Twenty years ago, the National Commission on Excellence in Education
delivered a shocking report called A Nation at Risk, which awakened
millions of Americans to a national crisis in primary and secondary
education. But today, while reverberations from that report are still
being felt, solid and conclusive reforms in American primary and
secondary education remain elusive. Why?
In Our Schools and Our Future, the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education
looks at the response to the commission's report and analyzes why it
produced so much activity and so little improvement. Among their
findings, the members of the task force reveal how many bold reform
proposals have been implemented in limited and piecemeal fashion. They
conclude that fundamental changes are needed in the incentive structure
and power relationships of schooling itself and offer recommendations
based in three core principles: accountability, choice, and
transparency.
Accountability, they explain, will mean that everyone in the system will
know what results are expected, how they will be measured, and what will
happen if results are not attained. Choice will bring freedom,
diversity, and innovation. Transparency will yield the information
needed to assure both top-down accountability and a viable marketplace
of methods and ideas. The results of these three taken together, they
assert, will be a reinvigorated yet very different system that will
rekindle Americans' confidence in public education.