Debating National Standards for Education

For students to be able to move easily from place to place, there should be some nationwide standardization of the basic curriculum. If nothing else, there is little reason for 51 (States + DC) to have curriculum boards all doing the same thing. That said, there should also be room for differences (such as local history), electives, and experimentation.

The only way to level a pile of sand is to lower each grain to the same level as the lowest. Standards, especially on the national level, will lower the expectations and opportunities for all. Far better to focus on Special Education for the Especially Gifted, rather than Special Education for the Disadvantaged.

Education is not equivalent to a pile of sand. Oh ye simple minded. No wonder Amerika is full of ignorance.

It is not enough to criticize the ideas of others. That is just bitching for no reason. You must also put your own ideas out there, well written, for others to compare and judge.

Chris

Judge? That's funny Chris. Far be it from me to judge a pile of sand. I apologize to each and every granule.

I did not ask you to apologize for anything. I stated what a fair expectation is.

A fair expection is at least a minimum standard, not whinning about how it might hold back the brainy types. Reread the post I ridiculed. It was deserving.

I agree Chris. It's funny this thread is about education and yet someone known as Guest has to respond with a uncalled for remark with a spelling error. I'm no spelling expert, but come on.

"No wonder Amerika is full of ignorance."

It's spelled America, so who is simple minded?

We do need some sort of standardization for education. The education system is desperately in need of it. Kids need the same amount of education no matter where they might attend school to have an equal chance to attend a good college. The cracks in the system are in need of repair so kids quit slipping through the system not knowing how to read or write. As parents we need to step up and fight for our children's education and do our part at home as well. The education system and the parents need to work together to make sure this all takes place.

"Kids need the same amount of education no matter where they might attend school to have an equal chance to attend a good college." Are we talking quality or quantity, and who determines the content? A large quantity of information that a kid can recite back or being able to answer questions in written form on a test doesn't mean he/she is educated or prepared for life after school. The same holds true for adults. Would you rather have someone who is "in the field" getting practical experience or someone right out of school who has learned some theory about how things work. The technical part is necessary but more importantly is the dirt under the fingernails experience that gives the theory perspective in application. I would much rather have my kids interacting with business owners who are actively involved in succeeding businesses and willing to pass that information and wisdom on to the next generation, than from some professor teaching theory who probably has never seen that information applied practically.

"Get a good education, get a good job with benefits and be set for life" is Industrial Age thinking that doesn't work anymore. Just look at the high number of people with degrees out of a job. I understand there are a lot of different factors that influence the economy (worst of all, an administration and legislators; Republicans and Democrats alike; that seem to do most things that hurt private enterprise, rather than help set an environment that promotes free enterprise) so I'm not saying it's the fault of those with degrees. I'm just saying the old ways of thinking don't work anymore and it seems the standard response it to throw more money and untried programs at the problem and hope it works.

You are right about the system needing to be fixed so the kids don't slip through the "cracks". Let's not just keep doing the same thing, or listening to the same people who have perpetuated a system that has so many cracks. Like Albert Einstein said, "the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over expecting a different result".

I am talking quality. Each and every child should be given a chance at a good education. Not just for college, but for a good jump start of knowledge for the next step of in the field experience. Without proper education for instance if a child wanted to be an accountant it would be much easier with a good math skills learned in a classroom. Don't you think? I agree after schooling they would have better knowledge of the field they want to go in after apprenticing under someone with all the wisdom passed down from generation to generation. I don't know if you have noticed or not, but getting a good job with benefits is extremely difficult these days without proper education beforehand. This isn't a perfect world and outside of dreamland, education and hard work is essential in obtaining a good job these days. We all need to work together as parents, teachers and government alike to ensure our children have what it takes to get good jobs and benefits to help them with their family's.

I agree that there needs to be a high level of education. I just question who is responsible for seeing that it happens. It isn't the governments job, especially the Federal government (it's no where in the Constitution that the Federal gov. should have a role in education), and the Feds shouldn't be allowed to dictate to parents educating their kids at home, teachers in private, parochial or public settings how or what should be taught. It is the parents responsibility to see that their kids learn what is necessary, irregardless of the setting they place their kids in. Kids do better when there is parental involvement. Maybe they should decide what has more importance; driving a new car, living in a bigger house or something else that requires them to spend too much time away from their kids. The one thing in their life that has true value is their kids. Turn off Dancing With the Stars, American Idol or whatever mindless rubbish is stealing time with our kids.

