Dire warnings often taken with a grain of salt

Maybe it's so hard to enact meaningful public education reforms in America because critics have been prone to overstate dire warnings through the years.

This month marks the 25th anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," a report by The National Commission on Excellence in Education, commissioned by then-education secretary T.H. Bell. It was a clarion call to the nation during a time of uncertainty at home and abroad; a powerful argument for the need to reform public education. But this is how it began:

"Our nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world." Then it adds this, " ...the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people."

The report was filled with urgency. You could almost hear commission members screaming, "Do something now or the nation will collapse!"

In the 25 years that followed, that urgency was shouted down by unparalleled prosperity, fueled in large measure by a computer and information revolution started by innovative youngsters in a garage in Seattle. Today, despite what almost surely is a recession, unemployment is less than in 1983 and per capita wealth is up. In addition, the nation's main enemy of 25 years ago, the Soviet Union, no longer exists. The United States is the world's sole superpower, and its military and economic might, despite the current situation, remain on top of the world.

The problems outlined in the report, however, continue to smolder like embers within the walls of a home, waiting to burst forth.

Today, an estimated 30 percent of students nationwide fail to graduate from high school, and that figure roughly doubles for Hispanic and black students. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert put it a little differently in a column last week: "An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds."

Faced with this, the current education secretary, Margaret Spellings, is proposing changes to the federal No Child Left Behind law, making it harder for states to fudge when reporting their dropout rates. But "No Child" is comfort food for the education system. It makes people think they feel better while making them only fatter and lazier.