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WHO SUPPORTS NATIONAL CURRICULUM STANDARDS?
Eduwonk Andrew Rotherham points toward this Walter Isaacson Time piece in support of national curriculum standards, which notes that two-thirds of American kids attend schools whose curricula leave them unprepared for higher education and the workplace. I'm a fan of national standards, which are a common feature of the highest-rated school systems in the world. But Isaacson's article hardly provides a sophisticated understanding of the politics at play here in the U.S. For example, he writes:
Fortunately, there are glimmers of hope that the politics surrounding national standards has become a little less contentious. A growing coalition of reformers — from civil rights activist Al Sharpton to Georgia Republican governor Sonny Perdue — believe that some form of common standards is necessary to achieve a wide array of other education reforms, including merit pay for good teachers and the expansion of the role of public charter schools.
But as Isaacson notes later on, it isn't just self-styled "reformers" and "Republicans" who support moving toward a national curriculum. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has written a Washington Post op-ed advocating for the idea. If the national standards movement is going to gain any bipartisan traction, it must embrace all of its supporters, regardless of where they stand on other education reform issues, such as teacher merit pay or expanding the charter sector. And it must fight the battle for curriculum guidelines separately from those other issues, in order to attract the broadest base of support.
--Dana Goldstein
COMMENTS (5)
How do you address the criticism that the "national standards movement" is just an attempt to Taylorize the teaching profession?
I once worked at a technical support call center where the management, at the urging of Accenture, switched from actual technical support to the use of scripts. The purpose was to dumb down the jobs so that they could be done by people with no actual experience who then would be paid near-minimum wage.
Given the number of people who want to destroy public education in this country, and the fact that most actual teachers are opposed to a "national standards movement," it's hard to assume good faith here.
Posted by: Josh G. | April 20, 2009 12:02 PM
"National standards" are just an euphemism for totalitarianism. There's a small group of people who want to take total control of the country, eliminate all of the rights and independence of the local and state governments, and have everyone and everything controlled by a small group of corporates (liberals and neocons) centered in the beltway. These efforts have nothing to do with education, they have to do with political control.
There is no need for the federal government to be involved in education at all. The states and local communities are more than capable of managing their schools, and deciding on what their curriculum should be. Teachers should be free to choose what books they use and how they teach. The idea that teachers should only be allowed to choose books from a corporate-controlled list of books from corporate publishers (all of which, coincidentally, omit any mention of America's failings and crimes) is abominable, and antithetical to the most basic notions of freedom and democracy.
There is NOTHING that more directly threatens our country more than the efforts of the corporate-controlled federal government to take over our schools. They should be fought tooth and nail.
Posted by: mike | April 20, 2009 1:53 PM
I support creation of a national curriculum, testing, and cheap-textbook infrastructure, but I feel that it should be voluntary, not mandatory. A voluntary curriculum/textbook/test is a tool, something you can use if it meets your needs, something that can serve as a useful starting point, and then be modified for your own purposes. A mandatory curriculum is a burden imposed on you, and there's a danger that a mandatory curriculum will become extravagant in its demands on students and teachers.
Mike, I agree freedom and elbow room for teachers is good, but what about freedom for students? If you give maximum freedom for teachers, every student becomes 100% dependent on their particular teacher, with no alternatives.
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