Exactly. I agree 100%. I'm not saying the government should dictate what the kids learn, just that they fork over some of the tax money I've paid in to help fund the education. But you are correct the parents should have a role in educating their children and what they are taught. Not enough one on one time is spent with each individual child to give them the education they should have. I think we're pretty much on the same page here.

So you want the Federal government to give you money but not monitor and evaluate the performance they are getting for the tax dollars spent. Obviously they have to tell you some things you can not spend that money on, else you have a whole group children who maybe have no math skills but had a few $500,000 a year spanish teachers, art teachers or football coaches. But then how do you know the school board, principal and teachers are doing their jobs, you give them money doesn't mean they use it properly. Teachers seem to go hand in hand with social experimentation in childhood development/education. Bear in mind that teachers are not typically the best educated people in universities but usually some of the worst particularly in math and science (Just look at any local universities requirements for liberal studies or education, liberal studies being another word for elementary school teacher, and compare that to say even a business major, you may be surprised). So you really do not want the teacher setting the curriculum, particularly since their are far more teachers trained and oriented towards teaching the mentally challenged than the most gifted children. you would see far more resources devoted to individual challenged students that their are now, except when it is a racial/cultural challenge then it would go the other way. So who decides how to allocate and apply these federal funds in a manner that makes the most efficient use of the funds equitable to all the tax payers. I think the best thing is to monitor the spending and set some minimum standards, the only way to monitor for minimum performance is to test. however, the governemnt needs to take into account some form of normal distribution

If the Federal Government would get away from this revenue sharing concept, and return taxing authority to local government, you would have a whole lot more control over how the money is spent. Decrease federal taxes, dedicate federal revenues to those issues actually assigned by the constitution to the federal government, and give control back to local government.

I don't know. Here's one thing I think is unfair in any taxation for educational purposes:

I'm 59+ years of age. My wife and I chose not to have children. We've paid school "property taxes" all our working life. These are usually the greater portion of property taxes. I don't mind contributing to the betterment of society, but I think at some age, you shouldn't have to pay "school" taxes anymore if you've never had children (that used public education). In other words, I think I've done my fair share of supporting education in a financial way already.

Your point is very important. Regardless of whether it's good or bad in anyone else's eyes it is your position. You take your position based on not receiving sufficient value for your money with you when you vote. And the number of people that feel the way you do is increasing.

All the noise about the value and importance of public education is not likely to change very many minds. Combine that factor with the apathy of the people who need public education the most and the likely end will be a collapse followed by the development of a vastly different system. (IMHO the new system will be built on electronic technology, will be low in overall cost and will be rich, diverse and productive providing a huge pool of talent to support the needs of our people.)

It is not unlike the collapse of the Soviet Union that grew out of the impossible problem of managing a large complex system (in this case the economy of the USSR) with a centralized planning and control process.

But the inevitable collapse is the only way to make major changes. And be forewarned, we will lose a generation of our youth and produce substantial cultural turmoil while this happens and during the period of growth and evolution of a new educational system.

IMHO the new system will be built on electronic technology, will be low in overall cost and will be rich, diverse and productive providing a huge pool of educated talent to support and build our nation. Under local, indeed individual, mentor or family control in a free enterprise marketplace it will evolve rapidly to fill the real needs of our economy and society as a whole. Unlike the present system it won't be tied up in a Gordian knot by a bloated special interest politicized gang of predators trying to rip off any piece they can find to satisfy their selfish appetites.

Ed Weldon

Ed-

The major objection I have to your "electronic technology" based education system is that the Internet is so full of misleading, erroneous or downright fraudulent information that most people seem unable to rationally evaluate (I am thinking in terms of the over-unity, creationist, foil had crowd). The only way to filter the information is to introduce some form of censorship, which is most definitely going to open the doors to all sorts of abuse by those with nefarious motivations.

