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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I can't decide if the poster who is so pro CC is working for the Department of Education or one of the publishers.  It is clear that the person is not working in a school.

Anyway, I am almost 60 years old.  I remember an Iowa test once every couple of years in grade school.  I do not recall any standardized tests in middle school or high school.  I did well on the SAT, went to college, got a master's degree and have had a long career (30+ years).  I went to public schools the whole way through.  I had good teachers (many of whom I still think about) and I was very well prepared for college. For the record, I was born into a lower middle class home.

I'm not saying that everyone I went to school with is living a miracle or anything, BUT I am not sure my generation suffered from not having standardized instruction.  It seems like people started complaining about the whole public system starting in the mid 90's or so.  It would be interesting to understand why that happened.  Was the economy changing about then?  Were there more poor students coming into the schools?  Did instruction change and that caused a decline in learning?  Is that when they changed from a vocational to a more academic focus in schools?  Maybe it's when we lost a lot of manufacturing jobs and we believed that our future would be in the "smarter jobs"?   I don't know.  What I do know is that creating some standards and testing the heck out of them is probably not the whole answer (and probably not even half the answer).

There are school districts in this country that were doing fine before the whole standardization trend started to gain momentum.  Of course there were schools that needed help too.  The problem with the feds being involved in schools is that the brush gets painted too broadly and local schools that were doing well were made to suffer and pay for things they didn't need (and that didn't help).  I believe this is why the Constitution left education to the states (and localities).

Now I believe that the federal government is overreaching.  Not only are they overreaching, they are wasting a lot of money that could be put to use in ways that local governments know would help.  If the idea is that "the locals are stupid and don't know how to educate", how in the heck are standards and tests going to make them smarter?  The biggest influence is going to be the "stupid locals" on the kids, not some standards and tests.  The "stupid locals" are a 24/7 thing for those kids.  Of course, you might be underestimating the locals based on your own broad brush way of thinking.

Also, Pearson, McMillan, whoever . . . it doesn't matter.  The point is that they have a profit motive that conflicts with a purely educational motive.   Those places (and Pearson has stockholders) are going to do what is best for their bottom line and that is not necessarily what is best for students.  That is happening all over unfortunately (our highway system seems to be the latest victim).

The good news is that the "stupid locals" are finally getting it and questioning these things.  I don't think that's a bad thing.  It's our messy democracy trying to work again.  We might find a way out of this after all.[/quote]

Um.. if you are 60, then the curriculum you studied under is out of date for kids in the 21st century.  I don't work for either the publishers or DOE.  I'm in high tech.[/quote]

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