A_nation_at_risk 处于危险中的国家

处于危险中的国家 A Nation at Risk

我国社会的教育基础目前正被一股平庸的浪潮所侵蚀，它威胁着我们国家和民族的未来。

七十年代末八十年代初，一次又一次研究成果表明，美国学生在数学、理科和其它学科领域的测验成绩令人遗憾。1983年教育优化全国委员会发表一篇题为《处于危险中的国家》的报告，引起公众对教育问题前所未有的关注。在罗讷德．里根总统的倡议下，由教育部长特雷尔．贝尔任命的该委员会用文件证明了学业水准下降的现状和提高教学质量的必要性。该委员会的调查结果在全国电视上播出，在报纸和新闻刊物上注销。该委员会的报告促使许多州的立法机关和当地学校校董会采取措施改进学校工作。

我们的国家处在危险中。我们在商业、工业、科学和技术革新方面一度毫无争议的领先地位正被世界各地的竞争者所超越。此报告仅仅涉及与这一问题有关的许多原因和方面中的一个，但它关系到美国的繁荣、安全和礼仪。我们向美国人民报告：我们有理由为我们的大中小学历史上已经取得的成绩及对美国和美国人民的福利作出的贡献感到自豪，但另一方面我国社会的教育基础目前正被一股平庸的浪潮所侵蚀，它威胁着我们国家和民族的未来。上一代人当时所难以想象的事现已开始发生──别的国家正赶上和超过我们国家的教育成就。

倘若一股怀有敌意的外国力量试图将今天存在着的平庸的教育实绩强加在美国身上，我们会把这视作战争行动。而事实上，我们却已允许这种状况发生在我们自己身上。我们甚至对苏联卫星上天的挑战感到无力而浪费了学生们的成就，更严重的是，我们已拆除了使这些成就成为可能的基本支撑体系。我们实际上已做出了轻率的、单方面的教育裁军行动。

我们的社会及其教育机构似乎忘记了学校教育的基本目的，忘记了达到这些目的所必需的高期望值和刻苦努力。此报告力图导致对我们的教育体制实行根本性的改革，力图恢复国家在全国范围内对高质量的大中小学所承担的义务。

既然我们常对我国的中小学和大学提出大量自相矛盾的要求，再考虑我们已放弃了对各级学校承担的义务便不会感到惊讶。我们的学校常被请求去解决家庭和其它单位不愿或不能解决的个人、社会和政治问题。我们应了解，对中小学和大学的这种要求常常迫使学校既付出财力又付出教育方面的代价。……

历史对游手好闲者不会大发慈悲。有一度没人担心美国的命运，只是因为我国资源丰富，人民具有永不衰竭的热情，因为我们相对而言可免遭那些文明古国层出不穷的问题的搅扰。但那个时代早已一去不复返。世界不啻一个地球村。我们的四周住着决心坚定，训练有素，动力强劲的竞争者。我们不但以产品而且以从实验室和街区专题讨论会产生的想法与他们争夺国际地位和市场。美国在世界的地位过去只靠寥寥数名经特殊培训的人才便可以高枕无忧。如今这种情况不复存在。

危险不仅在于日本人比美国人生产汽车的工效更高，日本人在发展和出口方面得到政府补贴。危险不仅在于南朝鲜人最近建起了世界上生产效率最高的钢厂，或是一度称雄世界的美国机床现在正被德国货取代。危险还在于，这些发展趋势标志着训练有素的人才在全球的重新分配。正如早些时候的特效新药、化肥和牛仔裤，如今知识、学问、信息和技术情报同样蓬蓬勃勃地传遍世界。只要我们欲保持和发展在世界市场上尚存的微弱竞争优势，我们就应为改革我们的教育体制而奋斗，这是为了全体人民──年轻人和老年人，富人和穷人，多数人和少数人──的利益。在我们正跨入的"信息时代"中，知识是取得成功必不可少的投资。

我们关切的问题远远超过工业和商业的范畴。它包括将我们的社会组织紧密结合在一起的知识、道德和精神力量。美国人民必须明白，我们社会中那些不具备这一新时代必不可少的技术水平和文化教育水平的人，将不仅被剥夺高效工作带来的报偿，而且将被剥夺完全参与我们国家生活的机会。共享高水平的教育对一个自由民主的社会，对培养一种共

