[1][citation needed] Among other things, the report contributed to the ever-growing assertion that American schools were failing, and it touched off a wave of local, state, and federal reform efforts.

[3] As implied by the title of the report, the commission's charter responds to Terrel Bell's observation that the United States' educational system was failing to meet the national need for a competitive workforce.

[4] Among other things, the charter required the commission to assess the "quality of teaching and learning" at the primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels, in both the public and private spheres and to compare "American schools and colleges with those of other advanced nations."

Harvey wrote, "the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a People...

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

Nearly forty percent of 17-year-olds tested could not successfully "draw inferences from written material," and "only one-fifth can write a persuasive essay; and only one-third can solve a mathematics problem requiring several steps."

Too often, state and local leaders have tried to enact reforms of the kind recommended in A Nation at Risk only to be stymied by organized special interests and political inertia.

[12] Salvatore Babones has criticized the composition and competences of the committee: The commission included 12 administrators, 1 businessperson, 1 chemist, 1 physicist, 1 politician, 1 conservative activist, and 1 teacher.