Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Business Week - National Standards & NCLB

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_23/b4134052764159.htm?chan=magazine+channel_what's+next

Moving Beyond No Child Left Behind

States are being encouraged to adopt common school curricula and tests, an idea business leaders may applaud ....By Steve LeVine

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From Cyber-Space:

The NCTM is THRILLED at the prospect of a national curriculum.
http://www.nctm.org/news/content.aspx?id=23276

So, reportedly, is Arne Duncan.
See above linked Businessweek article.

I believe it's already done. A few days ago, it was just national standards - voluntary, they said. Now they're talking standards AND curriculum. Voluntary, of course. I believe the thing's already been ordered; the check's already been written. All that's left is the crying.

I doubt any decision-maker will listen now. They'll all wait to see which way they should jump. And they will jump, without a twinge of regret. I'll keep fighting for better curricula here, but it's going to be a heckuva uphill slog now. I'm going to focus on informing parents and keeping parent rights intact. Otherwise -- I fear all could be lost.

3 comments:

dan dempsey said...

My comment......
Author said: "Getting effective national standards will be a fight, however. Science education could be particularly difficult"

Try Math education, where the NSF EHR division spent hundreds of millions to produce "Reform Math" which brought disasterous results. Recently the National Math Advisory Panel gave a strong recommendation for what works for Students Stuggling with Math. The recommendation was for "Explicit Instruction". This direction is being ignored by Colleges of Education and associated Math faculty as they are addicted to the NSF EHR cash cow.

The NMAP final report is well founded but apparently Politically Incorrect.

Anonymous said...

If there was ever a time to be cynical - this is the time. Thank goodness I won't be teaching extended algebra. Yuck.

Anonymous said...

The Millenial standard is now the national standard. Duncan is another pompous jack.