A Nation at Risk

In April 1983, the federal report "A Nation at Risk" was published by the National Commission on Excellence in Education. The report described, in powerful language, an American education system in crisis:

"Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world…

"If an unfriendly foreign power 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."

A quarter century later our nation is still at risk and a generation of children has been lost to a failing system.

• More than 1.2 million students drop out each year. That’s more than 6,000 kids each day of the school year…one child every 26 seconds.

• 60% of high school dropouts come from low-income families.

• Just half of America’s students who enroll in a 4-year college after high school earn a degree within six year – one of the lowest college completion rates in the world.

• Approximately 30% of incoming college freshman fail placement tests and are required to take remedial courses. In America’s community college system, which enrolls nearly half of all undergraduates, the remediation rate climbs to 40%. America’s minority children are less likely to attend good schools, and consequently are saddled with low expectations and ill-equipped teachers.

• Only about half of America’s Latino and African-American students graduate from public high schools on time.

• Only 10% of African-American eight grade children read above a proficient level, and only 50% read at the basic level.

• African-American and Latino high school students have reading and math skills equivalent to white middle school students.

Since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, an entire generation of American children has been shuttled through a system that has failed to prepare many of them for college, for a career or ready them to achieve the American Dream.