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Transcript: Our Schools and Our Future: Are We Still at Risk?
Written by Tyce Palmaffy and Paul E. Peterson
[© 2003 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University][Hoover Institution - Koret Task Force on K-12 Education]
[Audio of children in playground]
Narrator: Our schools and our future:…are we still at risk?
Narrator: An examination of the state of American primary and secondary education on the
twentieth anniversary of A Nation at Risk, the epochal 1983 report of the National Commission on
Excellence in Education,
Narrator: by the members of the Koret Task Force on K through 12 education at the Hoover
Institution, Stanford University.
Narrator: Twenty years ago, the nation was at a low point.
Narrator: The social turmoil and scandals of the 1960s and '70s had shaken America's faith in its
political institutions, and the tensions of the cold war gripped the nation, even as America's
economy faced stiff competition from abroad. The very symbol of American strength, its
automobile industry, was losing ground to cheaper and more reliable Japanese imports. By 1982,
the nation was suffering through another steep recession.
Narrator: Thus, the country was prepared to listen in April 1983 when the National Commission
on Excellence in Education declared that the weak performance of America's schools placed the
very nation at risk. President Ronald Reagan's secretary of education, Terrel Bell, had appointed
a group of distinguished citizens to the commission, including such luminaries as Nobel laureate
Glenn Seaborg and the newly appointed president of the University of California, David Gardner,
who chaired the group.
Narrator: Although a few lonely voices had previously warned that U.S. schools were awash in
mediocrity, the commission's report hit like a bomb. Its stern message created a media sensation
and stirred up a beehive of activity in Congress…in state capitals…and among business leaders.
Its martial language caught the attention of a nation that felt besieged by social strife and
economic insecurity. It also shocked an education community that believed that the changes in
America's schools over the sixties and seventies were mostly positive.
Narrator: "If an unfriendly foreign power," the report intoned, "had attempted to impose on
America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as
an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have, in effect,
been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament." The commission
warned that the woeful condition of America's schools was endangering the nation's standing in
the world economy. In the report's famous phrasing, the foundations of American education were
"being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a
people."
Narrator: The waning commitment to academic standards could be seen in student test scores,
which were dropping precipitously. Commission members were especially concerned with high
school students' declining scores on the SAT, which started falling in the 1970s and have never
fully recovered.
Narrator: Moreover, U.S. pupils' weak performance on international tests of mathematics and
science achievement trailed many other advanced countries. How could a nation preserve its
economic edge if its workers were inferior? New York University research professor Diane
Ravitch explains the dilemma:
Narrator: In the decade before the release of A Nation at Risk, academic standards had fallen.
More and more students were enrolling in the "general track" in high school, where they took
miscellaneous courses such as driver's ed, business math, and home economics just when the
emerging information age required students who had mastered important knowledge and skills.
Easy courses were justified as necessary to keep disadvantaged students in school. The National
Commission rejected such condescension. In fact, A Nation at Risk had a message that was
radical for its time: All students, it said, not just the elite, should be expected to take a solid
curriculum, to learn and think for themselves.
Narrator: The commission called for a longer school day, more academic course work, higher
expectations for students, better-trained teachers, and a host of other worthy reforms. But did the
warnings and recommendations result in positive change?
Narrator: Now, on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the commission's report, enough time
has passed to assess its impact. Tad Taube, president of the Koret Foundation:
Tad Taube: The Hoover Institution at Stanford University, with the support of the Koret
Foundation, brought together eleven leading education scholars as the Koret Task Force on K
through 12 Education. We invited the task force to appraise the effect of the 1983 report. We felt
that it was crucial to find out if the reforms the commission called for had any positive impact on
American education. At issue is the state of American education today. Are the problems
observed in 1983 still with us? If so, to what extent, if any, has progressed been achieved? Or
was the prescription for reform overblown?
