Quote:
Originally Posted by dsvick
That one is tougher. I don't think we need any more government intervention, bureaucracy, mandates, regulations, etc.... There is far to much of that as it is. Should there be standard or core set of knowledge which all kids are taught? Yes.
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That has *big* problems.
1) People agree that kids should be taught a standard core set of skills & facts. They don't agree on what those are. They don't agree on how they should be taught. All attempts to find agreements on those two aspects have failed, and will continue to fail as long as there is no one, official "correct" culture.
2) The issue of deciding on the core set is not trivial. Even aside from religious wackos (and I'm gonna say that without defining *which* religious groups are "wackos"; we can all agree there are some, right?) and really out-there special-interest-agenda groups, there are always problems with who gets to decide what gets taught. Do the textbook publishers get to promote certain topics more than others so they can sell more books about those subjects? How important is physical education--should kids know how to play baseball, how to swim, how to ride a bike? Who will make sure that kids in poor neighborhoods have the same educational opportunities as those in rich neighborhoods?
3) In order to establish a set of standards, kids who don't meet them would have to *not graduate*. Not pass on to the next grade level. While that used to happen, it was a long time ago; now, grade level is tied to age, except in very extreme cases. There is no room in the US educational system for a 12-year-old child who's doing 3rd grade history, 5th grade reading, and 8th grade math. There's not even room for a 12-year-old who, because of learning disabilities, just happens to be in the 4th grade. Standards would mean a *major* restructuring of the entire education system.
(Note to non-US readers: US grades are generally age-5, sometimes age-6 depending on when in the year the kid's birthday falls. A 12-year-old is presumed to be in 7th grade.)