Welcome
I was one of the founding signatories of "Closing the Door on
Innovation: Why One National Curriculum Is Bad for America," a counter-manifesto
opposing the development of a national curriculum and national assessments. In
this week’s newsletter, I summarize the arguments against a national curriculum
discussed in this document.
Bulletin Board
- The John Locke Foundation is sponsoring two upcoming
constitutional workshops in western North Carolina. The first is Friday, May
20, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at The Fun Factory in Franklin. A second
workshop will be held on Saturday, May 21. from 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Journey Church in Murphy. Historian Dr.
Troy Kickler and political science expert Dr. Michael Sanera will discuss
"What the Founders and the State Ratification Conventions Can Teach Us
Today." The cost is $10.00 per participant, lunch included.
Pre-registration is strongly suggested. For more information or to sign up for
the event, visit the Events section
of the John Locke Foundation website. -
Learn what politicians, leftwing economic professors, and
the liberal media don’t want you to know about economics, all without the
confusion and clutter of complicated mathematical equations. Attend the John W.
Pope Civitas Institute’s Free Market Academy on Saturday, May 14, from 9:00
a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Daniel Boone Inn in Boone, N.C. Cost is $5.00.
Register online at http://www.nccivitas.org/events
or call 919-834-2099. -
The Civitas Institute will
hold its monthly poll luncheon on Monday, May 23, at 12:00 noon at the Hilton
Raleigh-Durham in the Research Triangle Park. Dr. Michael Munger, Duke
University professor and chair of the Department of Political Science, will be
the guest speaker. Cost is $20. To register, call 919-834-2099 or go to http://www.nccivitas.org/events. -
Early April marks a major milestone for college-bound high
school seniors: the end of a long college search. That task may be easier in
the future, thanks to a new web site created by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education
Policy. NC College Finder (nccollegefinder.org)
provides a wide range of information on 54 accredited four-year universities in
the state. - The North Carolina History Project
would like educators and homeschool parents to submit lesson plans suitable for
middle and high school courses in North Carolina history. Please provide links
to NC History Project encyclopedia articles and other primary and secondary
source material, if possible. Go to http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/edu_corner
for further information. - You will find wisdom, knowledge,
and purpose at our research
newsletter archive.
CommenTerry
"Closing the Door on Innovation: Why One
National Curriculum Is Bad for America," was a
direct response to a manifesto published by the Albert Shanker Institute, a think-tank named in honor of the late president of the American
Federation of Teachers (NEA Jr.). Wanting to increase its role
in the educational centralization movement, ASI published
"A Call for Common Content: Core Curriculum Must Build a Bridge from
Standards to Achievement," an exemplar of the tomfoolery school of policy
analysis. (Note to ASI: History matters!)
One of the first paragraphs in the "counter-manifesto" is a powerful
retort to the ASI
statement and the national curriculum movement in general.
But we do not agree that a one-size-fits-all, centrally
controlled curriculum for every K-12 subject makes sense for this country or
for any other sizable country. Such an approach threatens to close the door on
educational innovation, freezing in place an unacceptable status quo and
hindering efforts to develop academically rigorous curricula, assessments, and
standards that meet the challenges that lie ahead. Because we are deeply
committed to improving this country’s schools and increasing all students’
academic achievement, we cannot support this effort to undermine control of
public school curriculum and instruction at the local and state level–the
historic locus for effective innovation and reform in education–and transfer
control to an elephantine, inside the-Beltway bureaucracy.
The counter-manifesto outlined
five legal, political, and educational arguments against the development of
national standards and assessments.
- First, there is no constitutional or statutory basis
for national standards, national assessments, or national curricula. -
Second, there is no consistent evidence that a national
curriculum leads to high academic achievement. -
Third, the national standards on which the administration
is planning to base a national curriculum are inadequate. -
Fourth, there is no body of evidence for a
"best" design for curriculum sequences in any subject. -
Fifth, there is no evidence to justify a single high school
curriculum for all students.
Rather than discuss these points at length, I encourage
readers to peruse the entire document
and decide for themselves. If you read the "Closing
the Door on Innovation" and agree that educational centralization
is a bad idea, consider adding your name to the counter-manifesto here.
Random Thought
Facts
and Stats
Over the past two years, the U.S. Department of Education has been the
leading proponent of national curriculum standards and tests. States that
entered the $4.5 billion federal Race to the Top competition received
"bonus points" for adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
It was no coincidence that all ten Race to the Top (round 2) winners, including
North Carolina, adopted the Common Core standards. In June 2010, the NC State
Board of Education unanimously approved
CCSS English and math standards, and education officials at the NC Department
of Public Instruction quickly integrated both into our state curriculum. Three
months later, the state won a four-year, $400 million Race to the Top grant.
The U.S. Department of Education has also invested $360 million into the
development of a uniform student assessment system. The Department of Education
distributed grant funds to two consortia of states. North Carolina is a member
of the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium. In its role as a governing
state, North Carolina education leaders will work with public education
agencies from 28 other states to shape test-design policy.
Mailbag
I would like to invite all readers to
submit announcements, as well as their personal insights, anecdotes, concerns,
and observations about the state of education in North Carolina. I will publish
selected submissions in future editions of the newsletter. Anonymity will be
honored. For additional information or to send a submission, email Terry at [email protected].
Education Acronym of the Week
SBAC — SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium
Quote of the Week
"Moreover, transferring power to Washington, D.C., will only further
subordinate educational decisions to political imperatives. All presidential
administrations–present and future, Democratic and Republican–are subject to
political pressure. Centralized control in the U.S. Department of Education
would upset the system of checks and balances between different levels of
government, creating greater opportunities for special interests to use their
national political leverage to distort policy. Our decentralized fifty-state
system provides some limitations on special-interest power, ensuring that other
voices can be heard, that wrongheaded reforms don’t harm children in every
state, and that reforms that effectively serve children’s needs can find space
to grow and succeed."
— "Closing the Door on Innovation: Why One National Curriculum Is Bad for
America," May 9, 2011
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