Free Republic

What is the core of the American story? What is American history about? For a long time, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was thought to offer the most succinct and profound reply to these questions. The heart of the American story was said to be the Founding, with its principles of liberty and equality. American history was thus a study of our efforts to more fully realize republican principles, often in the face of our own flaws and failings. American history was also about the defense in peace and war of a unique experiment—a nation bound by democratic norms, rather than...

<p>April 19, 2003 -- TWENTY years ago this month, an ad hoc commission established by then-Education Secretary Terrell H. Bell released a report entitled "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform." The report quickly became the most widely discussed educational reform blueprint in American history. One sentence in the report summarized the commission's take on the status of American education: "If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."</p>