Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Less than two months after the nation’s governors and state school chiefs released their final recommendations for national education standards, 27 states have adopted them and about a dozen more are expected to do so in the next two weeks.
Their support has surprised many in education circles, given states’ long tradition of insisting on retaining local control over curriculum.
The quick adoption of common standards for what students should learn in English and math each year from kindergarten through high school is attributable in part to the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition. States that adopt the standards by Aug. 2 win points in the competition for a share of the $3.4 billion to be awarded in September.
“I’m ecstatic,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education. “This has been the third rail of education, and the fact that you’re now seeing half the nation decide that it’s the right thing to do is a game-changer.”
It's part and parcel of accepting this new government money for the Race to the Top program.
If a state takes the money they agree to follow the national standards set by the Fed Gov and not their state.
I read up on their math standards..there's a PDF floating around the net on it and I didn't really see anything "concrete" in there as to what to teach yet they say their standards are better than the rest of the state standards.
I guess I'm on the fence with this. I think a good indicator of its value would be SAT score comparison among states that abide by it and states that stick to their own. And that would mean waiting several years for it to be implemented.
The further removed one is from the classroom, the less realistic the goals seem to get.
Anyone know where I can get a copy of the chemistry standards? I found physical sceince and earth science but not chemistry. I'm really interested to see how the national standards compare to Michigan standards.
As long as the standards aren't reduced to the lowest common denominator, it may not be a bad idea.
The huge negative is federal involvement.
Hopefully, they will be raised to the highest. Right now, differences in standards make it impossible to compare education between states. Some states with high passing scores on standardized tests have low standards while others with low passing rates have higher standards.
I know GA is trying to adopt them. The way I understood it, these standards were for math and ELA/Reading only not for the content classes like science and SS
I'm on the fence about this. I do think it's within everybody's best interest to have national standards set in place...it's just that I don't necessarily have faith in the ability to have every state sign on and do things the right way(Texas...I'm looking at you). That, and the standards themself are probably going to be less than stellar and could potentially cause a lot of commotion/confusion/controversy. I'm guessing that if you've adopted national standards, that they also have some form of new test to use as well in place of your state's standardized test? This is going to be something of a mess...
Part of the problem here is that if it were just national standards, that would be one thing. However, there are provisions that REQUIRE teacher's jobs to be based SOLELY on test scores. There are no extra provisions for a difficult year of kids, for any of the special requirements that identify the fact that you are NOT dealing with widgets in a factory but with human beings. And for anyone who doesn't think that is important, just look at the great number of very difficult people who post on this forum and THEIR UNWILLINGNESS to learn new things; teachers have exactly the same problem with many students.
When the Feds are involved, there are always way more provisions than just standards. In any business, when Feds bring in standards, whether it is lawyering, health and safety, whatever, there is way more that has to be done. Probably every district that goes with it will need to hire a new person just to handle compliance, at another $60K to 90K costs.
Many of these things violate state laws and almost all of them violate union/district legally binding contracts. This is way more complicated than most people know.
Anyone know where I can get a copy of the chemistry standards? I found physical sceince and earth science but not chemistry. I'm really interested to see how the national standards compare to Michigan standards.
As for the original post: I am not against national standards as long as they are good ones and don't dumb things down. I can only speak for the life science section of the science standards, since that is my field. They seem to be ok for the most part.
What I do NOT like is the federal government browbeating states into using them. They want all the states to have the same standards so that they can make comparisons between states. OK fine, BUT, they want to take it further and use punitive measures against states, districts, teachers, and the colleges where the teachers went to school. I thought we learned from NCLB that punitive measures (i.e. withholding funds for poor performance) does NOT improve education in the US; however Race To The Top is going to make NCLB look like a walk in the park. Unfortunately we won't see the effects until Arne Duncan is long gone and someone else will probably get the blame.
Last edited by Eresh; 07-22-2010 at 09:50 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
