ABSTRACT
Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. This report is concerned with only one of the many causes and dimensions of the problem, but it is the one that undergirds American prosperity, security, and civility. In 2009 the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Co conducted the first in-depth analysis of the economic impact of the achievement gap on America. The report, titled The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, represented the first time that our educational shortfalls were quantified economically. Some have suggested that the commission was a modern version of the red scare tactics of the 1950s in which American propaganda about Soviet domination fueled the Cold War. But a critical review of A Nation at Risk report tells another story.
