Why we're getting worse

 

Marion Brady, “The Standards Juggernaut,” Phi Delta Kappan, May 2000, pp. 649-651:

There are other wrongheaded views. . .that somehow just “raising the bar” increases students' ability to clear it, that before the standards movement there were no standards, that the talent wasted by one-size fits-all programs isn’t worth developing, that students who will be turned into “failures” by the standards won’t present a serious problem, that standardized tests tell us something really important, that market forces have a magical ability to cure the ills of education, that extrinsic rewards are dependable motivators, and so on. However, behind the standards juggernaut and impelling it forward is the single, primary, simplistic, and unexamined assumption that what the next generation most needs to know is what this generation knows.

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Related Slideshow:
All Aboard the Standards Express!

Related: Education Week Commentary—

Why Thinking 'Outside the Box' Is Not So Easy (And Why Present Reform Efforts Will Fail) – Education Week, Aug 30, 2006

National Subject-Matter Standards? Be careful What You Wish For - Education Week, September 22, 2009


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