Inside Scoop
A Nation at Risk?

American kids know at least as much as they did in any Good Old Days, and probably more.

Back in 1983, A Nation At Risk, the landmark study commissioned and avidly promoted by the Department of Education under President Ronald Reagan, charged that a "rising tide of mediocrity" was threatening the nation's economic future. The economy was indeed in poor shape at the time, and the charge stuck. Today's economy is roaring along at record levels, but commentators still assume that students aren't learning as well as they once did. What's the real story?

How do students today compare with those of past generations?
Our best measure is the testing conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often called "the Nation's Report Card." NAEP started about 30 years ago, and, since then, reading and math scores have shown gradual improvement, more in math than in reading. Science scores declined for a decade but have bounced back.

What about minority students? Aren't their scores down?
White, African American, and Hispanic students are all doing better today than they did 30 years ago on the NAEP, and that goes for almost every age and subject tested. The gap between minority student scores and white student scores is smaller today than it was in the early 1970s. But the gap stopped shrinking in the late 1980s and now stands a little bigger than in 1990.

Black and Hispanic student scores have been basically flat since then, with white student scores up slightly.

Why do so many people think schools have gotten worse?
Two reasons: nostalgia and slander.

People tend to think the "golden years" of education coincided with whatever years they attended school. New York Times columnist Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, documented this phenomenon in his 1998 book The Way We Were?

Observers have been bemoaning the decay of our schools, it turns out, since the 19th century, despite a distinct absence of evidence.

In recent decades, the public schools have also been subjected to an especially heavy pounding of false information.

Ideological critics of public education, for instance, seized upon A Nation At Risk as proof that America's schools were failing miserably. But, in fact, the authors of A Nation At Risk acknowledged a much more complicated reality.

"It is important, of course, to recognize that the average citizen today," they wrote, "is better educated and more knowledgeable than the average citizen of a generation ago--more literate, and exposed to more mathematics, literature, and science."

"Nevertheless," the authors added, "the average graduate of our schools and colleges today is not as well educated."

In other words, what has changed is that American high schools are now doing something never before accomplished: educating the great majority of young people, not just the elite.

What about SAT scores. Aren't they way down?
SAT scores bottomed out about 20 years ago for math and about 10 years ago on the verbal test. But the scores are now creeping upward, especially in math.

But SAT scores are not nearly as high as they were in 1941, when the test was first given. And how could they be? In 1941, Richard Rothstein points out, less than half of 1 percent of the nation's 17-year-olds took the SAT. Most were prep school boys trying to get into Ivy League colleges.

Last year, about 27 percent of the nation's 17-year-olds took the SAT.

SAT scores don't show the achievement of the average student. They reflect who's taking the test.

Are schools adequately preparing Americans for the new economy?
American students could and should be better prepared by the schools. But American workers are as productive as any in the world, and our economy is doing much better than those of our most feared competitors of the 1980s, Japan and Germany. If the schools were to blame for hard times under Ronald Reagan, why aren't schools getting any credit for the economic turnaround today?

So, are schools doing just fine?
Of course not. We face enormous problems--as did earlier generations. We can do better, and we know how: with smaller classes, more prep time and professional development for teachers, and social policies that reduce child poverty.

What won't improve schools one whit is mythologizing either the past or the present.

--Alain Jehlen

For more: Visit the NAEP Web site at http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/site. Good books include The Way We Were? by Richard Rothstein, The Manufactured Crisis by David Berliner and Bruce Biddle, and Setting the Record Straight by Gerald Bracey.