States should get out of the K-12 standards-writing business.
The following, an edited transcript of the author’s remarks at a National Association of Scholars webinar, is used with permission.
I am going to play the role of the radical skeptic. My position is that the Next Generation Science Standards, adopted by many states to tell their K-12 teachers how to teach science, is just the latest example of our failure to do the impossible. We should not engage with the NGSS or attempt to improve them; we should instead dismiss them out of hand and expose the flawed premises that led to their creation.
I’ll begin with an analogy. A few years back, I went on one of those State Department-approved tours to Havana, Cuba. We were there to look at architecture. At the time, the Cuban regime had just begun letting private citizens open their own restaurants—a bold step for a socialist country. We went to a few of these places, and they weren’t bad. But each proprietor had to submit his menu to the government for approval. As often as not, the government would demand changes: cut out that beef dish because the country doesn’t have enough beef, add more fish and vegan dishes because they’re healthier, and so on..........To Read More.....
My Take - If you're like me you want to see local control of our education system and the elimination of federal involvement. A good start for that would be the elimination the Department of Education, so this author's comments are a mixed bag. Why then am I posting it? Because it's thought provoking.
Also, I think this cartoon explains my views about what's going on.
The goal of the left is now and has always been to make sure the apple fell as far away from the tree as possible. The state would be the ultimate moral arbiters for children. Not the churches or the parents, the state! What could be more frightening?
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