Religion & Law

Another Way to Foil Texas

By John Pieret

Here is an interesting possibility:

An effort is gaining momentum to establish common academic standards for the nation's elementary, middle, junior high and high schools.

If events occur as planned by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices, the states could see by the end of this summer a common set of standards for math and English/language arts in kindergarten through 12th grades.

Standards for other core academic subjects would follow.

"This is on the fast track," Arkansas Education Commissioner Ken James said last week, fresh from testifying about the benefits of state-led common standards before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Education and Labor.

... President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, education policymakers, governors from more than 40 states, and national teacher-union leaders, as well as Arkansas school district superintendents, have signaled support for the effort in recent weeks.

... to start with standards for math and English/language arts, saying the subjects are fairly straightforward and aren't subject to as much interpretation and disagreement as there might be with social studies and the teaching of history, or with science and dealing with words such as "evolution" and "intelligent design."

"I think the special interest groups in a sense would be diluted," [William McComas, Parks Family professor of Science and Technology Education at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville] said. "I don't think there would be as much pressure. It's a heck of a lot easier to get to a small group working in the capital of a small state and a lot harder to get to a blue-ribbon panel operating at a national level."

Full post as published by Thoughts in a Haystack on May 05, 2009 (boomark / email).