Narrator: As the Koret Task Force dug into the matter, it discovered, unfortunately, that the
National Commission on Excellence in Education, for all its goodwill, did a better job at diagnosing
the problem than prescribing an effective remedy. For the most part, it expected the report to
work magic all on its own. It expected its good advice to cause school boards, legislators,
teachers, parents, and students to change direction. It assumed that the education system
possessed both the capacity and the will to improve and that the chief missing ingredient was
clear direction. Unfortunately, it was mostly wrong about this. Koret Task Force Chairman Chester
Finn explains why the commission's recommendations had so little effect.
Checker Finn: Some changes did occur, of course. States increased funding for education.
Students were asked to take more courses with academic labels, such as algebra and biology.
But many of these changes were superficial. Nobody checked to see if the new course labels
were accompanied by better instruction in the classroom. Moreover, none of these changes
altered the basic functioning and control of the school system itself. Power remained where it
always had been, no one was truly held accountable for improved results, and parents had scant
choice but to take what the system was handing to their children.
Narrator: The Koret Task Force discovered that many of the reforms the commission demanded
had never occurred. The length of the school year, instead of increasing, was actually shortened.
The amount of homework students prepared, instead of growing, actually slipped. For all the
emphasis on tougher academic courses, student performance by high schoolers, in reading and
science, barely regained the levels achieved in 1970.
Narrator: One of the report's highest priorities was to raise standards for teachers, but twenty
years later there had been a decline in the share of teachers with degrees in academic disciplines
rather than majors in education. The least capable college graduates are still the most likely to be
drawn into teaching. Surely one of the reasons is that teachers are paid based on a lockstep
schedule of raises based on experience and course credits. Only a few states and cities
experimented with paying effective teachers more, and these experiments were quickly
dismantled, usually under union pressure. Outstanding individuals who expect to be rewarded for
strong performance are thus dissuaded from teaching by the rewarding of mediocrity that goes on
in public schools.
Narrator: The biggest change was that a lot more money was being poured into American
education. And with that money, more people were hired and students were taught in smaller
classes.
Narrator: As Harvard professor Caroline Hoxby points out, reforms only seemed to occur if they
were backed by powerful interest groups in education, particularly the teacher's unions. Such
groups opposed merit pay and a longer school year, so those reforms failed. They favored higher
salaries, so salaries were increased. Teacher's unions also favored smaller classes, so this
change, though never requested by the commission, was the one reform assiduously adopted.
Ironically, A Nation at Risk proved a godsend to many of the interest groups it had seemed to
challenge. Unions were able to use the climate of urgency that it created to get their own agendas
enacted. The result was that a slate of reforms that A Nation at Risk did not recommend
happened anyway.
Narrator: As a result, the Koret Task Force found that student achievement in America has
barely improved since the release of A Nation at Risk. But this unhappy fact is rationalized by
many, who blame weak test scores on the inflow of immigrants, changes in the American family,
and other demographic factors. The schools are trying harder, it is said, but they have more
serious problems with which to contend. Paul Peterson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution,
explains why these excuses are flawed.
Paul Peterson: Many people blame the failures of our schools on the American family. But
today's children are being raised in smaller families by parents who are more highly educated,
changes in the family that should be raising test scores. And, in fact, we do see some gains in
test scores among young children who are still in their first year at school, changes that could be
due to this improvement in family life. But as students remain in school, these early gains fade
away. Among nine-year-olds, the United States ranks with the world leaders in math and science.
But by age thirteen, the United States is in the middle of the pack. By age seventeen, it's near the
bottom. So it seems the school, not the family, is the main source of the problem.
Narrator: As usual, the poor and disadvantaged suffer the most. University of Washington
scholar Paul Hill points out that most educated, affluent parents provide a strong, supportive
environment and can pay for appropriate schooling by buying into a comfortable suburb. But the
poor have few options. When their schools fail, their children suffer. Unfortunately, the
achievement gap, a gaping chasm in 1983 when the commission reported, remains nearly as wide
today.
