessment of America’s education system,” McElroy writes. “The anniversary undoubtedly will inspire numerous reflections on the report—that it was ‘important,’ ‘bold’ and a ‘wake-up call.’ And then, if this commemoration is like many others since the report’s release, it will be back to business as usual—ignoring the commission’s recommendations, flirting with faddish education ‘reforms,’ and making shamefully inadequate progress toward addressing the very serious, and very solvable, problems afflicting American education. A Nation at Risk sparked a revolution, but that revolution has not been focused or sustained. A quarter century after its call to action, it is time to get back on course.”