Ronald Wolk, founder and longtime editor of Education Week, has published the single best, most indispensable essay on reforming education that I have read.

On the 25th anniversary of the five-alarm "Nation At Risk" report, Wolk weighs in that America has not addressed the fundamental issues that assail our schools and perpetuate American students' "rising tide of mediocrity." Instead of making meaningful reforms, Wolk argues that we "misdiagnosed the problem" and instead made wrongheaded assumptions...