California, too, is improving its educational pipeline, or conveyor belt as Life On the Planet so aptly described it.
For example, California will join 30 other states in the American Diploma Project, aligning academic standards from kindergarten to college. This seems like a no-brainer, but as things stand, the education that students receive in one grade often does not correspond to lessons facing them in the next. At O’Connell’s request, all four systems of public education — K-12, community colleges, California State University and the University of California — joined by private colleges and the career technical education community, will work together to create a seamless system of expectations. Los Angeles Times
This isn’t all bad. One of the more interesting concepts I learned in my education courses at the University of Kansas was the importance of a curriculum which “spirals,” building on knowledge learned in previous years. But this philosophy in the hands of politicians has us on the way to a national curriculum, the loss of local control and accountability standards which place blame on everyone but the students and families most responsible for success.
The American Diploma Project has some good ideas behind it, mainly because it seems to focus on setting high expectations rather than mandating every student achieve those expectations. It also allows for states to experiment and provides room for local schools to find solutions within their own communities. In other words, it is not a federally mandated program. It still consists of a bunch of researchers, business leaders and educrats directing how they think education should look in order to better prepare students for the workforce. But as I was looking over the information on the program, I was struck by one thought:
Where can you find better “seamless integration” of curricula and expectations than in the homeschool?
K-12, the potential is there for the perfect “educational pipeline” uninterrupted and with perfect fluidity from one year to the next.
Hat Tip: edspresso
[tags]education, educational pipeline, American Diploma Project, homeschooling[/tags]
Hey! Does that mean I get to be the one to stamp my students on the forehead when they come off the “belt”? Approved! Approved!
LOTP- standard procedure is to slip a piece of paper in their shorts that reads “Inspected by #11″.:D
It sounds nice, but I worry that it really is too close to becoming a national curriculum. Maybe I’m just cynical.
Yep, that’s how it is done, Sunniemom!
Summer, I agree. That is the direction this is all heading.
Every time someone brings up the idea of an “educational pipeline” or conveyor belt, I can’t help but see flashes of the movie Spy Kids. The evil genius has stolen the third brain, reproduced it… there is a seemingly endless line of robot kids on a belt, their skull is popped open and their brain is implanted.
Uh, that only works for robot kids. Real kids learn in different ways. The fallacy of this kind of thinking is that kids learn the same, just at different speeds. Quantitative differences in learning are “fixed” by slowing down the conveyor belt. Well, some kids have qualitative difference in the way they learn.
The problem with national standards, or even local standards, is that there is never any attempt to individualize them… which homeschooling allows.
Sunniemom – LOL! Ha! I’ve washed those shorts, my friend, and no way is my handed going anywhere near them.
Julie – I love the third brain analogy.
Sometimes I feel like I am not being an effective teacher, so I appreciate the reminder that the “seamless integration of expectations and curricula” in our homeschool is positive. I know exactly what my children have studied, and we build on that year after year.
Julie, you are absolutely right. I believe that schools should have high expectations for their students and staff. Everything I have ever read supports that high expectations lead to better results in any measurement of student learning.
But high expectations means something different for every child.
Renae, it is a comforting thought, isn’t it? The state is attempting through policy changes and law to replicate what naturally occurs in the home. : )
I have always liked the idea of a national standard/curricula, but I have never interpreted that to mean that each state, each county or even each district could not have its own unique curricula that uses the national standard as a sort of skeleton to build upon.
I always just thought of it as giving each of us a standard, basic foundation… and our schooling of choice would fill in the rest: a public school, a charter school affiliated with a district, a private school, a religious school, home schooling, unschooling. etc.
We actually already have national standards…even in subjects like foreign language. I had to learn them in college. We are heading toward a national curriculum via the limited options that Reading First allows to receive grants.
I don’t mind its existence, and I suppose it can provide some guidance, the same as when I print of a state assessment and give it to my daughter. But I am wholly against any thing like that being mandated.
So the farmer in Iowa needs the same education as the techie in Sun Valley?
I guess the politicians will still get what they want. Hey you in Montana, go to Alabama to work and shut up about it. Hey California person, how’s Kansas sound (it doesn’t matter you’re going)?
Outrageous? Don’t think so. It’s already been proposed under Nationalized health care. Individuals will be told what course of study they’ll partake (Want to be a Neuro-surgeon, too bad family practice is for you). And that includes where you’ll practice.
And this country will descend further into mediocrity and despair as individuals with unique talents will be smothered and forced away from their gifts into areas not suited to their persons.