Maggie's Farm

Sorry I'm late with a comment, but I have to disagree.

I think that having a nation-wide curriculum would be a great idea. We should create a minimum standard for what an educated person should be. We should be able to build a standard for measuring reading comprehension or illiteracy. Beyond the minimums, I would like to see a "platinum plan," a knowledge base for gifted students or exceptional schools to shoot for.

The goals of these standards would be:
1. To serve as a model so that students who move from place to place know what to expect.
2. To serve as a model for people who are thinking about home schooling.
3. To serve as a high, perhaps impossibly high, standard for schools to try to achieve.
4. To start a dialog at the state level for states to set standards. This is very important for students who move around, but it also provides a way for testing and measuring progress.
5. To provide a starting point or a vocabulary for comparing achievement. For example, Detroit schools are a disaster because they have a 47% illiteracy rate. That's a number that could have a precise definition, and we should be able to use that number to compare with Chicago's schools. Without measurable standards, it's hard to compare school programs.

Now, do I favor the Federal government enforcing these standards on local schools? No. They have no business doing that. In my core standard in Civics, students are required to know what the Tenth Amendment is about.

Do I favor watered-down standards the way the Clinton and Obama Administrations propose? Hell NO. To be effective, we should be setting high standards and talking about a high level of achievement.