A college probably commits folly in choosing to remain single-sex without morally and educationally compelling reason, but it is the sort of folly that we should allow, the way we allow people to praise the literary merits of Maya Angelou.

[A Nation at Risk] launched two decades of sometimes frantic and often desultory school reform -- and two decades of opposition from the teachers' unions. ANAR's greatest success was in changing the terms of debate, for even those most invested in maintaining the system as it was in 1983 soon adopted the rhetoric of "reform." We entered the era of the Ukrainian Easter-Egg Curriculum: elaborately decorated on the surface, hollow within. These eggshell reforms are to be found in every other decrepit part of the educational enterprise too, from teaching technique to teacher training, and from school funding to public oversight.