Thirty years ago, William J. Bennett became Ronald Reagan’s second Secretary of Education. He succeeded Terrell Bell, whose major accomplishment was issuing the landmark 1983 report, A Nation At Risk, which decried “a rising tide of mediocrity” in the nation’s elementary and secondary schools. Though a fundamentally decent man, Bell was not a reformer. Reagan pledged during his 1980 campaign to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. Bell never really had Reagan’s ear and was shown the door after the president was re-elected.

Bennett, now a talk-radio host, was a writer, political philosopher, and, when nominated by Reagan, read more >>>

Source : HuffingtonPost.Com