A Nation Reformed?
American Education Twenty Years after A Nation at Risk
Edited by David T. Gordon
Foreword by Patricia Albjerg Graham

Reviews

"School teachers, administrators, and community members who want a better understanding of standards-based reform-of how we got here and why-will benefit a great deal from this book. These contributors, who have been at the forefront of national discussions about improving schools, cogently lay out the complexities of educating youth to high standards. They make a convincing and inspiring case for why reform should focus on what counts the most: improving teaching and learning. If you read one book on this important anniversary, it should be A Nation Reformed?"
-Ramon Cortines, former Chancellor, New York City Public Schools

"A deep, insightful, balanced appraisal from an extraordinary array of 'school reformers'-scholars, practitioners, and policy analysts-who have stayed the course for 20+ years. What they have learned and what they know about the barriers that still lie ahead is a must read for anyone concerned about the future well-being of our children, our schools, and yes, ultimately, 'our nation at risk.'"
-Anthony Bryk, Director, Center for School Improvement, University of Chicago

About A Nation Reformed?

On April 26, 1983, the blue-ribbon National Commission on Excellence in Education issued "an open letter to the American people" on the state of our nation's schools. "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform" was one of many such reports that year, but its title and incendiary language set it apart almost immediately. We were warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity" in our schools that imperiled the nation's future. The symbolic opening salvo in a two-decade-long struggle to improve schools, A Nation at Risk helped put education reform at the top of the national agenda.

A Nation Reformed? takes stock of twenty years of school reform. Was the nation really ever "at risk" and, if so, is it still? Which reforms have made a difference and which haven't? And where do we go from here? The leading education scholars and practitioners assembled here-Richard F. Elmore, Susan H. Fuhrman, Nathan Glazer, David T. Gordon, Patricia Albjerg Graham, Pam Grossman, Jeff Howard, Timothy Knowles, Kim Marshall, Robert B. Schwartz, and Maris A. Vinovskis-present a balanced, thoughtful look at the past, current, and future effects of school reform on our nation's students, teachers, and communities.

Table of Contents for A Nation Reformed?

Foreword
Patricia Albjerg Graham

Introduction
David T. Gordon

Riding Waves, Trading Horses: The Twenty-Year Effort to Reform Education
Susan H. Fuhrman

Change and Improvement in Educational Reform
Richard F. Elmore

The Academic Imperative: New Challenges and Expectations Facing School Leaders
Timothy Knowles

A Principal Looks Back: Standards Matter
Kim Marshall

Teaching: From "A Nation at Risk" to a Profession at Risk?
Pam Grossman

The Causes and Costs of Failure to Educate Poor and Minority Children for the 21st Century
Jeff Howard

The Limits of Ideology: Curriculum and the Culture Wars
David T. Gordon

Missed Opportunities: Why the Federal Response to the Report Was Inadequate
Maris A. Vinovskis

The Emerging State Leadership Role in Education Reform: Notes of a Participant-Observer
Robert B. Schwartz

The American Way of School Reform
Nathan Glazer

A Nation At Risk
The National Commission On Excellence in Education