Hey, this is Josh Levine, the host of One Year. I hope you're enjoying our season on 1986.

This week, we have a story from senior producer Evan Chung.

About halfway through Ronald Reagan's first term as president, the country got an unexpected warning.

President Reagan and the American people were told this today. The educational foundations

of our country are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our

very future as a nation and a people. Those words came from a report from the National Commission

on Excellence in Education.

It was called a nation at risk, and it was a chilling look at the state of the country's

schools. American kids were incapable of solving math problems or writing essays.

On all sorts of academic tests, they were placing dead last among industrialized nations. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America this mediocre educational

performance, they wrote, we might have viewed it as an act of war.

The commission called for an immediate increase in federal funding.

Reagan wasn't having it. He actually wanted to abolish the Department of Education.

I believe that parents, not government, have the primary responsibility for the education of their children.

As the 1984 campaign ramped up, Reagan's Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale, pounced,

hammering him for investing in ballistic

missiles rather than kids.

While he's willing to fight for the death, for the MX, he won't lift a finger for education.

The president was on the defensive now, and the race was getting testy.

The White House said today that President Reagan in a speech last week was not suggesting

that Walter Mondale is a jackass.

Feeling vulnerable, Reagan launched an education blitz.

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