ERIC Number: ED243574
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1983-Dec
Pages: 11
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Keynote Address of Senator Richard G. Lugar National Forum on Excellence in Education (Indianspolis, Indiana, December 8, 1983).
Lugar, Richard G.
Few Americans understand the extent to which our nation is at risk. While our ability to compete on an international scale has diminished, our commitment to national defense and social programs and the costs for such programs have increased. The solution to this general predicament lies in the competition of ideas and ideals and in the maximization of freedom of trade and the laws of comparative advantage. This solution implies reform of the nation's schools, but the reform should be directed at the state and local levels, not, as in the past, at the federal level. In addition, this reform must extend beyond improving educational practices. The crisis of American education is that, as a people, we do not understand the importance of academic achievement to our national well-being. The plaudits of each of us should be directed toward academic achievement and to the development of successful competitors on the intellectual playing fields. Great moments in sport will come and go, but the academic achievers are those who will keep international peace, provide jobs for the American people, and enrich the cultural life of this country. We have been a nation at risk because we have not cared enough about learning. As leaders in education and as policy makers, our job at the national, state, and local levels is to help to forge a new ethos in which learning, scholarship, and education are important. (RH)
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Policymakers
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A