In 1983, a report titled A Nation at Risk sent shockwaves across the country. Produced by a bipartisan national commission, it warned that America’s future was in jeopardy due to a “rising tide of mediocrity” in our schools. It emphasized that educational failure threatened not only economic competitiveness but the integrity of our democracy.
We are once again a nation at risk, and we don’t need a national commission to tell us why.
Today’s risks are playing out in real time. Our country is experiencing the impacts of climate change, global conflict, economic instability, the rapid emergence of AI, increasing polarization coupled with disinformation, rising authoritarianism, and growing depression and academic struggles among young people. According to the 2025 report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), reading and math scores for seniors in high school have fallen to the lowest levels in three decades. Anxiety, stress, and disengagement are rampant in schools. Yet there is no White House report. No call to action for our kids and our country. No clearly stated agenda for education in America.
Instead, there is dismantlement and division.
The federal Department of Education has experienced sweeping layoffs predicated on the administration’s belief that all decisions about our nation’s educational policy and purpose should be separately delegated to each of the 50 states. A new wave of tuition tax breaks and vouchers is pitting private schools against public ones. And the administration, despite court rulings, continues to threaten to withhold funds from public schools that engage in “illegal DEI” activities, with no clear definition of what those activities might be. If those activities include teaching about historical injustices in America, providing books that offer perspectives from a diversity of American experiences, or eliminating supports for students who need them—such as English-language learners—that is not a national agenda for education. That is a recipe for fragmentation and failure.
What we need instead is an agenda for public education that unites Americans across the political spectrum; one that is built around fully engaging students; one that fosters deep learning across all subjects, and one that focuses on preparing students to solve the complex problems they see in the world and in their communities.
What is the greatest problem we are currently facing? Is it climate change? Global conflict and violence? Poverty? Political division? Our greatest problem is actually our inability to solve problems. Few of us have been given the toolkit of skills to look at the root and systemic causes of complex problems, or to consider the perspectives of all stakeholders, or to collaborate across divides in developing innovative, ethical, and lasting solutions.
What is the greatest problem we are currently facing? Is it climate change? Global conflict and violence? Poverty? Political division? Our greatest problem is actually our inability to solve problems.
It is that toolkit of skills we need to give our young people.
Preparing students for college and career is not enough. We need to prepare them for life in a complex, interconnected, and constantly changing world. They must be equipped to think critically and creatively, systemically and strategically. Most importantly, they need to have experiences acting to ethically and collaboratively to solve real-world issues.
That is the work of solutionary teaching.
Students across the U.S. and throughout the world are applying solutionary learning to address local manifestations of global challenges that matter to them—from climate change to hunger to loss of biodiversity. They research deeply, analyze systems, engage stakeholders in their communities, then design and implement ethical, sustainable solutions that do the most good and least harm for people, animals, and ecosystems. In the process, they gain agency, optimism, and an often life-changing realization that their learning matters, and that they matter.
This is the kind of transformation we need in every school.
Education is the key to a thriving economy, a thriving democracy, and a thriving world. But we cannot achieve any of those goals if we continue to treat education as a political battleground instead of a national priority.
Education reform is not a partisan issue. It is an existential one.
Education reform is not a partisan issue. It is an existential one.
If we want our children to feel joy and purpose in the present, if we want them to build a future in which they and all life can thrive, we must stop fighting over what books to ban and start focusing on how we engage, inspire, and empower our students to solve the problems they see in our world.
This should be the role of a revitalized Department of Education (DOE) at the national level; the role of the DOE in every state; and the role we affirm for courageous educators in every school and classroom.
If we no longer want to be a nation—or a world— at risk, we need to reimagine the purpose of education. We need to equip a generation of solutionaries. If you are ready to respond, please join us.
Learn more about the Solutionary Micro-credential Course, a training for educators who want to facilitate meaningful student-led action projects that help the next generation assess and address issues in their communities impacting humans, animals, and the environment.