Standards – Not So Incontrovertible After All

Another Education Week piece is by Alfie Kohn, who makes some core points against standards which homeschoolers should be able to identify with.

Commentary
Debunking the Case for National Standards
By Alfie Kohn

I keep thinking it can’t get much worse, and then it does. Throughout the 1990s, one state after another adopted prescriptive education standards enforced by frequent standardized testing, often of the high-stakes variety. A top-down, get-tough movement to impose “accountability” began to squeeze the life out of classrooms.

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And now we’re informed that what we really need … is to standardize this whole operation from coast to coast.

Have we lost our minds? Because we’re certainly in the process of losing our children’s minds.

Let’s be clear about this latest initiative, which is being spearheaded by politicians, corporate CEOs, and companies that produce standardized tests. First, what they’re trying to sell us are national standards. They carefully point out that the effort isn’t driven by the federal government. But if all, or nearly all, states end up adopting identical mandates, that distinction doesn’t amount to much.

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The standards movement, sad to say, morphed long ago into a push for standardization. The last thing we need is more of the same.

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Tags: accoutnability, education reform, high-stakes testing, national standards, standardization

This entry was posted on January 14, 2010 at 2:21 pm and is filed under News-Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.