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Just last week, the Forum for Education and Democracy issued an important report on the federal role in K-12 education:  Democracy at Risk: The Need for a New Federal Policy in Education.  With its obvious nod to Nation at Risk, the publication joins a long line of reports that raise the alarm over American students' declining standing in international assessments. Unlike many of those reports, however, Democracy at Risk strongly criticizes recent reform efforts' almost exclusive focus on "mandates and sanctions."

Instead, the report argues, the federal government should support schools' capacity to succeed.  The authors call for: resources to support truly equal educational opportunity, both within and outside of schools; a new "Marshall Plan" to prepare excellent teachers and leaders for every classroom and every school; far greater support for educational research and develoment; and more support for local community engagement. Citing the dangers of pinning accountability to lousy standardized assessments, the report calls for investment in tests that measure progress towards more "intellectually ambitious" goals.

At this time of growing anxiety about our students' ability to compete for jobs with the army of geniuses educated in countries that trounce the United States in international assessments like PISA and TIMSS, Democracy at Risk does a refreshing thing:  Unlike many other reports that lament our slide in the international tallies, this one actually examines what the top-performing countries are doing to support their students' success. Needless to say, many of those countries offer their schools more than mandates and sanctions.  To the contrary, they invest in teacher preparation and support, excellent assessments, and equal educational opportunity.