Criticism of "A Nation at Risk," a report on the deteriorating state of American education published by the National Commission on Excellence in Education 20 years ago. Report stimulated state and federal educational reform efforts in the 1980s and 1990s. (Contains 13 references.) (PKP)

Education statistics are rarely neutral; those who collect and analyze them have different purposes. In this article, Bracey discusses several principles of data interpretation to help educators avoid falling into statistical traps. For example, because such reports as A Nation At Risk contain many "selected, spun, distorted, and even manufactured…

In this personal narrative, the author notes that he has often said more or less in jest that when it comes to evaluating international studies, people lose their critical capacities and forget everything they ever learned in their courses in research methods and statistics. Results that would raise flags in any other endeavor receive no…

Education reform has a long and ignoble history of searching for magic bullets. Charter schools, vouchers, educational management organizations, tuition tax credits, and high-standards movements are all part of the education landscape today. Some reformers are mere opportunists who look at the $700 billion that the United States spends on…

Responds to David Baker's critical essay (1996) concerning G. W. Bracey's arguments that a false academic achievement crisis had been government engineered and that U.S. students were, in fact, comparing well to their international counterparts. Discusses shared issues between L. C. Stedman (1993, 1996) and Baker, and explores data and contentions…