In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Perry Bacon Jr. argued that we don’t have an education crisis in America. If we’re judging by international test scores or long-term NAEP trends, maybe he’s right. But there is an underlying problem that we need to address: When we define success by yesterday’s metrics, we miss the deeper crisis already unfolding in plain sight. 

This isn’t only about failing test scores. It’s about failing relevance.