Foreword

The welfare of our nation rests heavily upon our system of public education. We strive to provide all of our children with equal access to a high-quality, free education because we know that without it, our democratic way of life will be at peril. As Thomas Jefferson once said, "If Americans desire to be both ignorant and free, they want what never has been and what will never be." Indeed, it is our democratic system of governing, based upon the twin pillars of equal rights and responsibilities, which requires we have a system of public education.

We continue to fall short of this most basic democratic commitment. We do not provide equal access to a high-quality education to every child in this nation. And even though we have made strides in this direction, we have miles to go before this task is complete. There is a pressing need to redesign our schools to meet the demands of a global 21st century society in which knowledge and technology are changing at a breath-taking pace, and new forms of education are essential for individual and societal survival. Yet, our current policy strategies are constraining rather than enabling the educational innovation our school system needs. Indeed, the path we are pursuing promises to leave our schools, as well as our children, behind.

For this reason, The Forum for Education and Democracy has chosen the 25th anniversary of the publication of A Nation at Risk, the last clarion call for federal attention to educational policy, to call for a new federal role in supporting our schools.

As practitioners, researchers, and policy analysts who have long been involved in developing successful schools, we are gravely concerned about the inability of the current federal role to support the breadth, depth, and quality of education our children need for a 21st century life — one in which they will need to solve problems we cannot yet fully envision, using knowledge and technologies that have not yet been invented. Signs abound that the path we have taken in educational reform has led us astray. Inequities in educational opportunity have increased, public commitment to democracy has waned, the scope of education has narrowed, and our rankings internationally in educational achievement and attainment have fallen. These indicators suggest that we are not making the strategic investments in our schools that both democratic life and the new learning economy require.

We have failed to meet the goals our leaders set for education two decades ago. Now, we must move forcefully as a nation in a more purposeful and powerful direction. Based on our combined experience, we present the following analysis and recommendations that call for new leadership that will take on the fundamental issues of equity and investment in innovation that only our federal government can tackle. In so doing, we believe federal policy can enable local educators and communities to create the educational opportunities that will provide every child with the skills needed for a life of citizenship, intellectual growth, and economic productivity — the skills they must have if our democracy is to survive.

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