Reagan Institute Summit on Education Revisits A Nation at Risk

by Shawn P. Healy, PhD, Democracy Program Director

Thirty-five years ago this April, the National Commission on Excellence in Education published A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform. It was therefore fitting that the Reagan Institute convened a two-day summit in Washington, D.C., last week for a retrospective look at the report and discussion of the current and future challenges facing our P-20 educational system.

The McCormick Foundation was proud to be among the sponsors as the Reagan Foundation and D.C.-based Institute have long been national partners in advocating for stronger school-based civic learning. While A Nation at Risk is often blamed for the back-to-the-basics movement that led to a singular focus on math, reading, and science to the detriment of social studies and other subjects core to a well-rounded education, the report itself tied the challenges of the 1980’s with threats to democracy:

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.

As various luminaries of Republican and Democratic administrations took the stage over the course of the summit, low test scores, inequitable access, and poor preparation for college and career dominated the conversations. Yet civic learning surfaced in the closing comments of a few, such as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the opening plenary.

Senator Lamar Alexander, former Education Secretary and current Chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, went further.

I had the honor of co-facilitating a breakout session dedicated to civic learning that attracted a standing-room-only crowd, and a will provide a full recap in a separate post. We were graced by Former Secretary of Education John King’s participation, and he drew on his experiences as a social studies teacher here and in the closing plenary of the summit to advocate for high-quality civic learning.

The Reagan Foundation hosts a successful annual conference on national defense, and plans to convene this parallel summit on education policy in the years ahead. This inaugural undertaking with significant star power was an unqualified success as bi-partisan conversations across difference on issues of utmost importance are all too rare.

At this time of hyper-polarization, when our commitments to democracy and its institutions are face generational tests, the words of A Nation at Risk reverberate in timeless form:

A high level of shared education is essential to a free, democratic society and to the fostering of a common culture, especially in a country that prides itself on pluralism and individual freedom.