School reform has become a major industry since the Reagan era, when the 1983 report A Nation at Risk judged U.S. schools to be so mediocre as to endanger the economic future of the country. Mayors and presidents, corporate leaders and small-business owners, parents and taxpayers have said again (and again and again): The primary purpose of public schools is to prepare students academically for a workplace that keeps our economy productive and competitive throughout the world.