April 2023 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the report, A Nation at Risk. It was a big deal, as I have written here, and by declaring a antional education emergency stoked increased federal involvement in schools. This ws ironic, seeing as Reagan campaigned to “dismantle” the Department of Education, which had been created by congressional Democrats and President Jimmy Carter just a couple years earlier.

Five years ago, The74.com released this video, which includes interviews with folks who helped write the report.

And, for good measure, here’s a video released by the Fordham Foundation 10 years ago (30 years after the publication of A Nation at Risk).

Long ago, there exited the National Educational Association—which was a different organization than the present day National Education Association.

The National Educational Association was not a teachers’ union; rather it was a professional organization—one very different from the political powerhouse of today. In the late 19th century, this NEA and the nascent U.S. Bureau of Education collaborated.

This document is one such example: it is a collection of papers and presentations delivered by a gathering of “the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Asociation.”

You can see from the list of attendees that these were mostly administrators. The topics covered range widely, and include the “constitutionality of national aid to education.” That the federal government should publish papers given by a private organization is a reminder of the eternal, and interesting public-private activities in federal gvoernance.

Full catalog citation: American Association of School Administrators, Proceedings of the Department of Duperintendence of the National Educational Association at its Meet at Washington, February 20-22, 1883 (Government Printing Office, 1883).