http://blog.schlechtycenter.org/2009/08/04/make-national-standards-a-local-issue/ Phillip Schlechty on Education Reform Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:36:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 http://blog.schlechtycenter.org/2009/08/04/make-national-standards-a-local-issue/comment-page-1/#comment-53 Bryan Strohl Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:52:32 +0000 http://blog.schlechtycenter.org/?p=15#comment-53 We are putting the money that is so scarce right now into the wrong basket. Instead of investing money to continually improve technology and tutoring opportunities available to children, we are making changes for the sake of change. The creation of national standards will require groups (hopefully of actual educators and not politicians) to align the national standards to state standards and for each district in each state to invest the time and money to aligning the curriculum to the national standards when the state standards that are currently in place already provide a structure that ensures students achieve necessary standards of achievement. We are putting the money that is so scarce right now into the wrong basket. Instead of investing money to continually improve technology and tutoring opportunities available to children, we are making changes for the sake of change. The creation of national standards will require groups (hopefully of actual educators and not politicians) to align the national standards to state standards and for each district in each state to invest the time and money to aligning the curriculum to the national standards when the state standards that are currently in place already provide a structure that ensures students achieve necessary standards of achievement.

]]> http://blog.schlechtycenter.org/2009/08/04/make-national-standards-a-local-issue/comment-page-1/#comment-18 Steve McCammon Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:32:52 +0000 http://blog.schlechtycenter.org/?p=15#comment-18 Phil, I concur with your assessment on the overall question of national standards and assessment. Having heard you speak just recently about the shaky proposition that what if those writing these standards (and just as importantly) those designing the assessments are not truly qualified to do either. I equate this to the lesson learned with those federal officials who were supposed to be sufficiently qualified to oversee wall street and yet we found out far too late that our trust had been blind and unfounded. The stakes are at least equally as high here and to find out much too late would be truly catastrophic. Local standards set as closely as possible to the school house could help to insure that, as you state, we better understand that which we are to be held accountable for in the end. Not many leaders that I have met are resistant to accountability, but are simply looking for not only fairness but also relevance to informing design of and assessment of key learning in our schools. Phil, I concur with your assessment on the overall question of national standards and assessment. Having heard you speak just recently about the shaky proposition that what if those writing these standards (and just as importantly) those designing the assessments are not truly qualified to do either. I equate this to the lesson learned with those federal officials who were supposed to be sufficiently qualified to oversee wall street and yet we found out far too late that our trust had been blind and unfounded. The stakes are at least equally as high here and to find out much too late would be truly catastrophic. Local standards set as closely as possible to the school house could help to insure that, as you state, we better understand that which we are to be held accountable for in the end. Not many leaders that I have met are resistant to accountability, but are simply looking for not only fairness but also relevance to informing design of and assessment of key learning in our schools.

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