350 Million to help states create national standards
The Washington Post reports that up to 350 million dollars may be available to help states work on national standards.
No doubt this will be followed by billions later for national testing, voluntary of course. Unless your state happens to be taking any federal money in which case…..
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National standards are a must for our intire country. It will provide the same expectations for students, allow for consistancy of reporting data, and give parents a better view of their child’s performance. I can’t wait to get my hands on them.
I agree Ann. Having common national standards will help serve as a common target. Once we have a common target, healthy competition will take place because states (and individual schools) will realize the measuring stick is more applicable to everyone. There still will be too many other variables involved to claim we are comparing “apples to apples” but it would be a common sense step in the right direction. It would make it easier to eliminate the 8 week unit on fudge!
I hope they start by looking at the good things already in place! Many states have solid standards, and some have solid tests (well, at least parts of the tests are really good). Our education system sometimes throws the baby out with the bath water when we decide to make changes.
I see national standards as a real benefit in our transient society. Maybe the gaps in learning won’t be quite as wide for those students that bounce between states each year.
Some form of national education standards is necessary. I agree with Traci that we should not throw out the baby with the bath water. I am not in favor of nationalizing education much more than present levels.
Many states base their subject area standards on national standards set by professional regulatory and advocy agencies that, in some cases, were paid for by the feds. Why so much to reinvent another set of or the same national standards?