While we could probably find many, many examples of misleading information in contemporary text books, at least they have had some sort of public vetting that offers some modicum of protection from the censors. Each of us, as parents or teachers or mentors or whatever role we would assume, have a profound responsibility to insure that the information being planted in the virgin minds of our youth has some basis in reality. This is not a duty we can shoulder off onto any government, be it local or federal...

Relying on the Internet as it exists today to educate our youth is going to result in some pretty confused voters, scientists, religious leaders, etc. I am not sure if you have noticed, but the most absurd concepts tend to get the highest exposure...

It's not really my electronic technology. It's a new species of education that is facing the forces of evolution in order to survive and prosper. And it's here and beginning to test the reigning dominant species. I've talked before here about Mr. Khan. The evolution has already started. And it has the powerful forces of basic economics as an advantage.

It will start in the realm of higher education but has the potential of working down through secondary education and even into the primary grades where students under the right teachers and good parental influence are able to gain the maturity to make significant use of electronic learning aids and the efficiency gains they can produce.

It's ultimate success will depend on employers discovering how to reliably measure and evaluate the education their job applicants have gained. They don't have to do that now. All they need to do is read the transcript and satisfy themselves about the quality of the educational institution, largely based on reputation, accreditation and some experience with existing employee graduates of the same program as the applicant. It's an easy sorting process for the hiring manager and HR dept. But it's bad economics.

You see, in order to get the applicant to accept the offer he/she must be convinced that the investment of some 1/4 million dollars in an education will get paid back by some combination of wages, benefits and job satisfaction.

When the day comes (and it will come) that an education based primarily on self study with low cost electronic tutorials, minimum paid tutoring, and reliably verifiable achievement results(a key factor) is available to everyone at low cost it won't be long before CEO's begin to realize that the money they end up paying for that high buck traditional college degree can go right to the bottom line instead. And, in keeping with the OP, I should mention that the standards will not be set by a government of any kind (exception perhaps government contractors) but by the employers themselves.

In higher order human created systems money headed for bottom lines is a huge driving force in their evolution.

Ed Weldon

Education is one of those ongoing costs from which we all derive benefits, whether we have children or not. I hate to think what might happen if the uneducated masses were allowed to select our government officials...There are, of course, other benefits to living in a society of well-educated individuals.

But I do not think the Federal Government should be spending money on education, because it is one realm of government reserved to each State in the 9th Amendment to the Constitution.

I know not being american it could be foreign, but local school boards have a higher than usuall incindence of corruption amongst government organizations in this country. They tend to inject huge amounts of personal opinions (many times contrary to scientific understanding) into educational curriculi and allocate funding derived from local property taxes to their own and the Teachers unions' special interests. Obviously, even the largest states do not have the resources and power to fight for the education of the children against the special interests of the teachers' unions. the only thing close to being able to establish some reasonable standard in the federal government. If left totally local half of Texas and Kansas would be taught only that the universe, the earth and mankind was strictly created in a 7 day period, no exceptions. Besdies a negligible amount of federal taxes go to education overall. The US probably spends more on funds to prop up Panama's economy and governemnt than education (we definitely do on Israel and Egypt). Let alone the defense budget, that is so bloated we could arm the next 5 largest militaries and still have a huge excess.

Ity used to be, "We, parents and teachers, must work together to ensure our children have what it takes...". Then someone threw the Government in there...

Take back responsibility for your own lives, and those of your children. Don't let some remote bureaucrat that has probably never visited your neighborhood, dictate what is "right" for you...

Cwarner -- You've got the right idea here. Standards must be based on careful assessment of scholastic aptitude. This specifically includes accounting for disparate areas of aptitude, math, science, verbal, etc. And testing must be local , not competitive on a national scope. I vote strongly for the Finland approach.

Public education should be about preparing our children for life. Especially the low achievers. The old ideas of the smart kids going "college prep" and the rest to business and vocational courses made sense when I grew up but it was full of crude injustices. We know a whole lot more about how the human brain works and learns and given our sophisticated methods for determining people's individual scholastic aptitudes we ought to be able to manage custom educational paths for all. Better we spend educational resources in this direction rather than wasting time on teaching to and taking the tests that make legions of government bureaucrats and politicians swoon.

Right now education seems to be more about culling out the 90% who are unsuited for salaried jobs in major multinational corporations and sending them to a scrap pile of humanity best controlled by more cops, judges and prisons.

