In April 1983—exactly thirty years ago—the famous report “A Nation at Risk,” warned that American education was a “rising tide of mediocrity,” Forbes reports. Since then, despite a tidal wave of reforms—more money, more standards, more testing, more technology, more affirmative action, more charter schools, more teacher-certification, more test-based accountability and more big federal programs (No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top), American K-12 education remains stubbornly mediocre. With American 15-year-olds ranking internationally 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math—trailing counterparts in such countries as Estonia and Poland—and one-third of entering college students needing remedial education, the report card is still poor…