Andrew Furgeson writes about nationwide education reform and why we love it every time it returns:
Common Core was announced only eight years after President George W. Bush and Sen. Edward Kennedy introduced another revolutionary approach to learning in public schools, an expensive and ambitious program called No Child Left Behind. NCLB, as it’s referred to in the acronym-crazed world of education reform, forced states to raise their academic standards, which were considered too low, and to improve scores on standardized tests, which ditto.
NCLB itself came eight years after President Clinton thought up Goals 2000, a nationwide school reform program to enact “standards-based reforms” and thereby improve test scores. Goals 2000 was a reworking of a school reform plan called America 2000 that President George H.W. Bush launched in 1990 as a way of raising standards and getting better test scores out of America’s public schools. He wanted to be called “the education president,” President Bush did, and his approach, he said, was revolutionary.
And in 1983, only seven years before the ambitious launch of President Bush’s America 2000, the nation received an alarming report commissioned by President Reagan, who was troubled that test scores, along with standards, were too low among public school students. The report was called “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.” It concluded that higher standards were necessary to raise test scores. “A Nation at Risk” was written by a blue-ribbon commission in an attempt to end-run the Department of Education, which had been started in 1979. The department was Jimmy Carter’s idea. He worried that lax standards were destroying American public education. A federal department, he reasoned, might be able to oversee a revolutionary new approach that would set things right.
For nearly 40 years, it’s pretty much been all reform, all the time for the nation’s public school students, teachers, and parents.
(via Prufrock)
1964. It was called “New Math” (the specter of Sputnik), and it destroyed an entire generation of mathematicians. John Saxon’s math books, circa 1984, helped enormously in restoring and teaching higher mathematics again, but the twenty year loss is incalculable.
He used Saxon Math also. It’s strong stuff. I wish we could let the Dept. of Ed. go, but that would require a good state-supported plan receive the passing of the ball (even if it was only a verbal exchange).
Another quote from this article: “One size fits all” may be a term of mockery used by people who disdain the top-down solutions of centralized power; in the technocratic vision, “one size fits all” describes the ideal.
After scanning the article once through, I’m left wondering where the author stands. The message I got was that the proponents don’t realize the bad that is being done and the opponents don’t realize the good that is being done.
I say a pox on both your houses. My kids have never been subjected to government schools, although they have been subjected to Saxon Math. In fact, during the period where we moved 4 times in 7 years, they had the same teacher throughout.
The result? My oldest is maintaining an A- average at the college where Lars is librarian. Her sister scored a 26 on the ACT as a High School sophomore and earned a 3.5 GPA taking online unwsp.edu college classes as a High School Junior.
Perhaps I misread it, but I thought the writer was generally critiquing the education reform movement. He seems to conclude with the idea that this reform will whimper away and a new one will rush in after it.
If you’re interested in changing school’s form, rather than merely reforming the same system, it won’t come from our lords and masters in DC.
But I think it is coming. My kids may grumble about going to school, but they love video games. When they want to learn something about the game world, they know how to search for the information on the Internet.
The future will come from places like Khan’s Academy. Systems where students find their own materials, instead of being forced fed what somebody else thinks is important.
Ori, I don’t like the idea of knowledge being accessible only when I want it as a guide for education. It’s a good thing on it own, but people should study and learn without having a defined reason for it. That’s why community elders are important. Young people need older people, specifically wise elders, who will tell them what they need to learn ahead of time: character formation, skills building, and spiritual maturity. We need elders and masters, not necessarily experts, to lead us, not merely infinitely access knowledge.
We need elders. But I think we’ll be able to find those online too. Tom Kratman is the best example I know personally, guiding current officers. But I’m sure there are others doing other guidance.
As someone who was primarily self taught for most of my life I appreciate the access to information the internet gives. On the other hand, as someone who went back to college later in life, earning a BS at age 40 and MDiv at age 44, I also appreciate the value of a good teacher and a formal education environment.
What I have observed is that the self taught person generally has very deep knowledge in a very narrow field. He doesn’t always understand the implications of his actions in regard to competing and even related disciplines. Formal education lays a foundation of broad understanding which must be built upon by later self study and experience.
One of my early instructors made the observation that whenever people grab hold of a half truth, they generally grab hold of the wrong half. Unless the student is guided by a knowledgeable instructor or mentor, they will waste a lot of time, energy and money chasing rabbit trails of misinformation. My point is that instruction, especially in the fundamentals of a discipline, requires the direction of someone knowledgeable in the field. Self study has its place as the lifelong endeavor following the building of a foundational understanding.