Ed Weldon

One of the issues that disturbs me most about "standardized" education is that it assumes that everyone's metal capabilities develop at the same rate. It is very possible that a child who is a slow learner can be denied future opportunities for which he or she is more than qualified, simply because the individual rate of developing certain skills was slower than "normal". A more localized means of judging capabilities and assigning future roles (i.e., college prep or vocational, if you will) will be more equitable for all concerned, and society stands to benefit greatly. If one attempts to apply "national" standards, there is no room for individual variation. "Teaching to the test" tells you nothing about one's intellectual capabilities. We are not all created equal, and different approaches need to be available for those of different capabilities and interests.

When I was in high school, there were programs for the gifted children, as well as for the disadvantaged. Unfortunately, by high school, the decision had already been made as to which group one fit, and there was no system for adjusting for late bloomers...With national standards, this would be worse.

I agree with nearly everything that you have said. However, is there not a place for a single standard examination for say the "school leaving" exam. The education could and would be different in different areas and schools but the basic exam at that end of the day would be a standard(ised) one.

This would allow tertiary educational organisations to better judge the abilities of students and to make a fair comparison.

The exam results are a destination, education is the journey and this should be able to take many routes.

Like has been mentioned the "standarized" method doesn't really work very well. There isn't a one-size fits all approach because things change so fast and who is the one that decides what information is the best? Do we want to let some beuracrat in Washington who doesn't have a clue about the real world determine what my kids need to learn? We as parents are the ones responsible for our kids' education, not the governement. The government, or more precisely a few people have the power to dictate what our kids should learn. What happens when they have an agenda to promote that is detrimental to the welfare of our kids? Parents that are involved in the education of their kids; homeschooling or otherwise; have a much better feel for how their kids learn best and probably what information is needed. The conveyor, cookie-cutter approach to our government schools doesn't prepare our young people for the real world, where the ideal is to be able to operate as a business owner, not as an employee for someone else.

Historical revisionism, political correctness, sensitivity training, sex-ed, diversity (including every kind of deviance imagined), scientific machinations, are all examples of things being promoted by people with an agenda of dumbing down a generation of kids. Like one of the Founding Fathers said that "the greatest danger to our Republic is an uneducated populace." Where we have a large percentage of our population who have no idea what freedom is, economically or politically; what it means and how it came to be; we wind up with people who are content to be in the cart rather than pulling the cart, and they vote for people who will promise them a life of "ease". They don't realize they are giving up their freedom for a bowl of pottage (short term gain).

Something I have noticed, other nations have national certification standards for their universities. The US has each State certify the universities. Most 1st world, and some 2nd world, countries outside the US have national standards for education. With a standard for the universities, including acceptance policies, it becomes a kind of test of the educational K-12 system, except the test is based on the highest end of the performance rather than the lowest. So maybe our government is taking a slightly different approach, after all it was instituted under Bush. When the national program of no child left behind was being promoted, a substantial number of people supported it, when the government used the concept that all children should graduat high school able to read, solve simple math problems, and work at a minimum proficiency needed for at least a job at McDonalds or other service industry positions. The thing they didn't address was how to test proficiencies for advanced students, because under that administration that was not a necessary consideration with the proliferation of outsource by business for technical and skilled labor (unskilled unionized labor was addressed by no chiild left behind).

Another issues is culture, Finland has basically 2 very suimilar cultures within the country, Swedish and Finnish. Homogeneity makes education much easier, but in a very mixed society attempts at homogeneity can create large differences in educational potentialand bias based soley on culture and where that person lives.

I think anyone that is familiar with the principles and thinking behind ISO 9001 can suggest a methodology to fixing the system.

That way, it isn't so much about setting universal standards, as it is about acheiving and evidencing the goals each organization sets. Universal testing is valid for certain areas of employment, where performance is mission critical, and as such is great for becoming a tradesperson, pilot, or doctor, etc. But it is not a good methodology for preparatory or remedial education systems.