Narrator: What went wrong? Why did American school reform fail to meet the commission's
challenge? Hoover senior fellow Terry Moe notes that the problem is rooted in the politics of
education, and in union power.
Terry Moe: The teachers unions are far and away the most powerful groups in the politics of
education, and they've long been the gatekeepers of education reform. They've approved of
minor reforms that leave the basic structure of the system intact, because these efforts--which
have little promise of improving the schools--don't threaten their interests. At the same time,
they've taken aggressive action to block or eviscerate major reforms that really do hold promise
for transforming the system for the better, because major changes--however good they may be
for kids and schools--threaten union interests in a big way. So for minor reforms that probably
won't work, the political gate is open. And for major reforms with real promise, the political gate is
closed. Small wonder that the last twenty years of reform have been such a disappointment.
Narrator: If relentless opposition from entrenched interests was part of the problem, the long-standing philosophical worldview of the educational community was no less important. Too many
educators believe that learning is natural rather than structured, an experience as magical as
romancing in the forest. Teachers do not feel responsible for imparting specific knowledge and
skills to their pupils.
Narrator: But without such skills, children, especially disadvantaged ones, cannot move to higher
levels of accomplishment. E. D. Hirsch, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia explains:
E.D. Hirsch: Unfortunately teachers are not asked to teach a substantive and coherent
curriculum in early grades. As a result, unless students are exposed to a rich diet of knowledge
at home, they never acquire the tools they need to succeed, such as the ability to read with
understanding. Even the authors of A Nation at Risk fell into the error of thinking that reading is a
formal skill not dependent on broad knowledge. The problem can be corrected only when our
schools of education return to the emphasis on knowledge that once guided our primary
schools--and still guide those in the Asian countries that outperform the United States by a wide
margin.
Narrator: The problem is not limited to reading. In math as well, there is too much emphasis on
math appreciation and not enough on knowledge and skills. Hoover Institution research fellow Bill
Evers explains why:
Bill Evers: Our school mathematics curriculum has been watered down in the faint hope that it
will be more fun and exciting for students--and also to make it easier for them when they are not
prepared. Partly under the influence of A Nation at Risk, we have enrolled students in classes that
are supposed to be teaching high-level content. School officials often put all students in a one-size-fits-all academic lockstep. But student learning suffers--as the low test scores of today's
students clearly show--when schools place too many unprepared students in advanced classes.
The schools then cope with the problem by watering down the content. Instead, high expectations
have to be coupled with steady, solid academic preparation in tune with what the various students
have mastered--rather than promoting unready students into fancy-sounding courses. Steady
work is the recipe for boosting student achievement.
Narrator: The Koret Task Force did not settle for diagnosing the problem. Its members also call
for three major, complementary reforms: transparency, accountability, and choice. To achieve
transparency, schools need clear standards and accurate measuring tools. Prodded by the
recently enacted federal No Child Left Behind Act, the country is beginning to put these standards
and tools into place. But transparency needs to be connected to accountability.
Narrator: As University of Illinois professor Herb Walberg explains, students, teachers, and
schools that do well must be rewarded. Perpetually failing schools must be closed or
reconstituted. Children should move to the next grade only when they have met the standards of
the previous grade. Teachers who succeed need to be rewarded. Teachers who are not
effective--and who do not alter their practices so as to become more effective--need to be
replaced.
Narrator: But for accountability to work effectively, parents must be able to choose their schools.
Unless parents can leave bad schools for better ones-not only within the school district in which
they live but anywhere, even to a private school-effective reform will fall short. Recently, the
school-choice movement has made significant strides, with the opening of charter schools,
experiments with private school vouchers, and the sprouting up of an entire industry devoted to
managing schools on behalf of taxpayers or charter school boards.
Narrator: As Edison Schools Chief Education Officer John Chubb recalls: "The National
Commission thought so little of school choice that it didn't even commission a single paper on the
topic. But choice has become the most promising reform of all because it shakes up the system.
