Well, an interesting twist to the conversation on national standards from a senior advisor to Duncan. Mike Smith provides arguments for and against implementation of what he calls common standards.
His biggest concern, he said, is that if common national standards are funded by the federal government, "you can't keep ideology or politics out of the ball game.”
He then goes on to say, however, in support of national standards.
“. . .is that the common standards could foster a common curriculum. The potential to develop a common curriculum is the "core reason" that he supports the advancement of common standards, he concluded.”
“. . .is that the common standards could foster a common curriculum. The potential to develop a common curriculum is the "core reason" that he supports the advancement of common standards, he concluded.”
Wow, from common standards to a common curriculum – that is a huge shift in my mind. I am concerned about this interesting and troublesome possibility. Knowing the concern expressed by some to our core curriculum units, how would teachers respond to something of this scope? How would regional and local needs be integrated into the curriculum, or would they?
He also goes on to describe a potential development plan where groups of states would come together to prepare their list of preferred outcomes for consideration. These multiple options would then go through some process resulting in a national set of standards. Revenue from this work would come from grant requests to the Race to the Top funds under Duncan’s control. The wheels seem to keep turning with new twists in the road.
1 comment:
Since the constitutional rights and responsibility for educating children lies primarily with individual states, a national core curriculum would appear to require a far more agressive Dept. of Education than we've seen previously, and a great deal of political will. One major factor we appear to be unable to deal with effectively with the local control of curriculum and instruction in which we take pride is the growing mobility of families in our country. Even in a relatively stable school district such as ours I'm increasingly hearing comments as "I can't believe how many new registrations and children leaving we are seeing." For those of us who have worked in districts with exceedingly high turnover of students it's easy to conclude that high mobility and the need to continually "start over and adjust" to a new school and their curriculum is a higher barrier to student success than any of the other factors we commonly associate with lack of success. Maybe it's time we consider at least a partial national core curriculum.
Bruce Zahradnik
Post a Comment