Chris

Testing is not only about measuring the educational progress of children, but also about measuring the performance of the teachers and school systems (there a many different school systems all deciding how to allocate funding and resources). By testing performance in the educational progress of children you can over a reasonable amount of time measure the teaching capabilities of the teacher and make determinations about their status. Teaching and school systems currently have no criteria to measure their performance really except testing the students, drop out rates when they get older, college attendance of high school graduate, etc.. All the methods depend on identifying issues many years or decades after they have occurred and get convoluted through the involvement of many different levels of the educational system and its staff. Consider this, if the teacher really had to perform their work services as a professional might, they would have a written contract that spells out the scope of services for each year of teaching, it would identify the expected standing of each child they must teach and the performance or goals they would achieve during the course of teaching to deliver a final product. The teacher would have to meet the satisfaction of the clients, being the parents of the students and other agents who fund the education of the children, in delivering the final product or risk legal actions, mush like any professional. If the threat was that the clients might sue teachers over every individual childs performance, I believe performance standards would be the thing teacher would want. The would want to know what they were starting with and where they had gotten in educating the children. The might also set some expectations for the parents to meet and provide though as professionals we do not usually set very strict requirements for providing services on the client but more often set limitations. The threat of something like a malpractice against teacher would definitely change the dynamic.

"The threat of something like a malpractice against teacher would definitely change the dynamic."

And significantly increase the cost of educating our children, as teachers would then require malpractice insurance. And, of course, payouts would come from the same insurance companies we are paying for our car insurance, our house insurance, our medical insurance...Only lawyers win. The rest of us pay. Look at what malpractice has done to the cost of medicine...

How do you feel about your insurance company paying multi-millions of dollars to some lady who spilled a hot cup of coffee on her lap while driving down the road? McDonalds didn't pay- your insurance company paid...

Well then the other way is to treat them like non-professional contractors, put them under contracts that have specification and conformance inspection and testing during the process of fulfilling the contract to measure performance and progress. Along with a final testing of the product against a standard to measure the quality of work relative to the contracted requirements.

Malpractice in medicine is more common than lawsuits in engineering, even though both can easily be held accountable for failing to meet expectations. and dealing with shortcomings. It seems like engineers develop contracts, manage expectations, and negotiate shortfalls better than Doctors in general, especially since most Doctors don't really do much for agreement with clients, very generic, and they pay little attention to managing expectations. I woudl say however, that it might bring a better air of professionalism and business understanding to the lower academic world of K-12 if teachers had to deal with liabilities, insurance and client expectations. A better understanding by teachers of the world outside of the school might facilitate better teaching and preparation of the students for the work environment. also the liability might make unions more actively remove severely underqualified teachers, rather than the current system in which unions want as many members employed as possible no matter the qualifications because they carry no relationship to liabilities for the work conducted.

I have no problem with treating teachers like professional contractors, so long as the responsibility for determining performance criteria is on the State or, better, the local level. Setting standards on a national level, whether it be for student or teacher, will result in everyone conforming to the lowest common denominator, with no incentive to excell...This is not good for society in general.

I agree. With the power should come the responsiblity. giving the state the power, and the teachers the responsibility is just asking for a clusterf*** crossfire. (which is what we have)

Chris

I agree.

Are you having problems making paragraphs with your browser? there has been lots of discussion on that issue on cr4... I haven't had the problem, but there are lots who have.

Chris

You make some valid points. However, there is still the issue that RESPONSIBILITY lies with the individual. When individuals shirk their responsibilities, by improperly vetting their public officials or by pushing responsibility off on society or government, they get what they deserve. If great swaths of Kansas and Texas want to believe that the earth was created flat only 5000 years ago, that is their problem, and they will eventually have to face up to the fact that their children are at a significant disadvantage with respect to the rest of the world.

I have serious problems with the federal government passing tax revenues back to the states for any reason- first of all, that makes the state and local governments dependent on the federal government. Secondly, this gives the local populace considerably less control over what and how their contributions to the common weal is expended. "Revenue Sharing" occurs because it is far easier to raise national taxes than local taxes, because governments are funding things of little value to the general populace. It also generqally results in an increase the the local bureaucracy, mandated by the demand for more administrators to insure that the criteria are being met. If a school district employs 4 times as many administrative and support staff as educators, what business are they really in? If real power were vested in the citizenry, then I am sure they would be far more actively involved in general. Keep it locoal, and the locals have more say in how things are run. If they blow it, that is their responsibility.

yes, you make a lot of my argument for me. I assume you are agreeing with the premise.

