Federal Report Fuels a Quarter-Century of Restructuring, and Controversy

· 1989: President George H.W. Bush, with the help of then-Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, convenes the nation's governors in the first National Education Summit, in Charlottesville, to discuss education improvement.

· 1994: President Bill Clinton signs into law the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which supports states in developing standards for student learning and achievement.

· 1995: David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle publish "The Manufactured Crisis," which questions the data used in "A Nation at Risk" and says legislators used bad information to enact bad reforms. The still-influential book said the 1983 report characterized the quality of public education as far worse than it was. Other critics say the report focused too heavily on high schools.

· 1997: The publication Education Week, in its first state-by-state analysis of public education, says states have little to show for their efforts to improve schools after "A Nation at Risk."

· 2001: President Bush, who calls himself "the education president," wins congressional approval for the No Child Left Behind Act. He signs the measure, which stresses accountability through high-stakes testing, into law in January 2002.

· 2008: Educators have scheduled several conferences to discuss the effect of the report.

Gerald Bracey, an education researcher, tells the Huffington Post: " A Nation at Risk should have been published on April 1, 1983. It was a great April Fools Day joke on America. (Given what it did to public education, though, educators can be forgiven if they smile not)."

-- Valerie Strauss