It's A Nation At Risk...
May 5, 2008 11:13 AM
In honor of the 25th anniversary of A Nation At Risk, Columbus Education Association’s CEA blog asked a number of people to post their thoughts on what a world without ANAR would be like. I’m not sure I was able to totally get myself into the stylistic spirit of it, but my contribution is here.
I was going to leave it at that, but then I saw Chester Finn’s swipe at Richard Rothstein and Larry Mishel. Lame, as Leo Casey noted. (I missed the Jerry Bracey piece Leo refers to. I often take up Jerry's side on issues, but I won't speak up for his choice of words here.) In the CEA piece, rather than castigate Rothstein, I argued that his Class and Schools might really be the logical successor to ANAR. Given Finn's vitriol, let me explain.
We’re coming out of an economic recovery in which the only economic indicator that was better than the average for other post war recoveries was corporate profit. The number of children without health insurance grew by 300,000 during the recovery. For the first four years of the recovery, we didn’t really make a dent in poverty. There wasn’t a downtick in the poverty rate until 2006, and real wages started dropping again in 2007. NCLB is a lot of things, but in this light one of those things is a talking point for people who don’t want to address the issue of poverty. (I’m not necessarily talking about you, dear reader, but if that made you feel uncomfortable then maybe there’s a lesson). We need to be able to both improve schools and help those getting the short end of the economic stick. To say otherwise, it seems to me, would be denial. As for how to help schools, as my post CEA notes, I do still think some of A Nation At Risk's recommendations hold lessons for us.
Three thoughts: I don’t usually plug Cato but the debate between Rothstein and the others over there is one of the more useful exchanges that I’ve seen in a while. Also, of the non-CEA ANAR blogging, Rotherham has the most succinct and on target point. Finally, remember to take a moment to go to CEA over the rest of this week to see who else pops up.