Of course the situation can get tangled, but it can also be self-correcting, and that once teachers realize they are getting into trouble with parents, they can set different goals. If parents were educated about education with goal orientation as the basic paradigm, the would also choose more effective options, and have a more realistic expectation of performance, just like a business manager has of his consultants. (the business manager does not blame the consultants for the behaviour of the markets, but parents blame teachers for the behaviour of the education system, and it's results.)

Chris

Ah ha! The key! Make parents ultimately responsible for the education of their children! Wonderful idea!

Actually i think he was saying that everyone is responsible but teachers have to help educate parents to have realistic expectations. Just like as a cionsultant we are taught to do with our clients. I have to have a written scope of service that addresses all the potential major pitfalls, dependencies outside of our control, limitations, expectations of the cleint and our own work product. Then I must communicate this verbally with the client up front so they know what to expect as the work progresses. My clients are usually fairly astute about what to expect for the deliverable, but sometimes they don't really consider what they need to provide to me to develop the product and their own labor that would be involve. Parents are definitely part of the key, but they are not the only responsible party. If a client meets contracted obligations and I provide a substandard product, I am liable. If the parents meet their obligations and the student doesn't have any pre-existing deficiencies, but the student doesn.t meet the minimum standard education, then the teachers and school district are liable. The question then is how do you determine which teacher was failing or was it institutional across the board and the district is responsible. The only way as a engineer I determine conformance of a product to our contracted specifications is to observe development, test materials during development in fairly respresentative conditions, and review/test the finished product. We have many organizations devoted to stardized testing. ASTM is full of procedures to test contracted products from selection of conforming materials for compliance, to verification of materials during development, to random destructive and passive testing of end products. the federal governemnt then sets standards for any projects involving federal funding, the States set standards for all cases (and maybe additional for State and Federal funded jobs), then local jurisdictions set equal or higher standards that must be met at a minimum. Why do we not treat teaching of our young with the same level of consideration or scientific evaluation we do a few hundred feet of 18" storm drainage pipeline. The most often complaint or praise i hear from parents has to do with how nice the teacher was to the parents, not their qualifications to teach. If i want a new project with a client I usually need to demonstrate an understanding of the needs of the cleint and the project specific requriements/conditions, my qualifications (or my teams), a cost/time estimate for the services, and the expectations of the client (all in writting, then usually followed by a presentation). A new student's parents might be considered clients. Of course then this would require the teacher/school districts act as professionals, not as unskilled unionized labor.

Not all that many years ago, when I was a student in public schools, it was my responsibility as a student to grasp whatever material was offered up by the teachers. If I did not grasp it, it was not the teacher's fault (at least, according to my parents!). I had good teachers and I had bad teachers, I had good materials and bad materrials. I also had parents who were interested in my progress and were constantly reminding me that, if I did not make the grade, I would spend the rest of my life digging ditches or hauling garbage for other people. One did not get in to college if one had not mastered the basics of mathematics and reading. There were no remedial reading and mathematics classes in colleges in those days. And a lot more kids (at least in the schoold system where I went to high school) were finishing high school and going on to college than the published statistics of today would indicate. What is the difference between 1966, when I graduated from highschool, and 2010? Why does the system that once worked pretty well failing us today? What did we change?

I am of the opinion that the changes over the years have resulted from individuals shirking their personal responsibilities and allowing the federal government to interfere more and more intimately in areas of our lives that the US Constitution specifically bars them from...Among these, education.

you are both sooo on point that I can't refine anything you say. ga to both.

my original thinking was very basic, with the old "input, process, output, feedback" system. In quality terms, GIGO, therefore, it is crucial to have a detailed specification for customer requirements and expectations, even if some of those requirements are not generated by the customer, such as governing body expectations. I think the governing body expectations should be subject to peer and public review nationally. (to eliminate personal foibles such as sport/academic imbalances)

Every parent should participate in a 'customer input' process, where they decide what the standard of education they want for a given term, and what the relative costs are. When students get to college and university, the parents typically help figure out what the programs will be, in order to acheive the goals of the students/parents. Why should it be any different in public school?

Chris