No regulation is as effective as the ability of parents to vote with their feet--to leave a school that
is failing at its basic mission. It also encourages diversity in education, as schools with a variety of
educational philosophies sprout up to serve students' needs. Can anyone honestly say that
America isn't better off because the U.S. Postal Service faces competition from Federal Express,
DHL, and UPS? There is simply no denying that competition improves the quality of services."
Narrator: And choice will be even more effective, the task force believes, if schools become
transparent and accountable institutions. Accountability systems yield the information that makes
school performance clear to the outside world. Parents need that information to make wise
choices. No single aspect of these reforms will succeed on its own. In combination, however,
accountability, choice, and transparency can provide a dynamically improving system that will live
up to the principles laid down by the National Commission on Excellence in Education. Unless
the country takes these steps, it continues to place itself at risk. Hoover economist Eric Hanushek
elaborates:
Eric Hanushek: Since A Nation at Risk, America has been skating along with the strength of its
higher education system--the finest in the world--and the vitality of its markets and the culture of
entrepreneurship compensating for the quality of its schools. But the ice will fast grow thin if we
don't build an education system that can support an economy built on knowledge-based skills and
technology. Few people, for example, realize that Americans no longer lead the world in high
school graduation rates. In fact, the United States is barely at the average of the industrialized
world. Meanwhile, on the quality dimension, other countries have continued to surpass us. We
may not even notice any slippage in the economy for some years to come. But failure to reform
our schools entails lost opportunities that accumulate to significantly lower economic performance.
Eric Hanushek: From 1990 to 2002, our economy grew from seven and a half trillion dollars to
ten and a half trillion dollars, all without significant improvement in the quality of our schools. Had
we instituted effective reforms during the 1980's--such as transparency, accountability, and
choice--improvements might have brought us to the quality level of, say, good European systems.
As a result, we would have expected increased growth as these higher skilled students worked
their way into the economy. By 2002, the reform dividend would have pushed our economy over
eleven trillion dollars, more than paying for all spending on schools today and into the future.
[Audio of children in playground. Transparency--Accountability--Choice]
Tad Taube: The tide of mediocrity is still rising, impacting the educational system in a negative
way. Vested interests often deny it. The media seems to ignore it. The public may sense it but
not quite understand what to do about it. It was the great contribution of A Nation at Risk to call
attention and concern to the insidious decline of our public education system. The firm resolve of
the Koret Task Force is that Our Schools and Our Future will mark a new era of enlightenment
with respect to the teaching of our children. Our nation must take strong steps--transparency,
accountability, and choice-- to achieve the educational goals that our young people need and
deserve.
[By Jeffrey Jones and Richard Sousa]
[Written by Tyce Palmaffy and Paul Peterson]
[Based on Our Schools & Our Future …Are We Still at Risk? Edited by Paul E. Peterson]
[Koret Task Force on K-12 Education: John E. Chubb, Williamson M. Evers, Chester E. Finn Jr.,
Eric A. Hanushek, Paul T. Hill, E.D. Hirsch Jr., ]
[Caroline M. Hoxby, Terry M. Moe, Paul E. Peterson, Diane Ravitch, Herbert J. Walberg.]
[Script Edited by Ann Wood. Narrated by Susan Sebbard]
[Audio and Video Production by University Communications: Robin Gilligan, Ryan Foley, Gordon
Gurley]
[Web Streaming Conversion by Stanford Information Technology Systems & Services: Jeff
Bornstein]
[© 2003 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University]
[Additional Copyright Material used with Permission of:]
[Artville Stock Images, Carol Peterson, Comstock, Countrywide Photographic, Dan Heller, Edison
Schools, Inc.,]
[Hoover Institution, Human Services Futures, Image 100, Jeffrey Jones, Johnnie Bachusky,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,]
[Lorin Catudio, Merrick Union Free School Dist., Microsoft Corporation, Olga S.H. Pon jee,
Queens College, Reason Foundation,]
[Richard Gehrman and Associates, Scotty Morris, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Dept. of Education,
Westerville Public Library.]
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