Content standards are the road to hell paved with good intentions. I understand why they are there, but they are an accessory to the crime of poor education inflicted on our students. The way they are currently employed, they are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
[Update: I’ve decided to piece this up a bit more. I hope that doesn’t interrupt your regular reading pleasure.]
Environment Matters
Until our schools are standardized, our education never will be. ‘Nuff said on that one.
Assess Teaching, Not Product
Standards put emphasis on the wrong end of the process and are an attempt to make sure that bad teachers already in the classroom improve. That’s a fine secondary, perhaps tertiary, arm of attack against the troubles of public education in this country, but it should not be the only attack.
In fact, public education’s moral failing is in putting students through years and years of poor teaching, only to find that out at the end of their journey through the class. Standards and standardized tests put pressure on the students to perform despite possible problems in teacher quality. Cut out the middle man and get right to the problem: assess the teacher and the teaching.
1. dy/dan » Blog Archive » Biggie Smalls says:
[9/26/2007 - 5:59 am]
[…] Like saying Biggie Smalls’ name three times into a mirror, I worry that even this small citation will give too much power to Sarah Puglisi’s anti-NCLB rant. Once again, it doesn’t matter to me (or the cross-section of eager, hardworking young teachers I claim to represent) what you believe on NCLB (whether to scrap it or keep it), rather why you believe it and how you go about believing it. (Todd Seal, ladies and gentlemen, on getting the difference.) […]