All High School Graduates Should Have These Skills
In recent months, an alliance of the nation's governors and state education officials has led an initiative to develop common academic standards to which all public K-12 students would be held. In an early step toward that goal, experts convened by the group this week released a set of math and English skills they say students should master before high school graduation, the Washington Post reports.
The hefty standards envisioned in the proposal, which is posted at www.corestandards.org, leave little to be desired in terms of quantity. In math, they range from core practices such as constructing viable arguments and making sense of complex problems to modeling quantitative relationships and mastering probability and statistics. And the standards for English language arts focus on reading and writing skills as well as speaking and listening proficiencies, including presenting information and responding constructively to advance a discussion.
Currently, academic standards can vary widely from state to state, and the proposal aims to lift expectations and to establish for the first time an effective national consensus on what public school students should learn to help the United States keep pace with global competitors.
Feedback from national organizations representing teachers, such as the National Education Association, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the National Council of Teachers of English, has been part of the standards development process, but the actual writing and determination of what goes into them has been taken up by officials from Achieve Inc., a standards reform group; the College Board, which oversees the SAT college admissions exam; and the ACT testing program.
Supporters of common national standards say that uneven expectations for students are folly when the United States trails several countries in Europe and Asia on international exams. Opponents, however, argue that a one-size-fits-all approach to education is not the right way to go.
Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, told the Post that "this is more bottom-up than top-down" and that the federal government should not take a key role in the effort. But the Obama administration has been very vocal about its belief that student standards need to be raised and is planning a $350 million grant competition to help fund common assessments for states that adopt common standards.
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Common Standards
It sounds like such a sensible idea - but not every student leaving high school needs the same set of skills as every other. They would if they were all going to work at the exact same job at the exact same time. But is that what will happen? Do we really want it to? Not every student will go on to college, or work for a large corporation. We need all types of workers; plumbers, lawyers, mathematicians, janitors, teachers, social workers, prison guards, neurosurgeons. Does anyone really think that the same skills are needed by all of those professions? What about instilling a love of learning, a desire to pursue knowledge, creativity, the ability to persevere (self-discipline), the ability to think for oneself, civility, caring for others, idealism, stewardship of the planet? Skills that are essential for living in the 21st century. But these skills cannot be tested on any standardized test. And so, unfortunately, they are not valued by the proponents of uniform national standards.
Who will be served by instituting these standards? Not the students who will be force fed a one-size-fits-all curriculum. Not the students who are differently-abled or who learn differently, or who do not want to work for corporate America. Not the students whose test scores will rise, but not the quality and scope of their learning. Not the students who will drop out of high school rather than subject themselves to yet another test. Who will benefit from the push for standardized curricula? The corporations that write the tests, sell the workbooks, and publish the textbooks. But will our nation be better off?
We are being fed misinformation about how "poorly" our students are doing compared to other nations. We are also being misinformed as to the reasons they appear to do less well than other nations. When we lead other nations in numbers of children living in poverty and in numbers of teen births, and lag behind them in providing health care for expectant mothers and children it follows that we trail those nations in "test scores".
It is still crucial to remember that not everything that is tested is important. And not everything that is important can be tested.
high school
Kids who want to get a job right away should have internships in what they want to do. I had latin in high school. There is also the battle with hormones. The greatest influence on a high school student are friends. It seems in Quebec, that the standards are lowered to producr more high school graduates. Some kids have so many family problems that they can not function in school. These problems have to be resolved in elementary school. In high school, it is too late. School uniforns could be an idaea so the kids can be identified. Discipline is another problem. Build schools or build prisons?
How do other countries handle this problem?
We have to make a choice.
Hey What about us?
Standards, bandards! Schools can implement all the standards they want, if kids are not learning it doesn't mean ditly squat. This city is a prime example of there approach to implementing or enforcing more standards. High school students are instructed over a benchmark, maybe a day or two, and given a test. If they pass, they move to the next benchmark. Ask them what they learned, they can't tell you a thing. I not only call this SAD, but GENOCIDE. They're killing the next generation. Whatever happen to just outright teaching.
This may be a small town, that's affecting a small number of people, but don't be surprised if they grow up and live next door to you.
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