The Education Wars: "National" Standards

Once again Obama and others in the federal government push things they know absolutely nothing about:

The proposal, part of the administration’s recommendations for a Congressional overhaul of the law, would require states to adopt “college- and career-ready standards” in reading and mathematics.

The current law, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, requires states to adopt “challenging academic standards” in reading and math to receive federal money for poor students under the program known as Title I, but leaves it up to states to decide what qualifies as “challenging.”

Read MORE dropouts and pushouts and more of an underclass.

The Education Wars: National Standards

Alfie Kohn says "no" to national "standards."

One thing which made public education great in this country is the fact it is under local control and school boards are elected. They certainly aren't perfect, given the temptation for cronyism, but to have cronyism on a national scale is unthinkable.

Kohn:

I keep thinking it can’t get much worse, and then it does. Throughout the 1990s, one state after another adopted prescriptive education standards enforced by frequent standardized testing, often of the high-stakes variety. A top-down, get-tough movement to impose “accountability” began to squeeze the life out of classrooms.

A decade ago, many of us thought we had hit bottom—until the floor gave way and we found ourselves in a basement we didn’t know existed. Now every state had to test every student every year in grades 3-8, judging them (and their schools) almost exclusively by test scores and hurting the schools that needed the most help. Ludicrously unrealistic proficiency targets suggested that the federal law responsible was intended to sabotage rather than improve public education.

Today, we survey the wreckage. Talented teachers have abandoned the profession after having been turned into glorified test-prep technicians. Low-income teenagers have been forced out of school by do-or-die graduation exams. Countless inventive learning activities have been eliminated in favor of prefabricated lessons pegged to state standards.

There is nothing being done to stop the trend. I almost think it is irreversible.

The Education Wars

Beware of all such "reforms" in trying to sack "unfit" teachers; these crooks in public school districts are already sacking teachers for all kinds of reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with "competence" but having to do with being too old, too expensive, or too much of being troublemakers.

Obama won't do a damned thing about this trend because he supports it.

A rightwinger makes the case against national standards in education.