同的文化是必要的，在一个以多元论和个人自由而自豪的国家中更是如此。

为了让国家行使职能，公民们应该能对复杂的问题达成共识，而且常常是在刻不容缓的情形中，在证据自相矛盾或不完整的条件下达成共识。教育有助于形成这种共识，正如托马斯．杰斐逊很久以前在他的著名宣言中所指出的：

除了人民自身，我不知道还有什么可靠的社会终极权力的受托人。倘若我们认为他们的知识不足以审慎的判断行使自己的管理，补救之法不是剥夺他们的决断权，而是教会他们如何判断。

首先在美洲大陆上作出的这一许诺也处于危险之中：不分种族、阶级、经济地位，人人有权获得最大限度地发展个人智力和精神力量的机会和工具。这一许诺意味着，只要引导得法，所有的孩子凭借自己的努力都能有希望做出慎重周到的、有根据的判断，以确保得到良好的职业，驾驭自己的生活，从而不仅为他们自己的利益，也为社会进步本身服务。

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 p rosperity, security, and civility. We report to the American people that while we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the well-being

of its people, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur─others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments.

If an unfriendly foreign 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. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect. been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

Our society and its educational institutions seem to have lost sight of the basic purposes of schooling, and of the high expectations and disciplined effort needed to attain them. This report, the result of 18 months of study, seeks to generate reform of our educational system in fundamental ways and to renew the Nation's commitment to schools and colleges of high quality throughout the length and breadth of "our land.

That we have compromised this commitment is, upon reflection, hardly surprising, given the multitude of

often conflicting demands we have placed on our Nation's schools and colleges. They are routinely called on to provide solutions to personal, social, and political problems that the home and other institutions either will not or cannot resolve. We must understand that these demands on our schools and colleges often exact an educational cost as well as a financial one....

History is not kind to idlers. The time is long past when America's destiny was assured simply by an abundance of national resources and inexhaustible human enthusiasm, and by our relative isolation from the malignant problems of older civilizations. The world is indeed one global village. We live among determined, well-educated, and strongly motivated competitors. We com- pete with them for international standing and markets, not only with products but also with the ideas of our laboratories and neighborhood workshops. America's position in the world may once have been reasonably secure with only a few exceptionally

well-trained men and women. It is no longer.

The risk is not only that the Japanese make automobiles more efficiently than Americans and have government subsidies for development and export. It is not just that the South Koreans recently built the world's most efficient steel mill, or that American machine tools, once the pride of the world, are being displaced by German products. It is also that these developments signify a redistribution of trained capability throughout the globe. Knowledge, learning, information, and skilled intelligence are the new raw materials of international commerce and are today spreading throughout the world as vigorously as miracle drugs, synthetic fertilizers, and blue jeans did earlier. If only to keep and improve on the slim competitive edge we still retain in world markets, we must dedicate ourselves to the reform of our educational system for the benefit of all─ old and young alike, affluent and poor. majority and minority. Learning is the indispensable investment required for success in the "information age" we are entering. Our concern, however, goes well beyond matters such as industry and commerce. It also includes the intellectual, moral, and spiritual strengths of our people which knit together the very fabric of our society. The people of the United States need to know that individuals in our society who do not possess the levels of skill, literacy, and training essential to this new era will be effectively disenfranchised, not simply from the material rewards that accompany competent performance, but also from the chance to participate fully in our national life. A high level of shared education is essential to a free, democratic society and to the fostering of a common culture, especially in a country that prides itself on pluralism and individual freedom.

For our country to function, citizens must be able to reach some common understandings on complex issues, often on short notice and on the basis of conflicting or incomplete evidence. Education helps form these common understandings, a point Thomas Jefferson made long ago in his justly famous dictum:

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Part of what is at risk is the promise first made on this continent: All, regardless of race or class or economic status, are entitled to a fair chance and to the tools for developing their individual powers of mind and spirit to the utmost. This promise means that all children by virtue of their own efforts, competently guided, can hope to attain the mature and informed judgment needed to secure gainful employment and to manage their own lives, thereby serving not only their own interests but also the progress of society itself. . . .