Schools have been getting a bad rap over the past decade or so, fueled bby some myths that have been around so long they re often accepted as fact. Part of the public already knows the truth, or at least senses it. That echos a long series of annual polls in which folks say their local schools are great, but schools nationally are pretty bad. There are some bad news driving the perception. But they obscure a far more encouraging and quantifiable long-term trend.
Test scores show students are learning more.
They re taking tougher courses. Fewer need remedial work. Even fewer are dropping out. And they re piling up medals in international competitions. The myths that say otherwise took root in the early 1980s when the landmark report, A Nation at Risk, painted a bleak portrait of public education.