<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>